I had two big issues getting to this analysis:
First, I hate writing about widely known things like the Eagles being bad at drafting wide receivers because everybody knows it already. Making this hopefully interesting is a bit tougher than other positions.
Second, beyond “Howie has been bad at drafting WRs”, my ultimate point that the Eagles actually overdraft wide receivers relative to other positions will make me look like a hypocrite with DeVonta this year. I love the DeVonta pick despite publicly wanting a CB for months as I never expected him to be there when the Eagles picked. I am more bullish on his rookie season than most as I wrote in the post below:
The Eagles have wasted pick after pick on receivers and I hope to show why they were wrong based on stats, not just say “they shoulda drafted DK”. But on to the analysis…
The Eagles draft history of wide receivers
These first few charts show what every Eagles fan already knows. This first chart shows how much draft capital each team has spent on WRs over the 2010-2021 period, with the Eagles being the team that spent the 6th highest amount of draft capital on WRs.
But when you look at the player value returned from the draft, the Eagles drop to 24th in the league.
Combining these two charts into a quadrant of draft investment vs. value, the Eagles are one of the worst in the league, sitting there with the Jets and Browns and Texans. As an aside, Houston was a surprising one to me here given they got Deandre Hopkins and Will Fuller, but their ten other WR picks have provided almost no value, generating 20 combined career AV. As a comparison, Riley Cooper generated 18 AV total in his six seasons. So the Texans used ten picks to make one Riley Cooper…
The Steelers have clearly been the best or luckiest or both in the league, getting Juju Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool in the 2nd round, Emmanuel Sanders in the 3rd (although he played his best years in Denver), and Antonio Brown famously in the 6th. They are doing things right and when I get to what matters for receivers below, their picks make more sense.
Looking at the Eagles individual WR picks, only one has exceeded their expected draft position value – friggin Riley Cooper. Reagor, Hightower, and Quez all have so much of their careers left and I would expect at least Reagor and Quez to move up on this list and provide good value. And DeVonta could turn the entire picture around if he lives up to what I think he could.
What should the Eagles change with their WR draft philosophy?
Draft better.
It’s just not more complicated than the Eagles need to hit on more of their WR picks. A lot of teams miss on receivers and there is no crystal ball, but the Eagles have overthought receivers (up until this draft) and don’t listen to modern analytics that are best for projecting NFL production. Fast receivers are great but speed alone just isn’t a good enough predictive metric of success. PFF has a great article which highlights three things that matter: ability to separate, to catch balls, and to generate YAC (link below):
Below is a snapshot of WRs from the 2020 season that had more than 65 receptions (to filter down to feature receivers) showing their percentile ranks on separation (yards of separation at the time the ball arrived), catch %, and yards after catch (all data is from Next Gen Stats here). The highest rated receivers have at least one elite trait and usually two.
And when comparing separation, catch, and YAC ability to player AV value, the majority of top rated receivers by value also show above average skills.
How have the Eagles drafted receivers historically? They have largely drafted receivers that can’t separate, catch, or generate yards after catch. Below shows the top current receivers (Fulgham included even though he is not an Eagles draft pick) as well as Matthews and Agholor. The other draft picks including Huff, Hollins, Hightower, and Quez do not have enough data to generate the stats.
There’s a big difference between criticizing a pick and criticizing the process or philosophy that led up to the pick. I try not to second guess picks themselves as the hit rate on draft picks is so low and it is easy to find better picks after the fact. But I will criticize bad thinking or process that led to a pick, regardless of it it worked out or not.
It is fine to evolve a draft philosophy over time – it’s expected – but Howie seems to have a completely different one every year. This year was best-player-available, last year was “Are they fast? Are they healthy? Do they love to play?”, the year before was college production. I love the Eagles investment in analytics but “fast” is not analytics. Just a few examples to show the criticism of the process:
2020 Draft – Jalen Reagor: Reagor, slotted by most as a second rounder, is taken ahead of Justin Jefferson and Howie initially points to Jefferson being a slot receiver and Reagor’s play speed as the reasons. As stated above, looking at that year’s slate of picks it is easy to see Howie’s primary focus was pure speed (just pull up our picks RAS profiles). I really like Reagor and think he will be good (more on that below), but Howie’s logic makes no sense and misses what matters. Jefferson played the slot in college to get Chase and Marshall on the field, not because he couldn’t play outside. And Jefferson has near elite separation abilities.
2019 Draft – JJ Arcega-Whiteside: JJ is famously taken ahead of DK Metcalf (and Terry McLaurin). DK failed the Eagles medical test, but they then forced JJ and extolled his “ability to play above the rim” and “red zone ability”. JJ’s known negatives were “separation ability, lack of explosiveness, and stiff hips”. Howie took a player that cannot separate or generate yards after the catch.
2014 Draft – Jordan Matthews: This one is tougher. Matthews was probably the consensus next rated wide receiver when the Eagles picked and was viewed as having the size (6’3″) and speed (4.46) they wanted. He was a fine pick, I don’t over-hate on him, and it feels a bit like Monday-morning quarterbacking to immediately look at Davante Adams or Jarvis Landry or Allen Robinson that all went within the next 10-20 picks. Matthews draft profiles were all generally good and I spent a lot of time re-reading them. And when you do, you start seeing some of the concerns that showed up in the NFL:
- While his 40 speed was good, especially for his size, his short-area agility (3-cone and shuttle) were mediocre.
- A lot of his college production came on swing passes
- Lacks lateral speed and innate quickness
- Questions on if he has the ability to separate from NFL-caliber press
Looking forward
But I am very optimistic moving forward. DeVonta is that good and fits all the criteria that are important – there wasn’t a receiver better than him at getting off press coverage and separating… he dropped nothing (2.5% of passes)… and he had double the amount of YAC than the next closest college receiver. Smith is going to dominate. I don’t bet, but I would take the over on his rookie yards with my kids college money.
And when I showed the Eagles receiver stats above, Reagor shows all the tools – 95th percentile among receivers last year in separation and 76th percentile in YAC. He needs to clean up his drops but the biggest issues with Reagor last year were that Wentz was historically awful and the scheme didn’t use Reagor to his strengths at all. Can he get better? Sure. But he was open a ton last year and not thrown to or over/under thrown. I criticized the thinking of picking Reagor and not Jefferson because Howie’s reasoning no made sense – Jefferson did not have slot-only skills and he had elite separation which is what matters more than s a 40 time. But I would not be surprised if Reagor’s and Jefferson’s careers are much, much closer when it is all said and done.
The Eagles receiving corps is going to surprise people in 2021 and it will suddenly change the picture of the Eagles draft success here.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
The Other Forgotten Position – Linebacker
“The Trenches” Part 2 – Offensive Line
I love your work, especially as eagles fans. I’m a big fan of Reagor, and I just think he wasn’t used properly. He had a really high aDOT, when he should of been targeted early to use his YAC ability. This year our WR room will turn heads and I love Siriannis new scheme which emphasizes YAC, especially with our WRs like Smith, Reagor and Quez. Indy was 2nd last year in YAC yards with no real YAC WR, it was all from their scheme. Reagor was targeted way too much down the field last year on iso routes, especially if we knew he doesn’t run the cleanest routes and issues against press coverage. If Fulgham can clean up his drop issues, sky is the roof for our WR room.
You are totally right. Plus with DeVonta (I’ll put a stake in the ground soon but think he’s going to go for over 1,000), everybody else will be helped as they are now covered with CB2 or CB3. I thought a lot of Reagor but his core traits (separation specifically) are better than I thought. It will be interesting to see who doesn’t make it, they can’t keep JJaw over Quez or Hightower and can’t see him making the team in any scenario