We tend to get sucked into the hype. Todd Gurley, Amari Cooper, Maxx Williams and Jameis Winston were the first players selected at their positions, so the natural tendency is to assume they’re better than the other guys. This is natural enough. NFL teams spend a lot of time and money looking into these guys. But how often do they get it right?
With wide receivers, it’s not as often as you might expect. In the last 15 years, only once has the first wide receiver drafted put up better numbers than all of the other rookies at his own position. (That was A.J. Green in 2011.)
In two thirds of those seasons, the first wide receiver was outperformed by at least one wide receiver not even selected in the first round.
Nothing against Amari Cooper. By all reports, it’s been so-far, so-good with him in Oakland. Maybe he’ll develop into another A.J. Green or Larry Fitzgerald. But the larger statistical body of evidence suggest that Cooper will be outperformed this year by a wide receiver who wasn’t even selected in the first round.
Who might that be? Well, I’ve been partial to the fit of Jaelen Strong in Houston’s offense. Strong had hamstring and weight issues in the offseason, but he’s a physical, Anquan Boldin type guy, and they use mostly two-receiver sets in Houston.
In the chart below, if a player has a black ball in front of his name, he wasn’t selected in the first round.
| ROOKIE RECEIVERS IN THIS CENTURY | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | First selected | No-Yds-TD | Most productive | No-Yds-TD |
| 2000 | Peter Warrick | 51-592-7 | • Darrell Jackson | 53-713-6 |
| 2001 | David Terrell | 34-415-4 | • Chris Chambers | 48-883-7 |
| 2002 | Donte Stallworth | 42-594-8 | • Antonio Bryant | 44-733-6 |
| 2003 | Charles Rogers | 22-243-3 | • Anquan Boldin | 101-1377-8 |
| 2004 | Larry Fitzgerald | 58-780-8 | Michael Clayton | 80-1193-7 |
| 2005 | Braylon Edwards | 32-512-3 | • Reggie Brown | 43-571-4 |
| 2006 | Santonio Holmes | 49-824-3 | • Marques Colston | 70-1038-8 |
| 2007 | Calvin Johnson | 48-756-5 | Dwayne Bowe | 70-995-5 |
| 2008 | • Donnie Avery | 53-674-3 | • Eddie Royal | 91-980-5 |
| 2009 | Darrius Heyward-Bey | 9-124-1 | Percy Harvin | 60-790-8 |
| 2010 | Demaryius Thomas | 22-283-2 | • Mike Williams | 65-964-11 |
| 2011 | A.J. Green | 65-1057-7 | A.J. Green | 65-1057-7 |
| 2012 | Justin Blackmon | 64-865-5 | • T.Y. Hilton | 50-861-7 |
| 2013 | Tavon Austin | 40-418-6 | • Keenan Allen | 71-1046-8 |
| 2014 | Sammy Watkins | 65-982-6 | Odell Beckham Jr. | 91-1305-12 |
| 2015 | Amari Cooper | ?-?-? | ? | ?-?-? |
—Ian Allan