I like the look of Elijah Moore. He caught a lot of passes at Mississippi, and I think he’s going to catch a lot of balls for the Jets.
New York selected Moore early in the second round, but Robert Saleh says that prior to trading up to get guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, the plan was to select Moore at pick No. 24. They were excited to get him 10 spots later.
I posted a Factoid in the not-too-distant past, showing that in the last 10 years, there have been 25 rookie receivers who’ve finished with top-30 numbers (PPR scoring) in their first year. Over half of those guys were selected outside the first round. In the past five years, there have been nine such receivers (almost two per year).
If we’re operating under the assumption that two rookie receivers selected after the first round are putting up top-30 numbers, then Moore would look pretty certain to be one of them.
The Jets have Jamison Crowder, who’s a good slot receiver, but he’s got a salary of $10 million. He’s not worth that, so I don’t think he’ll be back. It should be Moore, and I think he’ll be catching a steady supply of balls in the middle of the field.
Two of those recent rookies from outside the first round, by the way, were former teammates of Moore at Ole Miss – A.J. Brown and DK Metcalf. Moore is a completely different style of player than either of them, but he put better numbers last year than either of them ever did in college.
Moore last year averaged almost 11 catches and 149 yards per game, with 8 TDs in eight games. Those are better numbers than any of the Mississippi wide receivers who’ve been picked in the first or second round the last five years (and there have been four other such players. 0(Van Jefferson is listed in the chart below; he played three years at Mississippi and his final two seasons at Florida.)
| MISSISSIPPI WIDE RECEIVERS PICKED IN FIRST TWO ROUNDS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Year | G | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD | PPR/G |
| Elijah Moore | 2020 | 8 | 86 | 1,193 | 13.9 | 8 | 31.7 |
| A.J. Brown | 2017 | 11 | 75 | 1,252 | 16.7 | 11 | 24.2 |
| A.J. Brown | 2018 | 12 | 85 | 1,320 | 15.5 | 6 | 21.1 |
| Laquon Treadwell | 2015 | 13 | 82 | 1,153 | 14.1 | 11 | 20.3 |
| DK Metcalf | 2018 | 7 | 26 | 569 | 21.9 | 5 | 16.1 |
| Laquon Treadwell | 2014 | 9 | 48 | 632 | 13.2 | 5 | 15.7 |
| Elijah Moore | 2019 | 12 | 67 | 850 | 12.7 | 6 | 15.7 |
| Van Jefferson (Fla.) | 2019 | 12 | 49 | 657 | 13.4 | 6 | 12.6 |
| Laquon Treadwell | 2013 | 13 | 72 | 608 | 8.4 | 5 | 12.5 |
| DK Metcalf | 2017 | 12 | 39 | 646 | 16.6 | 7 | 12.1 |
| Van Jefferson (Fla.) | 2018 | 11 | 35 | 503 | 14.4 | 6 | 11.0 |
| Van Jefferson | 2016 | 12 | 49 | 543 | 11.1 | 3 | 10.1 |
| Van Jefferson | 2017 | 10 | 42 | 456 | 10.9 | 1 | 9.4 |
| Elijah Moore | 2018 | 11 | 36 | 398 | 11.1 | 2 | 8.0 |
| DK Metcalf | 2016 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 6.5 | 2 | 7.7 |
| A.J. Brown | 2016 | 11 | 29 | 412 | 14.2 | 2 | 7.5 |
—Ian Allan