There's been some positive talk surrounding Chargers' second-year wideout Josh Palmer. He's been running as one of the top 3 wideouts (with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams) at OTAs, and of course he's working with one of the game's best young quarterbacks. The 2021 third-rounder might be poised for a breakout season.
You sometimes hear talk about "third-year breakouts" for wide receivers, but not as often these days with so many rookies making quick impacts. But that's more common with the wealth of first-rounders being selected lately. Outside the initial round, it's more common that players are brought along slowly. Palmer last year played more than a third of the snaps in only one of his first 10 games, with Jalen Guyton also involved. But in his last seven, they ramped up his involvement. He played at least 60 percent of the time in three of those. In 2022, it's reasonable to think that will be the norm.
I decided to take a look at other recent third-round wideouts, to see when their breakout seasons occurred. Based on the last 10 years, a second-year breakout is actually more common than a third-year breakout.
There have been 44 wideouts drafted in the third round over the last 10 years, 33 of whom have thus far completed three seasons in the league. From that group, 13 have emerged as significant NFL players, which I'll define as a top 25 fantasy season.
Two of those players (Keenan Allen and Cooper Kupp) had their first top-25 seasons as rookies. Both of them went on to post better seasons (especially Kupp last year), but they were putting up top-25 numbers from the get-go, with injuries, in both cases, the only hiccups. Would probably be reasonable to include Terry McLaurin here, but by the guidelines I set, he's officially a second-year breakout (he was 30th in PPR as a rookie; 20th in year 2).
In addition to McLaurin, six other third-round wideouts also had their first top-25 season in year 2. They're listed in bold in the table below, that shows all top 25 seasons in their first three years from third-round wideouts. Table sorted by season for each player, smallest to largest. The hope for those who select Palmer is that he'll join that group this season.
| THIRD-ROUND WRS, TOP-25 SEASONS, 1ST THREE YEARS (2012-) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Yr | G | Tgt | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | Rk |
| 2017 | Cooper Kupp, LAR | 1 | 15 | 94 | 62 | 869 | 14.0 | 5 | 25 |
| 2013 | Keenan Allen, S.D. | 1 | 15 | 105 | 71 | 1046 | 14.7 | 8 | 18 |
| 2018 | Chris Godwin, T.B. | 2 | 16 | 95 | 59 | 842 | 14.3 | 7 | 25 |
| 2020 | Diontae Johnson, Pitt. | 2 | 15 | 144 | 88 | 923 | 10.5 | 7 | 21 |
| 2015 | John Brown, Ariz. | 2 | 15 | 101 | 65 | 1003 | 15.4 | 7 | 25 |
| 2018 | Kenny Golladay, Det. | 2 | 15 | 119 | 70 | 1063 | 15.2 | 5 | 22 |
| 2019 | Michael Gallup, Dall. | 2 | 14 | 113 | 66 | 1107 | 16.8 | 6 | 24 |
| 2013 | T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 2 | 16 | 139 | 82 | 1083 | 13.2 | 5 | 19 |
| 2020 | Terry McLaurin, Was. | 2 | 15 | 134 | 87 | 1118 | 12.9 | 4 | 20 |
| 2019 | Chris Godwin, T.B. | 3 | 14 | 121 | 86 | 1333 | 15.5 | 9 | 2 |
| 2019 | Cooper Kupp, LAR | 3 | 16 | 134 | 94 | 1161 | 12.4 | 10 | 5 |
| 2021 | Diontae Johnson, Pitt. | 3 | 16 | 169 | 107 | 1161 | 10.9 | 8 | 8 |
| 2019 | Kenny Golladay, Det. | 3 | 16 | 116 | 65 | 1190 | 18.3 | 11 | 9 |
| 2014 | T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 3 | 15 | 131 | 82 | 1345 | 16.4 | 7 | 11 |
| 2021 | Terry McLaurin, Was. | 3 | 17 | 130 | 77 | 1053 | 13.7 | 5 | 25 |
| 2015 | T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 4 | 16 | 134 | 69 | 1124 | 16.3 | 5 | 24 |
| 2018 | Tyler Lockett, Sea. | 4 | 16 | 70 | 57 | 965 | 16.9 | 10 | 16 |
| 2021 | Cooper Kupp, LAR | 5 | 17 | 191 | 145 | 1947 | 13.4 | 16 | 1 |
| 2017 | Keenan Allen, LAC | 5 | 16 | 159 | 102 | 1393 | 13.7 | 6 | 3 |
| 2016 | T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 5 | 16 | 155 | 91 | 1448 | 15.9 | 6 | 5 |
| 2019 | Tyler Lockett, Sea. | 5 | 16 | 110 | 82 | 1057 | 12.9 | 8 | 13 |
| 2021 | Chris Godwin, T.B. | 5 | 14 | 127 | 98 | 1103 | 11.3 | 5 | 14 |
| 2019 | John Brown, Buff. | 6 | 15 | 115 | 72 | 1060 | 14.7 | 6 | 20 |
| 2018 | Keenan Allen, LAC | 6 | 16 | 136 | 97 | 1196 | 12.3 | 6 | 12 |
| 2020 | Tyler Lockett, Sea. | 6 | 16 | 132 | 100 | 1054 | 10.5 | 10 | 8 |
| 2019 | Keenan Allen, LAC | 7 | 16 | 149 | 104 | 1199 | 11.5 | 6 | 6 |
| 2018 | T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 7 | 14 | 120 | 76 | 1270 | 16.7 | 6 | 14 |
| 2021 | Tyler Lockett, Sea. | 7 | 16 | 107 | 73 | 1175 | 16.1 | 8 | 16 |
| 2020 | Keenan Allen, LAC | 8 | 14 | 147 | 100 | 992 | 9.9 | 8 | 12 |
| 2021 | Keenan Allen, LAC | 9 | 16 | 157 | 106 | 1138 | 10.7 | 6 | 11 |
Of the six top-25 seasons in year 3, all of them had already had a top-25 season in year 1 or 2. Arguably, Godwin, Johnson and Golladay could be considered third-year breakouts. Each barely snuck into the top 25 in their second seasons, but finished in the top 10 (2nd, 8th and 9th) in their third. T.Y. Hilton could also be considered in this class, finishing 19th in year 2 and 11th in year 3.
But my takeaway from this is there's no reason to think that Josh Palmer can't emerge as a significant fantasy player in year 2. That becomes most likely should either Allen or Williams get hurt, of course. But there are enough recent examples of third-rounders busting out in their second season to think that Palmer, just maybe, could be the next.
Final note, Tyler Lockett stands out as a guy who took even longer to emerge. His first top-25 season was in year 4, and he continued to put up those kind of numbers since. So even if it doesn't happen for Palmer this year (or next year), you never know.
--Andy Richardson