Ricky Pearsall is an older receiver. If they 49ers open on Monday night this year, he’ll turn 24 before he plays in his first game as a pro. That’s considered a negative by some.
With older players, there’s the fear off the top that he’s got less football left. If we’re assuming careers last 8 years, then a season is 12 percent of what you would otherwise have.
More notably, if a player is a 23-year-old playing college football, he might already be closer to being maxed out. Some of his success might be attributed to him sticking around longer than most of those he was playing against. If he were worth selecting in first or second round, why wasn’t he in last year’s draft?
In the case of Pearsall, he played five years of college football. He was at Arizona State for three seasons, playing with Brandon Aiyuk and also Jayden Daniels. He left after Herman Edwards ran that program into trouble.
Pearsall played two years at Florida. He averaged 20 yards per catch in 2022 but caught only 33 passes. When Anthony Richardson was coming out last year, one of the selling points was that he wasn’t working with NFL-caliber teammates. Pearsall was one of those key teammates.
Pearsall in the just-completed season caught 65 passes for 965 yards, but with just 4 TDs. Andy Richardson compiled a touchdown ratio chart recently, and Pearsall was near the very bottom when ordering all first-round picks form the last 10 years in terms of touchdown percentage (4 TDs in 65 catches works out to 6.1 percent).
On the plus side, Pearsall had the best catch in college football last year – a leaping one-handed catch. While Charlotte isn’t a notable opponent and one-handed catches occur in most games nowadays, on this one, his hand was flipped the other way (see photo). I’ve seen only one of these back-handed catches, and it was about 20 years ago (Anquan Boldin, on a sideline grab at Seattle).
But I digress. The point here was to explore whether we should be holding age against these prospects. That is, do older draft picks tend to be lesser draft picks?
I pulled up some numbers, and I don’t see anything too significant. In the last 30 years, 18 other receivers have been selected in the first three rounds who’ve turned 24 around the time their first season started. The hit-miss rate for those guys doesn’t seem any different than what we’d see with other ages. I see four who had top-4 seasons (using PPR scoring). Anybody who was scared away by Marvin Harrison and Cooper Kupp being a little older lived to regret it.
And I see five other receivers (tagged with one dot) who had at least top-30 season during their careers. The other nine guys all missed. (that includes a couple of recent players – Velus Jones, Dee Eskridge). In the hit-miss world of rookie receivers, that seems pretty typical to me.
In the chart below, you’re seeing these receivers, along with their opening day ages and their stats in their first season. While they’re older, none we’re great producers in that first year (three that ranked between 23rd and 25th, and nobody else higher than 39th).
| OLDER RECEIVERS PICKED IN ROUNDS 1-3 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Age | Pk | Rec | Yds | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2022 | Velus Jones, Chi. | 25.4 | 71 | 7 | 107 | 1 | 40.0 | 126 |
| 2003 | • Kevin Curtis, St.L. | 25.2 | 74 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 5.3 | 156 |
| 2014 | • John Brown, Ari. | 24.7 | 91 | 48 | 696 | 5 | 147.0 | 53 |
| 2005 | • Reggie Brown, Phil. | 24.7 | 35 | 43 | 571 | 4 | 124.6 | 49 |
| 2003 | Bethel Johnson, N.E. | 24.6 | 45 | 16 | 209 | 2 | 53.7 | 96 |
| 2021 | Dee Eskridge, Sea. | 24.5 | 56 | 10 | 64 | 1 | 28.3 | 146 |
| 2008 | Donnie Avery, St.L. | 24.3 | 33 | 53 | 674 | 3 | 151.3 | 39 |
| 2017 | •• Cooper Kupp, LAR | 24.3 | 69 | 62 | 869 | 5 | 178.9 | 25 |
| 1996 | •• Keyshawn Johnson, NYJ | 24.2 | 1 | 63 | 844 | 8 | 197.4 | 23 |
| 2020 | Van Jefferson, LAR | 24.2 | 57 | 19 | 220 | 1 | 46.9 | 122 |
| 1996 | Freddie Solomon, Phil. | 24.1 | 36 | 8 | 125 | 0 | 20.5 | 113 |
| 2003 | Kelley Washington, Cin. | 24.1 | 65 | 22 | 299 | 4 | 76.4 | 84 |
| 1996 | •• Marvin Harrison, Ind. | 24.1 | 19 | 64 | 836 | 8 | 197.1 | 24 |
| 2024 | Ricky Pearsall, S.F. | 24.0 | 31 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2008 | • Harry Douglas, Atl. | 24.0 | 84 | 23 | 320 | 1 | 79.9 | 81 |
| 2013 | Terrance Williams, Dall. | 24.0 | 74 | 44 | 736 | 5 | 150.0 | 45 |
| 2001 | • Quincy Morgan, Cle. | 24.0 | 33 | 30 | 432 | 2 | 87.9 | 68 |
| 2018 | Anthony Miller, Chi. | 24.0 | 51 | 33 | 423 | 7 | 120.3 | 60 |
| 2002 | •• Javon Walker, G.B. | 24.0 | 20 | 23 | 319 | 1 | 62.0 | 95 |
—Ian Allan