Yahoo Fantasy analysts Matt Harmon and Scott Pianowski examine the circ*mstances around surprising seasons from rookie wide receivers.
Video Transcript
Tyra Kill Amman, Ra Saint Brown and Puka Niku, we're thinking about these players specifically like, why did those, um why did those seasons happen?
Well, number one, I think the, the obvious thing that's clear with all three of these players is that the depth charts were able to be climbed.
Let's just put it that way.
Remember back in that Lions season when I'm on Ross, a Brown as a rookie, obviously, it took a minute for that to get going.
Um They had to figure out his role, but by the end of the season, you know, that was a depth chart that he could easily climb.
It was like, you know, Kalief Raymond and, and Josh Reynolds and stuff like that, he could get on the field as a rookie.
Um for Puka Nua, you know, it was Cooper Cup obviously was coming in with an injury, but beyond Cooper Cup, there was no established like above average starter.
Um Even Tyree Kill is a rookie.
Uh I gotta look it up but I mean, I don't, there wasn't exactly like a clear cut number one there on the Kansas City Chiefs.
So it was 2016.
Kansas City Chiefs.
When and look, he was kind of in a bit of a, um, I don't wanna call it like a, kinda, kinda like a definitely a gadget role, but like Jeremy Macklin was third on the team and targets behind Kelsey and Tyree Hill with 76 targets and it was like 28 year old Jeremy Macklin, like not a high quality starter.
So that's the number one thing you need to look for for one of these rookie receivers is that like, we gotta have a depth chart here.
That's pretty climbable if they're gonna come out of like, I'll even say late round three to, you know, day three, and give you a surprising rookie season, the other connective tissue with all three of those guys, obviously, Andy Reid his, he's another guy is already in the Hall of Fame and Puka with Sean mcveigh, who's one of the best play designers and we, we've learned over the last couple of years that, that Ben Johnson and with some rookies, we don't know, you know, for all I know, maybe, you know, the way we talk about Ben Johnson right now is, or the way we talk about Kyle Shanahan, maybe someday or Sean mcveigh, maybe someday we're gonna talk about Dave Canals like that, you know.
Um I, I don't know, there's a lot, obviously, there's always a bunch of coaching changes.
The NFL is a bunch of head coaching changes there's a bunch of play collar changes and when Ben Johnson was starting to spread his wings, I had no idea when I'm on.
Ra Saint Brown was a rookie.
I had no idea that he was in this great infrastructure.
And also I, I wasn't sure that Detroit was on the upswing and, you know, Jared Goff would be good enough and all that stuff.
And obviously those things have come to fruition.
It doesn't hurt.
I don't know if you ever put stock in this, but we always talk about the Ohio State.
You know, Brian Hartline, the great job he's done coaching up their receivers.
Obviously, us c they've had so many good receivers over the last couple of decades and there's been some different coaching there, but somebody's doing something right with coaching these guys up and, and maybe I should have taken Saint Brown a little bit more serious.
Also, obviously, his brother is an NFL player too.
That doesn't hurt.
Although acronym Saint Brown is more of a journeyman.
He won't have any fantasy value.
But um, at least with Saint Brown, I, I certainly didn't draft him.
I wasn't expecting much of him his rookie year, but I adopted him really quickly.
He was a common waiver wire pickup for me that year and then the next year, I'm like, yes, I am going to leave, not just with some shares of Saint Brown, he's gonna be like one of the staples of my team and for all the things you get wrong in a fantasy season or a fantasy portfolio, just one thing that we happily got right.
I would say that that's another thing to look out for for.
If you're looking for that surprising rookie receiver, it's kind of like a three way checklist to your point needs to be a great offensive ecosystem.
There needs to be a depth chart to climb and three like a, it's kinda, it might have to be in like kind of a hyper specific role if you think about it.
