The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Wide receivers wrapped, 2024, with Matt Harmon

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

From the heroics of Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson and Amon-Ra St. Brown, to the breakouts from Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton, and the letdowns from Bears and Texans passing games, the 2024 season gave us plenty to talk about at the wide receiver position. That's exactly what Robert Mays and Matt Harmon of Yahoo do on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysWith: Matt HarmonExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Matt on Bluesky: @mattharmon.bksy.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Matt on X: @MattHarmon_BYBTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Brought to you by Thursday Night Football only on Prime Video. I'm Robert Mays. We got a fun one today. Our buddy Matt Harmon from Yahoo, from reception, going to come on to talk about just the state of receivers in the NFL in 2024. There are some guys across the league that just far surpassed expectations that were productive players for either overachieving offenses or elite offenses this year.

We talked about some of those guys. We talked about some of the disappointments at the receiver position based on the preseason expectations that we had. This was a receiver class in this draft that was chockful of notable names. And so we took stock of where those guys are 15 weeks into their rookie year. And then, you know, zoomed out and looked at some other bigger picture conversations about the receiver position. Matt does such a great job of digging into this and looking at the details associated with not only players specifically, but trends associated with the receiver position around the league.

So really enjoyed this discussion. Let's get to it. Joining us now, a man who does 17,000 podcasts a week and is kind enough to carve out some time in his schedule to join ours. It is our buddy from Yahoo Fantasy and from Reception Perception. It's Matt Harmon. How you doing, man? Robert, what's going on, buddy? Yeah, man, it's that time of the year where things are seemingly starting to wind down in the fantasy world, which is nice, I will say, for sure.

but the real games are ramping up. The important moments are actually ramping up. So it's sort of a little bit of a come down, a little bit of a come down, but also a ramp up. And I'm excited to talk with you today. The fact that you have to do two shows a week with Nate is that's the hardest part of your schedule. Like that's the part I'm least envious of. Yeah, I mean, listen, that's why that's as Don Draper said, that's what the money's for, you know? We came into this season, you and I did a show coming in the summer, just about the state of wide receivers feels like too lofty of a way to present it, but just kind of checking in with certain pockets of the position.

Guys who we felt were risers, guys who we felt were followers, people to watch maybe as they took a step forward or step backward heading into the year. And I wanted to just take some time as we get a little bit deeper into the season to revisit some of that. because paying attention to the things that you've been writing about and talking about with the wide receiver position over the course of the last few weeks, you know, you've talked about and pointed out a couple guys that just outperformed any sort of reasonable expectations we could have had for them. You know, who they were in our minds coming into the year has been recast because of the 2024 seasons that they've had. We can talk about that on the positive side and the negative side. And I also think that there's a lot to dig into with the rookie receivers in this class. It just feels like a particularly needy year for receiver discourse. and that is why I wanted to have you on

because no one is more fluent in that discourse based on the work that he does than you are. So I'm excited to dig into this with you. No, yeah, no doubt. And I think this is a year with a real lack of elite production at the top. You know, I just wrote a piece on this. I sent it to you that I did at Yahoo recently where we're missing sort of those high, high impact,

like top of the league statistical performers this year. But really the depth of the position is not any lighter than it's been in recent years. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have, you know, we've got a ton of really good draft classes lately. Even if this year, and we'll talk about the rookies where I think the production of the group is maybe a little bit disappointing due to, you know, in relative expectations of very, very high expectations for this class, but there's a lot of rooms with a lot of different

options in it. So again, I think we've seen the position for reasons, nothing more revelatory than just some bad injury luck at the top of the league. But really, the depth of the position is still very, very strong. And a lot of the stuff that we'll talk about has to do with, you know, deployment and quarterback pairing and things like that. But yeah, there's a ton of levers to pull on with this position this year. If you look at the top of the league in terms of yards per route, run, like a very simple

metric for who has been the best on a rate basis in the NFL. It's all guys who've missed like half the season. It's Puka. It's A.J. Brown. It's Nico Collins. You could throw C.D. Lamb in there for somebody who's had, you know, Cooper Rush is probably better than we expected, but it's still not the level of quarterback playing the level of offense we probably thought we were getting with CD Lamb. So outside of

Jamar Chase and maybe Justin Jefferson, those are the only two guys, and I'm on Ross St. Brown, I'd probably throw in there as well. Those are the only first round fantasy picks that's like, all right, these are the, this is the environment that we expected coming into the season, and it's the environment that they got to play in all year. But those are really the only three guys. Everyone else had some sort of wrench thrown into the year into the year that we wanted them to have. Yeah, I mean, this piece that I wrote was going into last year, or it should be last week. So keep that in mind. But going into week 15, we had just 2,000 yard receivers in the NFL through 14 weeks. There were 11 in 2022, 8 in 2021 and 9 in 2020. But there wasn't any shortage of

guys that were sort of in that 750 to like 800 yard bucket. That is still with. in what we'd expect over the course of previous seasons. So it really is just, and some of it is, yeah, I mean, AJ Brown, Pooka Naku's mistime. Like, I think Rishie Rice, based on how he was playing in the first four weeks in producing, like he was somebody that could have threatened for one of those like top, top end seasons. Chris Godwin was definitely on that pace.

He's, it's been a billion years since he's been available in the proceedings. You know, I mean, and the list like goes on or on, even if you're, even if you want to like reach, right? I mean, Nico Collins, he's not a reach, but he's certainly in this group of guys that has missed time. And like I said, the reach players, like Brandon Ayuk wasn't performing to that level this year when he was on the field. But he was last season before he signed the big extension. He's been gone forever. Malik Neighbors has missed multiple games.

And from a production standpoint, he was kind of having that impact. Chris Olavé missed multiple weeks. So like I said, you can even start to stretch. Mike Evans, shoot, he's missed multiple weeks. It's been a very unusual year for wide receiver injuries, which again, I think has impacted sort of that top of the league elite level production. But again, the depth of the position, I think, is still very plentiful. The macro part, the conversation about this regarding fantasy is just funny that we typically think, all right, if you take the receivers, it's a safe thing to do. Like, that's the argument for taking those guys at the top of drafts just because we don't know what's going to happen with the running backs.

There's a little bit more volatility there and injuries are a bigger concern. And this year it was all the top end receivers that got wiped out. And Sequin Barker was just having the best season we could possibly have imagined. So every time you think you've learned something about the macro trends associated with fantasy football, you were reminded that those are going to change in like 10 seconds. Yeah. And if you lean too far into it this coming season in 2025, I think like you might end up being disappointed, right? Like this because that's how the position's gone in terms of running backs and missing time and things like that.

So we'll see, right? But, and shoot, like, by the way, we still have two more weeks of, like, real full deal, you know, games to, and week 18's weird, you know, that's going to be all sorts of nonsense. Most people don't even play fantasy in week 18. But we still have two more games of data to collect here. So our opinions could change very drastically there. But I thought the funny part of looking at all of this, like, receiver production stuff was really the theories that I went into it with, with, is there anything to, you know, the two high boogeyman, right? Like our team's playing too high coverage more.

Not really any more than they have in the last three seasons. So again, like maybe we're having a conversation about that in terms of the last three, four seasons. But there's nothing special about this year in terms of defensive coverage as well. Our team's better rushing the passer. I mean, pressure rates are pretty similar to the last three years. Time to pressure is pretty similar with the last three years. Shoot, even like our team's running the ball more. rushing rates are pretty similar in the last three years.

So it really is just kind of like, I think, a bad year luck-wise at the position. The last thing I want to talk about, which is, again, this macro look at things. It is funny that we were having so many discussions early in the season about the crisis of offensive production, the crisis of offensive efficiency. And I think a lot of those conversations were warranted in real time. And I'm glad we had them because I thought they were productive and instructive. But one of the things in the back of my mind as we were doing all of this stuff is that offensive lines are going to gel as the season goes along.

They're going to get more cohesive. You are going to be able to combat some of this Flores-esque crazy stuff in terms of how teams are rushing the passer, better in week 10 than you probably were in week three. And I think that's what's happened. Like we have seen offensive production bounce back a little bit over the course of the year and course correct to a place that this season feels a little bit more in line with the last two or three, more than the outlier it felt like it was going to be over the first month or so. Right. I mean, that seems to be happening a lot over the last few seasons where in the first couple weeks, maybe the first month of the season, where by the way, yeah, teams don't take the preseason seriously anymore. I do think that matters, especially for teams where there's new quarterbacks, new play callers, new offensive personnel. Like those teams, I think especially will feel the shock of the lack of preseason. And sometimes you can start to say, hey, well, give them time and things will work out and it doesn't. But overall, I think more time. on task for these teams, like learning on the job in September, into October a little bit. That stuff will start to, it'll start to normalize, it'll start to kind of coalesce there.

I love the point about, yeah, the offensive, really this all does start up front. In my opinion, I think, like, one thing I've learned over the course of this year for sure, it's a good reminder that it does not really matter how much pass catcher talent you have. If you can't block it up up front and or your route concepts or spacing in your passing attack sucks, it doesn't matter what receiver talent you have. It is not going to come into fruition in terms of building an efficient offense. So to me, the lack of protection plans against some of these, yeah, like, funkier, more exotic

blitz concepts, that's where you really think, I think, I think that's where you see like a step back in the league offensively. But I do think that's normalizing gotten a little bit better over the course of like late November, December, these sort of like critical post-season months. It's interesting. Look at the sliding doors moments with like a team. like the Bears and the Bucks this off season, where exactly what we're talking about that formula, where it doesn't matter what pass catching talent you have if you're not blocking stuff

up up front and things aren't well designed in the passing game. The Bucks lost Mike Evans for a chunk of the year. They lost Chris Godwin for the entire year. They've still been a top five offense because their offensive line is playing well, and their offensive coordinator has been thrown heaters for 15 weeks. And then you go to Chicago, the past catching talent has been around the entire time, and it hasn't mattered because the offensive line isn't a good group. It's not as bad as the stats would tell you, but it's still not a good group.

and the overall infrastructure of the offense is not consistently putting guys in positions to succeed. So I think we've learned a lot of lessons about not necessarily, all right, it's more important to have an offensive line than past catchers. It's more important to understand where the floor comes from your offense and where the ceiling comes from your offense and how you're building that at certain points along your trajectory as a team. But we can have a lot more of those conversations this off season as we consider all of that. Let's get to the receivers here. The first question I wanted to ask you because this pocket of names is, I think part of the reason I wanted to do this show and the guys that you were talking about a couple weeks ago. But if you're looking at the biggest surprises at the receiver position in 2024 in a good way, so it's an important detail that have surprised you in a good way.

What does that list look like and where would you start? Yeah, the three guys that really stand out to me in this. And there's through lines to all of them here. It's Jerry Judy with the Cleveland Browns, Cortland Sutton, Denver Broncos, and Darnell Mooney with the Atlanta. Falcons, particularly Judy. I mean, he is one of those now, I think it's 5,000 yard receivers on the season, which let me tell you what, if somebody that has been... He's fifth in receiving yards this year. He's fifth. The guys ahead of him are Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, C.D. Lamb, and Amon Ross, St. Brown. Jerry Judy is the next person on that list.

And what's crazy about that is in weeks one to eight, he was 44th among receivers and receiving yards. So we definitely need to have a small conversation about like, the James Winston pump and dump production scheme that the Browns have been, well, they're not running it anymore because DTR is going to be starting, I guess, the rest of the season. But some of,

some of Judy's production is a little bit fake because of James Winston. And he is just like a, I mean, he's not, we're not going to call him a one of one of one. He's a little bit of a one of one quarterback because he just, he has the devil and the angel on his shoulder and he consistently listens to the devil,

which is, I mean, it's going to, it's going to lead. him to some of these aggressive downfield throws which are going to they're going to be good and they're going to be bad. So he is a little bit of a unique player in that regard.

But beyond like, yeah, obviously you want your wide receiver if you're looking for pure production to be paired with a top end quarterback. If you can't get a top end quarterback, you want somebody that's just going to chuck it with reckless abandon like a James Winston. So some of the Judy production, I think, honestly, some of like Cedric Tillman's production when he was in there,

some of these like Elijah Moore games. I think all of it has been a little bit empty calories in some way. However, the thing that I think stands out with Judy even beyond the production part of it is I really think Cleveland got the deployment right for Jerry Judy. Because to me, what's been frustrating is somebody that's been critical of Judy in his last few seasons with Denver. Beyond the fact that I do think he is a highly inconsistent player, he's got high highs and low lows. That's like really expressed in his reception perception data where he's been above the thresholds I want to see for a guy beating man coverage, but his success rate versus zone coverages the last couple of years

in Denver were like, I mean, disastrously low. Like, you just can't have that as a starting receiver. And I think some of that is the... What does that profile look like? Like, what guys who are really good against man and less good against zone? What are the, what is that archetype? Like, what are the details of games that typically translate to those numbers? I think it's the guys that, and Judy's just such a perfect example of this, it's like the Instagram route runners, you know, they take all of these ex the who was the Ohio State converted quarterback

Braxton Miller do you remember him like the senior bowl when he was converting to wide receivers and all these like clips are hitting your timeline of him doing all these like five step routes to get open on a slant and people just don't understand the sport like damn look at Braxton Miller really tearing it up routes

it's on these like one-on-one drills like yeah well it's because there's no pass rush there's just one guy covering you like you got to get like you got to get into this route and you've got to actually get open here. So Judy is one of these guys that I think is a bit of an exaggerated route runner where, yeah, he'll get open, but like how long does it take him to get there? And I think that has led to some of the inconsistency and the volatility.

And particularly with Winston, like, and, you know, obviously a better example of this is I remember talking to Josh Allen several years ago where he was talking about his relationship with Stefan Diggs at the time where he's like, I don't really care like if this route is supposed to be at seven yards or eight yards. If you get open at nine or ten, I don't care about that. Like, I just want you to get open and I have trust in you in faith and all that stuff. And those guys had a very unique and like, obviously it didn't end well, but a unique and beautiful connection at the time.

With Winston, he's one of these guys that I think is probably okay living in that world. But what the Browns have done to sort of kind of eskew that volatility with Jerry Judy is they haven't really used him as much in the slot. Like typically if you think about Jerry Judy and those Denver teams, he was like kind of a vertical slot receiver. But if I got a guy who struggles to get into his routes on time in zone coverage, I probably don't want to have him running a bunch of middle of the field routes from the slot where you're going to run into a lot more zone coverage. And if you're a perimeter player or some of these, you know, it's charted as zone, but it turns into like a man match situation. That's really where I want to see him cooking, particularly on these like downfield routes. I'm talking about like this guy is wasting too much motion, getting open on.

slants. Yeah, I want to have him running like deep crossers and posts and deep in-routes off play action. It fits really well with what Cleveland specifically does from a past game design standpoint. That's been the biggest thing beyond the James Winston production stuff. It's how they've used Judy and leaned into some of his better tendencies while kind of getting away from some of the areas where he struggled. Do you have the numbers before and after Amarie Cooper was there? Like, was he, they were using him in the slot more in the first part of the season than when they were later on? Was that something that kind of opened up those opportunities for him? Was this a day one deployment from Cleveland in your mind.

It was definitely more day one than in previous seasons, but I think he probably kicked a little bit more outside. But at the same time, like, Cooper was pretty exclusively the team's ex-receiver there for the entire time he was with the Browns. And Tillman really kind of took that spot as opposed to a guy like Jerry Judy. So just looking at right now in the first five weeks. Jerry Judy, 67.6% snaps outside, 32% snaps in the slot. So he was still definitely primarily a perimeter receiver, even though he, and he still, you want to move him inside a little bit just to get him going on some of these runway routes with the free release and things like that. But I mean, you're never going to, you'd also don't want him to be your ex because

that's a little bit, that's a little bit shaky with a guy like Jerry Judy. So having him and Tillman paired together, I actually think makes a lot of sense. Anything specific to like the details of his game other than deployment that you think has allowed him to take this step forward? I think just playing with a lot more confidence. And I think a lot of it is confidence of what he's being asked to do. I do think these guys at some point, like if they know they're not deployed in a way that's going to lean into, this is a super extreme example and probably don't, I'm not trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt because he's really let slip his own opportunities this year, but in my opinion, a guy like Jalen Polk, the Patriots rookie wide receiver, from day one

with that team, they had him lining up almost exclusively as their ex-receiver, which is bizarre because he was not Washington's ex-receiver ever in college. He was like a slot flanker guy. He was more of that like Jacoby Myers type player, which is also weird on the inverse. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about your bears at some point, but like they've all, they've sure we will. They've rarely used Romadunese really as their ex-receiver. So I, in my opinion, I feel like, and Polk had said that he didn't really feel as if he was being set up to succeed in the offense, which maybe he's talking about something else.

Maybe I'm reading into it. But I would imagine that when these guys know they're not being deployed in a way that's going to strictly lean into their best skill sets, I think that starts to wane on your confidence a little bit. So I feel like Judy's just been very dialed in on the roles and the routes that he's running. And like I said, he has real clear strengths as a player. he's got a lot of explosion. If it's just a one route break,

he's very decisive on that one break, and those are the patterns they've had him being run in Cleveland. Projecting him moving forward. I'm struggling to figure out the right name to throw into this. They might came back to, which I don't think they'll be able to afford, but the idea of it intrigues me. Let's say the Browns get a Sam Darnold-esque stopgap quarterback next year with Deshawn Watson on the bench.

What do you think we could reasonably expect from Jerry Judy in an offense that's that sort of ecosystem. I mean, in my opinion, I think even despite this really strong season, at best, I think he's a strong two. That's not better than when you probably thought a year and a half ago, though. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think a year and a half ago, I was, I've generally been much lower on Judy than consensus.

And at times that's been right, at times that's been wrong. This has not been the season. Although I do think the pendulum swung too far the other way. And this is the frustrating part about this position specifically, but every position in the NFL is we're just in this exhausting time of football discourse where everybody has to be elite or terrible. And I mean, Judy is a great example of a guy that's going to fluctuate somewhere in the middle. Now, if he's playing like he's playing this year,

I do think he can be a really strong two. But at times I thought he was probably more of like a volatile splash number three type of receiver. But I think if you can count him to be a good too. And again, I'm very curious about Tillman. I think Tillman's played, I'd actually probably compare him to a guy like Cortland Sutton who were going to talk about in a second. He sort of has that sort of in-breaking X receiver style to his game. I think that's a pretty good core that you can kind of go to work with there, especially David and Joku, good tight end, good offensive infrastructure overall. So yeah, I have no idea what the hell they're going to do at quarterback, but I do think this receiver room can be part of the fixture here.

So you alluded to this. One of the other guys that in your mind has been a surprise this season in a good way is, Cortland Sutton. What about Coralyn Sutton's season in Denver has looked different than you might have expected coming into the year? I think the biggest thing that's taken me by surprise is, and look, I have no strong take about Bo Nix as a prospect. Like I didn't really know too much about Nix or anything like that other than I didn't think he was a good stylistic fit with Troy Franklin, who ironically is still his teammate. And by the way, it has the complete opposite strengths as a player to a guy like Cortland Sutton. so maybe I should have pulled on that thread a little bit more when thinking about these two guys as a connection. But the way that him and Nicks have just worked so well together on these intermediate and deep in breaking routes has been really fun to watch.

And Sutton's interesting because there's kind of like, I do think he's a little bit of a limited player. And I don't mean that as like a disrespectful thing to say. But I think he thrives. He's really, really good and thrives in these two areas. One of the areas is as a downfield ball winner on some of these go routes along the sideline, which you absolutely saw expressed with Russell Wilson last year. And that makes a lot of sense with how Russ wants to play the position. What I didn't really know about Nick's is that he was going to be able to activate the other side of Cortland Sutton's game,

which is some of these slants and deeper in breaking routes. And man, he's just been fantastic in that particular area this year. It was funny. I remember when Sean Payton got hired there. And there was like a headline that went around of he's, he's having Cortland Sutton's study Michael Thomas's ex-receiver film and this got like memed to death. But if you look at like Cortland Sutton's 2021 reception profile, and this wasn't even a good year from him, Cortland Sutton. This is still like he's working his way back from that torn ACL. His best routes were still in breaking routes like slants and things like that.

So it actually, and again, I know the slant boy Michael Thomas thing is kind of like a is a little bit of a pejorative thing, whatever. but still, it really does fit stylistically with what Sean Payton particularly wants in that, like, number one outside X receiver. So their connection, I think, has been a huge surprise to me. I was looking at the numbers while you were talking. According to NextGen, his vertical route percentage has been the same in 2024 as it was in 23. It's about 43% of his routes. But the in-breaking routes went from like 36% to essentially the same number as those vertical routes. And that makes sense, right?

Like the way that we think about him, it was almost he's a vertical outside the number player. And the fact that now he's running those in-breaking routes at almost the exact same percentage and the exact same rate, that jives to me with how I conceive of him as a player for the exact stuff that you're talking about right now. Yeah, and I just think it's a really good fit in this particular offense, which has been super fun to watch, man. Yeah, I agree. Devon Valle is interesting to me. I know he hasn't like had a couple of big games of late, but he's this like six, five, two, ten profiles, like athletically is like a Nico Collins type, but he, he plays in like this big slot receiver role.

He's also 27 years old this month. So a bit of a, and he's a rookie, bit of a bizarre overall profile there, but he's got something to him in that regard. Marvin Mims, they've even started the, they found a role for Marvin Mims,

which is basically just don't run real routes. Like just be our gadget receiver, and he's fit well there. So a lot of things kind of, I think, coming together for Sean Payton and Bo Nix, but the foundation of it has definitely been Sutton. Like I,

I will say there was almost, no thought in my mind that he could have this type of season, mostly just because I didn't really know what to expect from a rookie quarterback who, you know, a lot of people had a lot of people I respect had some serious questions about what Bow Nix would look like in the NFL. And some of those questions are still outstanding. But the one that I think has been answered is this guy absolutely can activate and loves to activate the deep and intermediate middle of the field,

which fits extremely well with this receiver. I remember that moment watching the Carolina game this year. And it was like on the first drive of the game where he ripped like a 50, to 18-18-yard intermediate dig route to Corwin-Sutton. And I was like, all right, if he's going to be throwing these, we're having a different conversation about the Broncos offense. And I think that shift over the course of the final two-thirds of the season has allowed Cortland Sutton to be unlocked in a way we have never really seen.

I didn't realize that Devon Valle was that old. That's only one more similarity he has to Marcus Colston. Remember Marcus Colson was like a 23-year-old rookie too? So now we have like 10 different things that compare Devon Valet to Marcus Colston in the Sean Payton offense. Oh, 23. I mean, shoot, he wishes he was 23. 27-year-old, I mean, he's most of him 26 this year. But he turns 27 this month. That is pretty bizarre for a rookie.

But yeah, I do. I mean, so again, it's like, what is he in the future? It's a little bit difficult to project. But I definitely think they found something there with Vailet. And yeah, it's just, it's a very, like, a bit of an old school offense. And I mean, old school in like it's, you know, mid-2000s type of offense, which I guess we can call. old school now there in Denver. It's these big bodies like working over the middle against his own coverage. And they've got the right quarterback to do it. So it's been really fun to watch. I think that we underrate. And this guy will talk about a little bit later that I think is more than

this now. But early in his career, I think that the framing for a guy like Khalil Shakir was like, he's just a useful player. Like I don't know exactly what he is, but he's somebody that can be a piece of a really good offense. That's kind of where I am with Devon Valet right now. I don't know what he's going to be in two or three years, but I know that there's a role for him in a well-executed, well-designed offense in the NFL. And I think that we've seen plenty of that this year. Oh, buddy, I love a useful player, man. I mean, there's so many, there's so many good receivers now that fit in this bucket where, yeah, I don't, I don't know if they're going to be the next guy that wins you, your damn dynasty league or whatever, which is what most people want me to tell them.

Yes, yes. I do love a good useful player. And I, I mean, Shakir is definitely a good reference there. But, yeah, Velae is certainly someone that, by the way, a rookie class where, again, he's so weird because he's so old. But in a rookie class where, like, I'm sort of in an exploratory zone of where is this guy useful or whatever? It's nice to see, I think, just clear vision for this player's role, which is a lot, same thing. A lot of inbreakers and stuff like that, but a little bit of, like, outbreaking routes from the slot. It's been an interesting sort of fine there. Because, again, this is another guy that was not on my radar at all as a rookie. You had one last guy here that you thought was surprising to you in a good way this season compared to your preseason expectations.

Who was that? Yeah, Darno Mooney. And it feels weird because he's coming off a zero catch game from last night and the entire. I think that speaks more of the health of the Falcons passing game than it does to Darno Mune. Yeah, the whole Falcons offense, like a few weeks ago, this was a video I put up on YouTube and I felt like, all right, yeah, let's talk about Darnall Mooney and like how this Falcons offense is working right now. It felt a little bit better then. It doesn't feel as great talking about it right now because we're just, we're on, I don't know,

Kurt Cousin's end of the line here, watch. But I do think the role for Mooney this year in Atlanta has been super fascinating because this is another one similar to, like Cortland Sutton, if you go back to Darnell Mooney's best season with Chicago, which was a 2021 season. He was a guy that was running a lot of kind of quick, short, in-breaking routes as like a move-around slot guy a little bit.

it. And it's weird because the Falcons have basically completely flipped his route tree, where they're having him run a lot of like deep outbreakers, corner routes, things along the sideline. And again, this felt better saying it about a month ago than it does now. But Kirk has been good on those throws all year long. Like when he likes to look. With anticipation too. I mean, those is the best throws he had this year. Yes. Like those in sort of, and he compliments Drake London extremely well. And like London's definitely a guy that I think we could talk about as like a potential level jumping player this year. We've loved his work from the slot. But having a guy there that also helps lift the lid has been critical to this offense when it's been playing at a high level, which

it's not right now. But again, regardless, Mooney's role this year. And being someone that, I mean, at times was matching Drake London from a production standpoint, definitely did not see that coming. But I think it speaks to sort of having two guys that have complementary skill sets where you can access different areas of the field with Mooney than you can with London. And you can definitely access different areas of the field with London than you can with Mooney. And I love a room that basically like switches up the body type stereotypes, which is you look at Drake London. He's the 6-5-215 plus receiver. He's built like your classic X. And by the way, I think he can win as that classic X receiver because he's a good enough route runner. He's really good against press. And he can

be a ball winner down the field. But when you move in inside and you have him take advantage of that route running and sort of working over the middle. These zone coverage looks, even some man coverage looks. I mean, the Falcons have been so much better against man than they have zone this year. And part of that, I think, is you get Drake London isolated in the slot. He's going to just give you so many options there. But the other part of it is that you have this other guy who's a small receiver with a lot of speed.

Forget about using him over the middle, running routes on the slot. Let's get him ripping it downfield. So Mooney's addition in this offense has been a super fascinating thing to watch. I think that's a really good thing to point out with the man zone splits because the Mooney usage and his role within this offense reminds me and you got you and I've talked about this a hundred times stylistically I love those kind of underrated speed guys that can just rip you off on those outbreaking routes outside the numbers what tank Dell was doing last year what zay flowers is capable of you watch Mooney run some blaze outs and it is gorgeous stuff yeah and

when you're going to be a team that was what i yuk was against man coverage for the nineers last year. That's what Tank Dell was against man coverage for the Texans last year. So having a guy in that role specifically, that gives you an answer against man that not every team does, has without a player that has this specific sort of profile. Yeah, super fun to watch. And like I said, it's been funny to see just his route tree almost completely inversed from what the bears were asking of him. And it's like Matt Nagy's offense in 2021 or whatever we talk about here. You know, I mean, ask if like flipping it over from there to having him used in this way down the field, it's been a pretty fun. flip to watch.

All right, guys, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Speaking of flips to watch, let's get to the other side of this. Your biggest wide receiver-oriented surprises in a bad way in 2024. Where do you want to start with this?

Yeah, I think that actually because you just talked about him, I think just one quick player one is tank del season has been super disappointing this year. What do you make of this? He just hasn't looked the same all year. Very, very early on, like putting up in-season charting data on him, at reception perception.

It was just like, it was apparent from right away like, oh, he doesn't, he doesn't look right. And we do this all the time. We completely yada yada injury stuff. I mean, this is a guy that was coming off a serious injury from the end of last year. By the way, he also got shot in the off season. Like just nobody was talking about that for the longest time at the beginning of the year. Like, what was Tank Telnot productive? Like, what's going on here?

Well, they added stuff things. How about he got shot in the leg in the off season after coming. back from a lower body injury. That's a lot on a player, especially from a confidence standpoint, man. It's just, there's a, there's so many threads to pull on there. But yeah, to me, it's just very simple. He just has not looked like the same player really at any point this year. I think there are also a lot of systemic issues in the Texans offense that we can talk about.

I don't know what they're doing from a, from a concept standpoint, from a coaching standpoint up front. They make so many mistakes. Like veteran players make a ton of mistakes up front from a. blocking standpoint. Obviously, they've missed Collins for a big chunk of the year. Steph Diggs is on IR. There's been a lot of issues in the Texas offense overall, but the tank-del part of it specifically, I think right away, it was he just didn't look like the same player, and I don't think it's ever gotten back there. Where were those gaps for you? Was it an explosion thing? Was it a separation thing? Change of direction? Where was the biggest differences in

your mind between the player you watched in 2023 that I think you and I were both really excited about after last season and the guy that you have watched this year. Yeah, I think it's the explosiveness. And this is sort of a, and I don't need to go down. We don't need to go down this whole rabbit hole. To me, I know other charting services really value like the amount of separation that a player can create. To me, for reception, perception, I've just always whittled it down to like a binary

sort of yes, no. Like, do you get open? Yes or no, as opposed to like I, you get extra value if you're, three yards of separated versus one and a half yards. Like to me, I think then you're, you are biasing and profiling towards these like smaller explosive receivers because just physically is different if Drake London is getting open on you on a deep out route than a tankdell, you know,

just to, again, and how open you need to be if you're built like Drake London is very different than if you're built like tankdell. Correct. So to me, again, this is, I don't ever talk about like anybody else's process, but like to me I don't value that one way or another. But that being said, a guy like Tank Dell could create these massive windows for you because he was so detailed technically and was also explosive at the break point. That's where I think the biggest issue has been for him, like on these like intermediate or deep horizontal breaking patterns like digs and outs.

I don't think you've seen him like be able to plant the foot and explode at that 90 degree angle like you did last year. I think the technique and the precision is still there. I think he can sell that go route, but in terms of creating the separation, the lack of speed and explosiveness there has been, I think, felt all year long. And I think one of the reasons that you felt it, and I think people are going to look at some of the offseason discourse about Tank Dell from somebody like me even and look at what he's done this year and be like, man, you just whiffed so badly on that. I don't think you can really overstate how special that specific trait in his game looked as a rookie when you compare him to almost any other receiver in the league. like that ability to sell vertical routes, throttle down, and run those sorts of digs and outs that you're talking about. He was one of the most proficient players in the league at that. Like it was an actual superpower watching him play last year.

And if you're going to take that away, then you take away what makes him special. And I think that's kind of what we've been watching this year. Oh, and I think from the entire offensive standpoint, some of the best route concepts last year, in my opinion, was like Nico Collins, all these in-breakers. and Tank Dell working off of those on Outbreakers. And you just haven't seen, because, again, Nico has missed time and things like that. But even when Collins was out there and he was producing at an elite level. And I mean, I think as much as I like Tank Dell,

I've always been a bigger fan of Nico Collins. I think he was like, he's been a level jumper into, I think, like, tier one. That's how good he has been this year and how good he's been over the last two seasons. So that was that beside itself, you never still saw those guys working sort of in concert. I also think, too, this is, again, more of a Houston point than a Tank Dell point. I don't think it got discussed enough just what a big structural undertaking this group was going to have to go through in year two because so much of what they did in year one with Stroud was these were your two receivers. It was Tank Dell and it was Nico Collins.

And then when Tank Dell was out of the picture, it was basically just Nico Collins. It wasn't like another guy really stepped in there. And they certainly weren't spreading the field with a ton of players there. But when they make the decision to get Stefan Diggs, and I understood what they were looking for there. They were looking for like a, and they tried to get Keenan Allen before Stefan Diggs. They wanted like to be more of an 11 personnel team.

They wanted to have like a layup option from the slot because neither one of these two guys, Collins or Tank Dell really profiles is that. But that's a pretty big and stark difference if you're going to be a base 11 personnel team to what they were last year. And I don't think they really ever got that right. And I do think the fact that. one of the guys they're counting on here, Tank Dell just hasn't been healthy. And like, by the way, maybe all those takes that you had after his rookie season,

age really well into his third season when he's a full year removed from this injury. That happens all the time. I mean, look at a guy like Rashad Bateman right now. I mean, Bateman has been, I will always take a chance to say, like, let's talk about Rashad Bateman. But, like, I don't think he'll ever get back to being the player that he could have been hypothetically coming into the league after all of those serious lower body injuries. but I can tell you for a fact, this guy is running with more confidence in his lower half

and things are all communicating in concert better now than they were last season when he was pretty fresh off of like a serious foot injury. So sometimes it just takes a little bit of time with these guys. The Keenan Allen, Stefan Diggs pairing this off season and the fact that I think I'll always think about them in a similar way coming into this year because one, the Texans tried to trade for both of them. And two, I think they fit similar profiles where you have these young quarterbacks and you have pieces that I know that Romadunesi wasn't in Chicago previously, but I think both teams were like, all right, we have the resources to add a piece like this. Why wouldn't we go out and get a veteran receiver like this?

But then you think about deployment. And I actually think that it's been a little bit of a hat on a hat situation in both places where in the abstract, having three really good receivers for your own quarterback is great. But if that muddies the way that you should use these guys and it actually eats into opportunities or deployments that other guys should get, like Roma Dunezay not playing in 12 personnel or Romo Dunezay being a different sort of player within the offense because of Keenan Allen. I think that there's a lesson to be learned with how things unfolded with Keenan Allen and

Stefan Diggs that we should pay attention to as we move forward. I'm so glad that you said this because I have at times broached this idea and it sounds so stupid. It sounds so dumb. No, the good players. Why would you want the good players? Yes, it sounds so dumb, especially in kind of the context of how often I know I said it, plenty of people said it, like, man, what a great situation Caleb Williams is walking into because of all these talented pass catchers. But that is such like an off-season thing to do when you're looking at the roster and the talent and the possibilities.

And then you watch the games. And like I said, Chicago is kind of its own thing because they can't block it up and they really had, I think, piss poor past concepts throughout the, throughout both. of the year. But you go back and look at the Seattle offenses previously. We are slowly learning is that Gino Smith is like the third best player in the league. Oh, brother. I mean, Sam Howell 22% sacrate in his time on Sunday night.

That'll be about all you need to know there. But yeah, I think with Chicago, you actually start to watch the games. And it's just beyond the fact of like deployment, getting these guys in the right spot, I think so much of it is ego too. And especially on a rookie quarterback. Like it's one thing. And again, I think the Texas probably tried to skip a step here in their team building. And I'm not totally slamming them for doing that because coming off of Stroud's rookie year, like, yeah, why do you not want to push the gas pedal here?

Why do you not want to try to collect as many resources as you can to try to then make that Super Bowl push? And we're really, by the way, we're really talking about like one trade in the Daniel Hunter signing. It's not as if they mortgage their future or anything like that necessarily. But I think they probably tried to skip a step here. But I get it with Stroud where he's coming off this rookie season, like, yeah, let's give him three guys to maintain. For a rookie quarterback to come in here and we've got three mouths to feed in the receiver room and like I don't care if Keenan Allen is a declining player. And like it is obvious Keenan Allen is a declined player from the version that he even was last year and certainly from his peak. He's still Keenan Allen like a Pro Bowl receiver.

DJ Moore is coming off the best season of his career and just got a freaking contract extension. And then there's the guy you took in the top 10 who the quarterback clearly wanted and has a real deal connection with. Like you can't tell me that that's not playing around in Caleb Williams's brain. Like I got to keep all these guys satisfied and happy. By the way, one of the guys, the guy coming off the best season of his career and just signed a contract extension has clearly not been happy at any point this year really. And then you've also got kind of the bullshit at the beginning of the year of like, let's get Gerald Everett involved. Let's get DeAndre Carter screen. So a lot of unnecessary fat in the offense, but I do think from a deployment standpoint, both from an ego standpoint, some of these like crowded rooms like Chicago where we're just collecting and stockpiling talent.

That's been another like disappointment to me because I think it just, to me, it would make so much more sense if Caleb comes in here and he just says like, these are my guys. Let me start to build timing and rapport with them. And, you know, some of the issues that I think he has had this year with, you know, holding onto the ball a little bit and like not. seeing it, you know, Troy Aikman did a really good job, kind of highlighting that against Minnesota last night. We're like, these are open throws. Like, he's got to take these throws. When you're doing some of these like pure progression stuff and you're not actually just like working into this is my guy. Like let me find him when this is my like this is the defense I'm seeing. This is the coverage I'm seeing. This is where I go with the ball. I think it's been a lot on

his plate both from like a personnel and a personality standpoint too probably. The distinction between talent, accrual and team building is where. one that I think we would be wise to keep in mind as we think about the 2025 off season. Because I think that there have been mistakes in pure talent accrual and not thinking about the nuances and the intentionality behind why you're doing that. It's not just about adding good players. It's about adding good players with intention behind it. And I think that you see the best teams in the league do that and they have a very good

handle on that. The teams that underperform the talent we think they have on paper, they've made mistakes in that area. And I think that the Bears and the Texans on offense are too, very good. examples of it this year. And you also wanted to point out that some of these crowded rooms, even on good teams, and that didn't make a big splashy move, but had sort of these equal opportunity receiving rooms, that's also been an area where there's been a little bit of disappointment this year. Would you say that? Yeah, well, I would definitely say in Indianapolis, that's been the case.

Because, again, very easy in the off season to sit there and say, well, they drafted Adonai Mitchell. You're just going to take Alec Pierce off the field and you're going to pluck Adonai Mitchell in his spot, and he's going to be that X-receiver answer for them. I think my sort of galaxy brain theory on this, and I know you and I talked about A.D. Mitchell and how they were excited about him in the off-season and stuff like that. I think they got so excited with A.D. Mitchell that they basically, like, when Josh Downs went down, like, oh, we got to find ways to, like, get him in his role. And then I think, again, you've, then you've, like, overloaded the rookie at that point,

and you could see that early on in the year. And instead of just having him master the X-receiver position in your offense, You're trying to find ways to get him on the field, but you also can't take Pierce off the field because he Pierce is like a role player. He's very limited, but he brings value to your team, especially when you're trying to play this way. Yes. Especially, yeah, when your quarterback has like a, in the first month of the season has like a 15 yard average depth of target against zone coverage. Just trying to out throw the two high safeties with Alec Pierce. And also, by the way, you need a guy like Pierce when your other receivers are Josh Downs and Michael Pittman. Two players I'm very, very high on and I really like, and especially Downs.

I think Downs is the best pass catcher on this team. As much as I've been a fan of Michael Pittman in years past, I think Downs is the best player of the group. You want a lid lifter on the outside. So Pierce makes sense in that way, even if, like, Mitchell is more classically talented and probably without question gives you more separation ability against man coverage. than a player like Alec Pierce does, but I think you put too much burden on a player like Mitchell when you had him like kind of try to get a bachelor's degree in two receiver positions instead of just mastering the X

at the beginning of the year. What does the solve look like for you? Like going into 2025, what do you think is the proper deployment and the proper collection of pass catchers for this Colts team? God, this is where like the, I'm not paid enough money to do that. But I think for me,

I think they've got it. right in terms of I'd like to see downs play more outside. I'll say that. I'd like to see, I'd like to see downs play a little bit more flanker and maybe like alternate roles a little bit with Michael Pittman there.

Because I think Pittman's a good player, but I also think he's, one of the issues that I think they ran into this year is that the Colts, and are we looking at the same coaching staff next year? You know, that's at least questionable, at least with how the season's gone. I would be a little surprised they made a change, but still it's at least on my radar.

I think one of the things they kind of got away from was I thought that this offense would look like what Garter-Minchu did, but with a little bit more flair with what Anthony Richardson brought to the table. But instead it looked like they really leaned into some of these deeper routes for the outside receivers specifically. That probably works with Alec Pierce,

even though it's not going to be in a high-volume role. It doesn't really work for a high-volume player like Michael Pittman, who is primarily going to run these like in-breakers, sort of in the Michael Thomas sort of mold. If you're looking at like an outside receiver, it's very different players, but still that's the type of route tree. Not too similar necessarily to a guy like Cortland Sutton, although they're kind of different players.

So to me, it's really difficult because if you're landing on just three receivers, somebody has to lose out here. And what I think you hope happens is that Mitchell takes such a leap in the offseason that you can start to pluck Alec Pierce off the field and maybe make him a situational deep threat. And Mitchell's your ex-receiver. You're rotating a little bit between downs and pit minute slot and flanker with down still being like probably your 65 to 70% slot player.

To me, that would be like the ideal thing. But that comes back to Mitchell needing to take that step. I think that makes total sense. I think having Alec Pierce be more hyper-specific in the ways that you're thinking about him, snap counts, etc. That's probably the best outcome for the Colts over the next 12 months. The question is whether or not Mitchell takes that step. and gets you to that place.

And I think that we don't know the answer to that yet. Another one of those crowded rooms that I wanted to ask you about, how do you think it's gone in Green Bay? Because we were wondering what that would look like over the course of the season, who would be the number one there, how would they deploy these guys in terms of role? In your mind, how has that gone for the Packers? Yeah, they stand out in this group of players we're talking about here

with Houston and Green Bay and Indianapolis, or excuse me, Houston and Chicago and Indianapolis. These are all on balance, disappointing offenses this year. Green Bay is like a top five offense, right? I'm not, I'm not too like nitpick. This is nitpicky for sure. I do think that I think it would be, it would be better for them if they had a little bit more. We consolidated a little bit here. This is tough though because all of these guys are good to some degree. Even like when we start to include the Tucker Crafts of the world. Like Kraft has brought this team real deal value as like an outlet

receiver, particularly in the beginning of the season, like absurd yards after catch numbers. It's like that was a nice little get out of jail free card for Jordan Love at times when like the first read wasn't there. Just dump it off to Tucker Craft and the flat and some of these quicker outroutes and he can really make some plays after the catch. So like, you know, again, this is a tight end that you probably want to groom and develop here. The receiver room in particular, I actually had somebody in my Discord joke that has anyone ever seen Don Tavian Wicks and Adonai Mitchell in the same room together? Like they actually, God, it feels like it's just like an arrow through my heart because I love both of those guys for the exact same reason.

Yeah, these like separation players, particularly on these isolated man coverage routes. But they've had serious issues in terms of mistakes at the catch point this year, both of these guys and have like let down their quarterbacks and their offenses. So it's actually kind of a similar thing. And like if Wix had just taken a step, maybe then we're, you know, pulling Christian, because him and Christian Watson were at times rotating this year and like kind of, which, you know, again, I'm not sure if I love that, right? I kind of want you to just settle on one player. But I think the better player in the long term, or the guy with the more complete and diverse

skill set, if he hit his ceiling would be Wix. It's not Watson. Watson is a little bit Alec Pierce like. Different in a way, and more freaky after the catch. but still, I think a limited application type player, if that makes sense. But I think it's a similar argument for both guys, though, because I think that what Christian Watson has given the Packers' offense, they need that downfield explosiveness and almost that volatility to kind of be the best versions of themselves.

So even if we're a little bit frustrated about the limitations of a player like Alex Pierce, of a player like Christian Watson, in order for those offenses, the Colts and Packers, respectively to hit the ceiling they have in 2024 specifically you need the downfield shots from both of those guys so i think that's kind of led us to the place that we've landed here and by the way like these guys are all fitting in the bucket of useful players like they there are uses for alec pierce there are uses for christian watson um i probably would have previously said that dobs is like a a use in the in the useful player bucket but i think he's taken a step this year it's i've been so impressed with him this year he's been my favorite one of those guys to

watch and I just didn't anticipate that coming into the season. That wasn't even on my radar. It was like, maybe it'll be Wix, maybe it'll be Jaden Reed, but I've really appreciated what he's done this season. Yeah, especially on some of these isolated routes and inbreakers and like third down when you get like man coverage looks. He's been so much better. He is such a better player than he was as a rookie. Whereas like in his rookie season, I thought he might just be an actively, you know, negative player, somebody that like eventually you're going to want to replace in the lineup. after his second season, I was definitely putting him in that like sacrificial X receiver bucket where he's going to clear space out for everybody else.

And that's an important role. And when Jordan Love likes the coverage look because those guys have a good chemistry, he can go to that, you know, vertical route in the isolated as the ISO player over there. But this year he's been more than that. I think he's taken another step. So to me, I think, again, you can't really take it. He's the guy who like rarely ever leaves the field. And he shouldn't because he's been so consistent on the outside.

I do think the usage of Jaden Reed is, I want to see more from that. Like I want to see him, especially in the first month of the season, they were really cooking with him on like these intermediate patterns. Like the shots off play action were less of the go routes and corner routes and post routes to Christian Watson. And it was more Jaden Reed on some of these deep outbreaking routes or deep dig routes. And I think he can really be, to me he's still their best player. I think he was their best player coming in the year.

I'm still of the opinion that he's their best pass catcher. And I think that more ways that you can get him on the field and get him targets is good for the overall health of the offense. Let's transition to the rookie receivers here because like we mentioned, it's a notable class. A lot of guys drafted in the first round. And it's been an interesting route or interesting journey for most of these guys in ways both good and bad. So why don't we just go in order that they were drafted? And I want you to just give me a one sentence summation for what you think that these guys have been as rookies. We can build on that a little bit.

So Marvin Harrison, Jr., your one-sentence recap of his rookie season to date. This has been frustrating. It would be my one sentence, period. This has been frustrating, period, would be my one-sentence summation of Marvin Harrison Jr.'s rookie season. Because I guess the other sentence maybe would be semicolon. It's not a simple problem to discuss, Robert, because I think at times it's been like oh they don't they're they're using him in too many like sacrificial x receiver type ways it's all

this vertical stuff uh it's a lot of goes and and and corner routes and deep curl routes and things like that and that is not ideal i do think the usage for him could be more diverse i also think like kailer murray's a volatile quarterback and i think the offense is very i kind of like drew petting's offense but it's also very traditional um like in terms of the deployment for these players and things like that. You know, I think I joked on a show recently. Like if you wanted to, again, make me some like high paid consultant to come in here and say like a one sentence thing, you know, I'd go to the card and say like,

what if we just did like some CD Lamb stuff with Marvin Harrison Jr.? And they're like, all right, cool, I'll see you guys next month for the next meeting. That would be my pitch there. But they don't really do that stuff in their offense. So kind of a whole separate conversation. But some of this is a player issue too. There's no question about it. Like his play at the catch point.

I wrote like a small, and I tweeted this out recently, I wrote like a small kind of like minor negative in his prospect profile saying that his work like coming back to the football and tracking the football and extending to win passes in tight coverage and contested situations, I thought was like a minor negative in his overall prospect profile, which was a fantastic profile, by the way. I was wrong to call it a minor issue. It's been a huge issue for him as a rookie. So the biggest thing for him going forward is how much of that is something he can correct and how much of that are we going to have to scheme around? With him in this season, I feel like early in the year, they were testing his limits in the

ways that they were using him. It's like, all right, if we just ask this guy to be a big boy X receiver from the start, what can we get away with and what can't we? And I think as you saw the season go along, we saw him on some more of those crossing routes and on, you know, just deployed in slightly different ways. where we go moving forward, I'll be very curious. But if I had to figure out what they were trying to accomplish by just kind of sticking him outside the numbers for the first month and a half of the year, I do think that was it. I think it was more about understanding what they had and testing the limits of that more than this is the best way we could possibly use this player.

Totally. And I get like this, he's six, four. You drafted him fourth overall. Like he's this huge guy. He looks like the big boy downfield ball winner, but that just really wasn't the areas that I thought he shined best. as a prospect at Ohio State. Like he's another guy that runs these in-breaking routes really well. His dad is literally Marvin Harrison Sr.

Like he's a great route runner. He's an extremely proficient technician, but I don't think he's necessarily that freak show take the top off the defense ex-receiver. So, yeah, the one thing I've been disappointed with that offense is that I think Michael Wilson was a guy who showed you, like he could probably take some reps at the ex-receiver position. And I almost kind of wish they'd interchange those two guys.

a little bit, but we haven't really seen that very much. So I think, like I said, there's like 30% of blame to go to three different places here. You know, quarterback, deployment, and the player. Like, everybody shares a slice of the pie for him having a solid rookie season, but not like a special freak show rookie season. Let's get to Malik Neighbors. Your one-sentence summation of the Malik Neighbors rookie year so far. Hmm.

Get the guy quarterback, you know, would be. be the easy one. Again, though, if I'm going to, I'm cheating at the exercise now, like, get the guy at quarterback dot, dot, dot, he's got to improve in some areas too. He's not a fully fledged, like, product at this point either. He has made some mistakes. He's another one of these guys that sort of in the Jerry Judy mold can be a little bit like, let's get into the route in zone coverage and like fully get yourself, especially if you're, and like, no disrespect to him, like all these guys that are top level prospects should, should behave this way. But if you're going to constantly be the guy, like, get me the football, like, one, catch it when it comes to you.

And two, like, let's get into the routes in zone coverage, particularly. Because I think he has been unbelievable, like, near what I would call the, you know, superstar tier of, like, man press coverage beating receivers. But I do think there's been some, we're talking to, like, minor nitpicks, again, against zone coverage, particularly for him to really get into, like, the top of tier two or top of tier one, certainly into tier one as an NFL receiver. So minor nitpicks with him, but overall, yeah, I just, I want to see somebody who can get him the ball down the field. The encouraging part of that is those are the things you can expect to get better with more time and more nuance. That's the exact profile you want. Oh, he's hyper talented, but doesn't really understand the finer details of how to play the position in the NFL. I can work with that after his rookie year.

And I think that's kind of the right place to land with him. I also think that we've been spoiled about like just rookie receivers in general. That we absolutely have. Like, yo, not everybody's going to come in here and be Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase. And I don't care what you did in college. I don't care where you were drafted. That is unique stuff, right? So, like for all of these guys to have little ups and downs as rookies, it's fine.

Like, it's totally fine. I'm not sure I want to do this, but we're going to anyway. Roma Dunzei, your one sentence summation of his rookie season to this point. Just get me to 2025. That's how I feel right now every day. Yeah, I bet. I bet, buddy. Yeah, no, it's, I think this season was always,

2025 was always really going to be the year for, for, like, Rome to really break out because, um, this is an offense with a rookie quarterback and they have three guys that demand the football like we, like we were talking about earlier. So from a statistical perspective, I almost don't care about anything that,

that, that comes out of this season from, even like an efficiency standpoint. Like, oh yeah, Rome, Ruma Dunez's yards per outrunner very good. Nothing's good in Chicago. I don't know. Who cares?

Like get me to the new season, new deployment. That's one thing too. I think if you're Chicago, let me put you on the spot here because I'm sure you don't do this to yourself enough. If you're Chicago in 2025, like, do you not just think like I just put Roma Dunesay as that X receiver and make DJ more kind of your move around guy? Because I think that the inverse has sort of been true for how they've used them this year. I'd like to flip those two roles. Absolutely. It's been obvious from the start.

And I think they've done a little bit more of this with the screen game with DJ Moore and kind of creating these scheme touches for him. But if you look at the first half of the year, essentially when Shane Waldron was the offensive coordinator, and the amount of snaps he spent as an isolated on the line of scrimmage receiver, it was like one of the top five or six rates in the league. And what went along with that is he was one of the most pressed receivers in the league with that usage. Why is that? Because he's bad at getting off press. That he doesn't do that well. That's not the type of receiver that he is.

So completely switching that and putting that. that big-bodied X that was dominant in that role in college into that spot in the NFL and using your move-around gadgety guy in that role, it's almost too clear. I just think that there's only so much you can do to change things midstream. It has gotten better since Thomas Brown has taken over, but I do think because of how muddled the roles are in the way that we talked about before, there's really no clean way to get an answer during this season. Yeah, it's just bizarre to see like DJ Moore is the farthest outside on the ball player and like Roma Dunzei is motioning between the two sides like what are we talking about here based on who these two plays one of them has been

in the league for a minute and like I there's clear proof of concept of why he could be better in this role the other it's just like like you said it was dominant as an outside receiver against press coverage in in college like those are all the skills you want to see from him the one thing I would say about about Adunze is I do think he like his his play as a contested catch receiver and just some of the, some of the mistakes at the catch point. Like, those got to get cleaned up here in year two as well. They have to for him to be the sort of player you thought he was going to be coming into the league.

And that's exactly where out of land as well. Watching that game against the Vikings last night, that play in the end zone, like, he's got to make that play. We've seen that happen before. So I both been at the exact same spot after watching him all season. Brian Thomas Jr., your one sentence summation or Brian Thomas Jr.'s rookie season. Almost unguardable in man press, coverage, which is super, super impressive for him.

He's definitely another player that, like, at times this year, you can nitpick the zone coverage stuff, whatever, but overall, he follows the exact trajectory that you want for like a rookie receiver that is on the upturn. And also, by the way, that's exactly how his final season went at LSU, where it was just better by the end of it than it was at the beginning. And Thomas has been great all season, but I think really what he's doing right now is putting like potential number one receiver stuff on film. So I guess the one sentence summation is he's going to be better than some of the guys that went ahead of him,

point blank period. Why do you think that is? Where do you think we missed out on what his potential looked like coming into the draft compared to what, how he's realized it? I think the biggest areas that, well, I'm going to, I'm going to say people missed out on is, is focusing on limitations in terms of his usage in college. Like, I totally understand. He definitely ran like mostly only slants and goes and corner a curl routes I get it and if you look at his like reception chart like 67% of his routes were go curl slant but like so was dk mackaff in his rookie season uh and brian thomas is much freakier than dk as much as freak as dk macketh is like from a fluidity perspective uh brian thomas is even freakier than a guy like dk mackaff so

um focusing on limitations of a player in terms of like how they were used in college and not focusing on, well, let's look at the snaps where he is being asked to do things beyond that. And he was very good at a variety of other routes. And what if he does get to the NFL field and he takes yet another step? I mean, that's where he was like a much more actualized version than some of these other like size speed freak receivers. So really focusing on the negatives and not focusing enough on the positives, that's where I think

people may have missed on him. I think the difference, the biggest difference for me with him compared to the other size speed freak guys. the other side speaks freak guys and D.K. Mac has a great example of this. They're stiff. Like, they're stiff. They can, they're big and they're explosive. But his flexibility and just how slithery he was, even in college, like getting off press coverage is just the way his body moves. That's what intrigued me about him. It's like there, you can see the raw tools to be able to develop any of the details of the position you want to. Like there are no physical limitations to what he is. And I think sometimes we would say that about a guy who's six four and runs a four. or three. But if you are one of those

stiffer players, that is an important limitation as a receiver. And it has he's the exact opposite. There's no cap on what he is in that specific area. Yeah. And I will also credit Jacksonville's coaching staff that they didn't just look at him as size speed and

like just throw him out at X receiver and go sink and swim. They've done a lot of good with like moving him around and getting him. I joked earlier this year that like Calvin Ridley walked so that Brian Thomas could run in terms of Like they really did just stick Calvin Ridley out as the ex-receiver last year and just like that was it. They'd done a much better job.

And so some of this is they've signed like the quintessential sacrificial extra receiver in Gabe Davis. And obviously Gabe is on IR now. He's not playing anymore. But like that's just like allowed Brian Thomas to more, hey, do these things at the beginning, sort of get your feet wet. And like we're not going to throw you. Like he only has just recently become a target hog player. Like going into his biweek, he was like 18% target year. He wasn't truly featured.

and I know we all want the microwave results, like just get him to football every single snap. I think they've done a good job actually growing and developing him and putting more on his plate as the year has gone along. There's a few more guys we can talk about, but the one I wanted to hit before we moved on, what have you seen from Ladd-McConkie? Because of all the guys drafted outside of those first four,

he's obviously had the best season just in terms of even production-wise, but also just the tape and what it's looked like. What have you seen from Ladd-McConkie and what would that one-sentence summation look like? I think the one sentence summation is I think he's had the best film of any of these rookie receivers this year. Any of the guys that we've already talked about, definitely any of the dudes. Beyond my guy Jalen Coker with Carolina, I'm kidding. But yeah, I think Ladd has been the best player on film of all these guys.

He's definitely been the best pressman beater. He definitely has the best intermediate route game, which is super fun for a player like him, who obviously is going to mostly be a slot receiver, but you can kick outside. And he is the difference in all these guys that we've talked about where, okay, maybe he's not running the route at the exact depth. Maybe he takes a little bit of time to get into it. Like he's not quite where the quarterback expects him to be.

There is very few times where you see a rookie receiver coming to the NFL and you immediately feel the trust that the quarterback has in this guy. And you feel that with Justin Herbert and Ladd-McConkie. Like Herbert right away knew like, okay, this is a guy I can count on. I can rely on. He's going to be where he's supposed to be. He can be, he's explosive to. Like, he's all the technique that you want,

but also is truly like, I mean, from a yards after catch standpoint, from a contested catch standpoint, he can also offer you explosive plays as well. So he is definitely a guy that I think is going to really climb up. As long as he can stay healthy, he's going to climb up the ladder ahead of a lot of these guys. And I think that's kind of where we were coming in.

Like, anybody who watched Ladd-McConkie, George, just like, that guy fucking rules. Like, that is an incredible player. The two questions of him were, can he stay healthy? And I think just meeting the level of physicality in the league. Those are the two big questions. And I think that for the most part, he's answered the second one in an acceptable way. The way they use him is important. Like he spends a lot of his time in the slot. I think they're smart about that. But the staying healthy part, he's kind of what

I expected him to be as a prospect. Hyper talented, detailed, explosive. It's just about whether he can hold up. And that's obviously already been a question. Yeah, a couple of games ago It was like every pass he'd catch you to have to scrape himself off the turf. Like that's not really what I want to see, but that might always be part of his game. Yeah, but yeah, he is an incredible football player. And I think can be, you know, I think the Chargers can get away with having a great passing attack with him as the top targeted player. And like, you know, maybe they spend big money on a free agent receiver. I don't know.

He definitely, like a T. Higgins type, he would really pair well with a guy like T. Higgins, but I think you can shoot lower than that and still have Ladd-McConkie be your top-targeted player. All right, guys, before we move on, let's take one more quick break. All right, before we get out of here, we're doing what we always do with our midweek guests here. We're doing the ball knower. Three questions about what you know about the NFL through week 15. Let's start with the first one.

What is something you know you know about the league here on December 17th? Yeah, I would say that if you don't have one of these elite wideouts, I know that you've got to have multiple players with complimentary skill sets. And I think kind of going back to our conversation earlier, it's really nice when you can have two guys. You know, I think the best pairing of this year is probably a guy like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, where, you know, Mike Evans, you have that. I mean, Mike Evans at times has been one of the top tier wideouts. And, you know, I think he's still probably in that like second tier of receivers in the league. He's still playing. Which is remarkable. Yeah. He's still playing extremely good football. Just has to have.

like 150 yards on a team that is one of the most efficient at like using two high safeties like let's let's take away the deep pass well even at this stage of his career it's really hard to take away the mike evans deep ball so like you have that vertical x receiver that particularly last season in dave canales's offense like he's just running outbreakers with baker mayfield for days i think what leam cohen did was come in here and say okay we also have a guy like chris godwin who we can use as this big slot receiver and be a yards after catch player, but also like run deep out routes from the slot. Because if you look back at like Chris Godwin's early career, that was really where he was good

before the Brady like screen stuff, the final end of that Brady run in Tampa Bay where it's mostly just, yeah, let's get him the ball in quick hitting ways because Brady doesn't want to get hit. He was one of a lot of these like deep outbreaking patterns from the slot. And you see more of that this year. So two guys that have complimentary skillsets can work well together, particularly like the Godwin archetype. Shakir is not this big, but Khalir Shakir is in this archetype. player as well where, you know, he can work so well with a boundary receiver.

They don't really have one guy in Buffalo, so that's where this kind of falls apart. But I think these like guys that can get open quickly, like a Godwin, like a Shakir, Rishie Rice is in this bucket too, and can do something with the ball in their hands. They're more important now than ever, I think, in the modern NFL with how teams play defense. So when you can have two guys, one like that and then one true man coverage beating answer on the outside, those are your best wide receiver rooms. I think that makes total sense. Even if it's not one guy in Buffalo, they consistently have a big perimeter receiver in there, whether it's Keon Coleman, whether it's Matt Collins, whoever. And so having somebody like Shakir who compliments that, I think that's, you feel that when you watch the best offenses in the league. I think that's one of the reasons that Buffalo, pre-Amarie Cooper, but even with Amari Cooper, has been one of the most explosive passing games in football, despite the fact that they do not have one of those top-tier guys. So I think that makes total sense. What is something you think you know 15 weeks into the year? year about the NFL.

I think that the Eagles have enough juice in the passing game to win the Super Bowl. This is a perfect answer. I think I know. I'm sure you guys have talked about it on the show, you know, the performance on Sunday and Jalen Hertz coming out there and saying, is that what you guys wanted to see? And I mean, yeah, bro, like, that's what we want to see. We also want to see it week over week. And we also want to see it against defenses that aren't like Pittsburgh, like the most

single high team in the league and one of the more man coverage heavy teams on later downs because really it's funny like I think this is going to get this was this was probably like the dumbest thing that got covered at length this season was the AJ Brown post game comments like yo I could not believe that all last week every morning I walked into the gym I'm like this is still on the morning shows like we're we're still talking about this on like Friday afternoon. This is what we're doing here. Bizarre stuff. But I get it. It's, it's, it's Philly. So, but, and like it was framed in this big way. And then I think the fact, they go out and they have this performance statistically. It's like, oh, there it is. There's your proof. Well, not really.

We didn't really learn anything new about the Eagles on Sunday. They have good players. Like, they have good players that have always beat this exact style of defense that's very man coverage heavy and very single high heavy. What would be interesting is if we see them go against a team, I don't know, like the Vikings, right? That's more zone heavy, too high heavy. That middle of the field is going to be open to your perimeter receivers. AJ Brown is going to be open on dig routes against that. If you scheme him there, he'll be open.

Is that the type of defense that this team can beat? Yeah, I want to see them play against their defense. That would be to me like the biggest test I could possibly see from the Eagles offense. I'm exactly with you because you watch that game. It's like he's decisive. I think some of the things that they were doing on, you know, crossers and some of those shallow third down options on it empty. It all made sense.

I like the game plan as much as I like the J1 Hertz performance. But the fact that I think we wanted to see the passing game against a good defense. This was the wrong kind of good defense for you to get all of the answers that you want. So I feel better about them coming out of that weekend, but I do not think every question has been answered. So the fact that you think you know they have a, enough, I think is the right place to land. Last one here. Something you want to know about the NFL as we head into week 16.

How quickly can George Pickens' hamstring get back to 100% is something I want to know? I want to know this for multiple reasons. One, my fantasy teams need to know this information two weeks ago. Two, I think he is critical to the success of their offense against good competition. Like, oh, congratulations. You beat this version of the Browns team a couple of weeks ago without George Pickens. Big whoop, not impressive. Then you go against a big boy team like the Eagles.

And I know that the Eagles were able to, I mean, put together a suffocating performance in the second half and just not give the Steelers the ball. Two drives in the second half is just unbelievable stuff. I get that. But at the same time, I think you need Pickens to beat good teams. And that's kind of to my third point here is that I think Pickens has been, you know, if you want to talk about like level jumpers this year, like you can definitely throw out guys like I think Puka's made the jump to tier one you know I think JSN has been somebody that

I thought was going to take a leap that has taken a leap pickens was somebody that I coming into the year was kind of like all right have we seen him level off at like very very good starting ex receiver but always going to be a little bit volatile and there's definitely part of george pickens's game that that is always going to be volatile um it just George pickens in general going to be a little volatile but I think in my opinion he again very very similar to like I'm watching Tank Dell early in the season. I'm like, this guy is just not the same. On the inverse of that in a positive way,

I was watching George Pickens at the beginning of this year, just thinking this guy is not the same in a good way. Like he has really taken his game to another level, particularly on like slant routes against man coverage. And he's been such an ideal fit with Russell Wilson. So I think because of the fact that he is this level jumper to me, somebody that has clearly taken a step into, I think, superstardom maybe tier two territory in the league,

they need him back there if they are going to be a team that can win a playoff game. I'm 100% with you. And I was really intrigued by him coming into the year. When I went back and watched him last season, I told Derek this before the year. I was like, there's more to him than I think that we're making it out to be. Like I can't articulate exactly what it is. His movement skills. Again, I think it comes back to flexibility.

Like, I watch him move. And there is just a fluidity to the way that he plays despite being one of those bigger-bodied guys, where if that's your physical profile, I'm always going to think there's more to you. Maybe you don't get the details right. Maybe you don't play that way. You're not where you're supposed to be, et cetera. But just in terms of pure movement,

I was intrigued by what he could be in a more big boy, Arthur Smith type offense that we think is coordinated by adults. And I have been not pleasantly surprised, but it's been a pleasant experience watching that step happen thinking that it possibly could. If you want to just bet on NFL receivers, I'm not doing it. this is an ad for my website, but like you go to reception perception.com, you sort by success rate

versus man. If your receiver is above 70% success rate versus man, like generally always going to keep the candle lit for those guys, right? Just like, that's my sort of threshold I want to see perimeter receivers be at. But if you look at the, that's sort of maybe the lesson going all the way back to the Jerry Judy part of it, although he's not quite the same, but like looping in him and like Brian Thomas Jr. and these guys, like, okay, yeah, we have some nitpicks about them. like being consistent and beating zone coverage and things like that. But if you are a – and Pickens and Thomas are a great kind of tandem to talk about this with. But if you are a guy that beats man at over 70 percent, but there's some little inconsistency in your game,

but you are that freak show mover, whether it's in true explosive long speed like a Brian Thomas Jr. Or it's in those quick fluid hit moments like a guy like George Pickens is, like those are the guys you're going to bet on over and over. And maybe that's why we'll still be here three years from now. Be like, ah, it really could have been different for Don Tavian Wicks. It really could have been different for Adonai Mitchell. But that's another conversation. I'm keeping the candle lit for 80 Mitchell. Davian Wicks, maybe the wick on that one is out.

Look at me go. But with 80 Mitchell, I'm keeping that candle lit for at least a little while longer. Matt Harmon, always appreciate it, sir. If you guys are not listening to the Ahoo Fantasy Show to Football 301 and checking out reception, you are doing it wrong. Really appreciate the time. you very soon. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right. That's all we got. Thank you so much to Matt for his time. obviously it's just kind of a weird schedule this week, you know, based on the way that my last 48 hours have gone.

I really appreciate your guys as patience and grace with that. So this is going to be coming out on Wednesday morning. That is why we did not have a Monday night football recap on this show. We're also going to be having another show coming to your way on Thursday about Bill Belichick. We recorded some of that late last week. We were trying to get it out on Tuesday. Obviously couldn't make that happen for horrible reasons. But that is going to be coming your way on Thursday.

We're going to shout about the Belichick decision from the NFL perspective and from the college perspective. So please be on the lookout for that. And then Friday, we'll be back with the week 16 preview for me and Derek. So until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.