Diamonds In The Rough: Late Round Rookie Wide Receivers

Who doesn’t love finding those late-round gems in their dynasty rookie drafts? Every year, one of the most fun things about dynasty football leagues is trying to hit on those random late-round rookies. I’ll be digging into some numbers that might help you find those Diamonds In The Rough: Late Round Rookie Wide Receivers.

Day 3 wide receivers (Rounds 4-7) drafted from 2011-2021, have only had 7/211 (3.3%) with ONE single WR2 (PPR) season in their career.

Day 3 Wide Receivers (Drafted 2011-2021):

• Marvin Jones Jr. (2012)
• Rishard Matthews (2012)
• Stefon Diggs (2015)
• Tyreek Hill (2016)
• Hunter Renfrow (2019)
• Darnell Mooney (2020)
• Amon-Ra St. Brown (2021)

If we add in undrafted free agent wide receivers we get 13/506 (2.6%).

UDFA Wide Receivers (2011-2021):

• Doug Baldwin (2011)
• Adam Thielen (2013)
• Allen Hurns (2014)
• Adam Humphries (2015)
• Tyrell Williams (2015)
• Robby Anderson (2015)

So how do we figure out which late-round wide receivers to target?

I looked at all the Day 3 wide receiver hits and found similarities in their analytical and athletic profiles (Jones Jr., Matthews, and UDFA not included).

Day 3 Wide Receivers All Shared the Following Traits:

• 6′ or shorter
• 200 pounds or less
• 30%+ College Dominator Rating
• 80th+ percentile Breakout Age
• Sub 4.6 40 yard dash
• Under 35th percentile arm length
• Quick twitch, excellent route runners, that play primarily in the slot.
• Small school (Mooney)
• Character concerns (Tyreek)
• Injury concerns (Diggs)

That Gave Me the Following Group of Wide Receivers in the 2022 Class:

• Khalil Shakir
• Kyle Philips
• Bo Melton
• Jalen Nailor

Out of these four rookies I would be targeting Shakir, Philips, and Melton. Kyle Philips is currently my favorite late-round dart throw. He is going into an ambiguous wide receiver room that has 30-year-old Robert Woods (coming off of a torn ACL), and Treylon Burks, a rookie that hasn’t proven anything yet.

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