Is having a #1 WR overrated in the modern NFL?

[rayzor]

17 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

If I had to guess, I would bet that 100+ reception receivers have gone down on average but 1000+ yard receivers have actually increased.

Just give me a period of time and I can dig that data up. 1990-2017? 2000-2017? What do you think would give a good data set. IMO, we need to at least incorporate part of the periods of time that power rushing attacks were more in vogue.

i would say that 2000 through 2017....more or less the modern era of football...would be sufficient, and thanks in advance for doing it if you do. my curiosity is getting to me here.

[panther4life]

I've always been of the school of thought that the 5 most important positions are.

1. QB
2. Edge rusher, DE or 3-4 LB
3. OT
4. WR
5. CB

I can't not see WR falling any lower than number 5 on that list anytime soon. 

[Mr. Scot]

4 minutes ago, panther4life said:

I think so. Its a passing league. Every team builds around the idea of passing the ball and defending the passing game.  

This is why pass rushing DT's get paid more than Run stuffing DT's. 

Having a great passing attack doesn't necessarily mean having a #1 receiver.

Teams like the Patriots, Seahawks, Saints and others have shown you can win without that "one guy" while the team with one of the best in the league last year went 2-14 and another blew a huge lead in the Super Bowl.

[kungfoodude]

16 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

But there's another aspect as well.

 The teams that have had a lot of success (championship level) in recent years are teams that haven't had a "#1 receiver". Lord knows the Patriots don't.

 The more teams that win without one, the lower the value's going to be.

I think they are both sides of the same coin, essentially. The money and draft positioning have some definite correlation. Given the way the NFL offenses are largely structured, I could see a scenario where WR's could end up being devalued in the long term. We aren't there yet, however. Less WR's being taken in the first and especially early first round are a move in that direction though. We will see if that is a trend that continues or we have just had a less than stellar few years of WR prospects and/or evaluations.

[kungfoodude]

15 minutes ago, rayzor said:

i would say that 2000 through 2017....more or less the modern era of football...would be sufficient, and thanks in advance for doing it if you do. my curiosity is getting to me here.

Yeah, I will start putting that together. I don't think it will be that difficult to do.

[Mr. Scot]

13 minutes ago, stbugs said:

You mean like Gronk or Welker or Moss or Edelman or Cooks or Thomas or Colston or Graham or Baldwin, etc.? Please don’t act like those teams have just had trash as WRs. Tom Brady’s best year ever was with Moss and Welker. Brees has always had weapons.

Also, c’mon with Ryan and Julio. I hate the Falcons as much as anyone but really? Yep, it was Julio’s fault. 334 yards and 3 TDs in 3 playoff games is bad? Yep, Falcons lost a 25 point lead because they have an elite true #1 WR. Our offense would suffer if we had Julio, LOL.

This is just typical talking head crap. Paying Landry and Watkins $14-16M per year should instantly squash the stupidity of devaluing WRs without considering anything else. 

Moss and Gronk are weapons, but Gronk is a tight end and Moss was years ago. Plus both were athletic freaks. That's like expecting every other defensive end to be Julius Peppers.

As to the rest, how many of those guys do you really think could be called number one receivers? Hell, Cooks was a disappointment with the Patriots. Now he's on his third team and everybody is still waiting for him to show that he's worth the hype.

[Mr. Scot]

13 minutes ago, stbugs said:

You can’t look at one year. In 2017, which isn’t ancient history, there were three WRs drafted top 10. Last year was considered a bad WR draft class yet 2 selected in 1st and 6 selected in the 2nd. Due to our need at WR, we’ve heard of a lot of those guys but this class was supposedly Ridley and a cast of non-first rounders and yet there were 8 WRs picked in the top two rounds. 

Again though, all three of the previous year's top ten picks we're disappointing. That's part of the problem.

A guy like John Ross doesn't exactly help the argument.

[Moo Daeng]

Overpaying suggests overrating, yes.

[Mr. Scot]

11 minutes ago, stbugs said:

A disappointment? 65-1082 7TDs (career best ypc) on a team making the Super Bowl is a disappointing season? He was key in their 4 point win over Jax. Belichick is just OK as a GM. Some good moves, lots of bad. He got a 1st back so he literally rented Cooks for free for a year and didn’t have to pay him his next contact. Don’t mistake not spending a ton of money as Cooks not having a decent season. Belichick is not a believer in paying market prices for someone who isn’t Tom Brady and I’m sure he was aware of the WR contracts happening.

You are really reaching here. 

What team does he play for now?

[Mr. Scot]

4 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Belichick didn’t resign Welker either, so was he a disappointment for the Patriots? You don’t get Bill, he rarely if ever pays top FA money unless the player is the best at their position, i.e. Brady or Gronk. Was Solder disappointing as a Patriot? What team does he play for now?

We can go all day at this. The 100% certainty I have is that in 2018 WRs are not devalued and it’s almost silly to point to 9 WRs drafted in the first round (10% of all first rounders) the last three years after a historic 2014 WR draft as proof when a few were reaches in meh WR draft classes.

Watkins gets a huge deal and 13 of the top 15 WR contracts were signed in 2017 or 2018.

Here are the number of positions with players getting $13M per year or more aside from QBs:

0: C, TE, FB, K, P

1: G, RB, S

4: T

5: LB

7: DE

8: DT, CB

12: WR (all signed in last two years or this offseason)

Still think WR is devalued?

Welker was old and frequently injured when they let him go. Cooks is in his prime.

As to Solder, being lost to free agency isn't the same as being traded away. Trading a guy elsewhere doesn't exactly say "we value your contribution to this team".

And we've already discussed what being devalued means, so yes.

[Mr. Scot]

8 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Ok, well if you’re going to ignore what NFL teams are doing based on one move Belichick did even though you ignore that the same guy traded a first for Cooks last year then there’s no point. I’ll say it again Belichick traded pick 32 for Cooks and a 1000 yard season later got pick 23 for him. Why? Well, Cooks will be getting $15M per season in 2019. The Rams basically said they want Cooks as their #1 and Belichick did what he did because he doesn’t want to pay Cooks the market rate. You are trying to make it seem like Cooks was a disappointment, which is completely wrong.

You might not want to take everything you read as gospel. The talking heads go with one game trends and say Philly won because of FA WRs even though Jeffrey had less than 800 yards, they traded Smith away and were middle of the pack passing wise yet top 3 rushing and top 4 defensively. WRs are not devalued and you are just covering your ears like a child.

Disagreeing with you is "covering my ears like a child"?

Sheesh.  This is not even a topic to get emotional about. 

There are quite a few people who have talked about how the receiver position is starting to be devalued in the NFL.  I've quoted a few of them, but they're not alone.  Me.  I see it as something that will probably pay out even more in the years to come, but like everything else in the NFL, it's cyclical.  Runningbacks have been devalued too, though there's signs they may be coming back.

Again though, this is a topic about a general NFL trend.  What's the point of getting upset over it?

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, rayzor said:

i would say that 2000 through 2017....more or less the modern era of football...would be sufficient, and thanks in advance for doing it if you do. my curiosity is getting to me here.

 

Because the data was so easy to mine, I went ahead and gathered it from the advent of the 16 game regular season schedule. The trends over that period are obvious.

 

The 2000-2017 data really doesn't show that there has been much movement based on the criteria you were curious about. It is pretty much a wash, overall. 

[Mr. Scot]

If you wanna take that a step further, take a look at when rule changes were enacted.

The "emphasis on illegal contact" enforcement for example started in 2004, if I recall correctly.

[kungfoodude]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

If you wanna take that a step further, take a look at when rule changes were enacted.

The "emphasis on illegal contact" enforcement for example started in 2004, if I recall correctly.

Even if you chop off 2000-2004 it would be a pretty static. I don't know that the 100+ reception and 1000+ yard criteria really shows a lot as far as what we were looking for. It's certainly interesting.

I am not sure how to best show that trend over time. Maybe by setting the thresholds much, much lower to see the trend of overall production increases. But, you might just be able to see that by taking a look at total offense and looking at the trend of passing yards to WR's or passing yards to WR's as a percentage of total offense. You would need to graph the percentage of total offense(Running vs. Passing) and see if it matched or perhaps the percentage of offense to WR's was at a higher rate than that. Even so, it might be difficult to isolate the "#1 WR" from that data. That could take some considerable crunching and establishing criteria.