Barnwell - Ranking WR, TE, RB Groups in NFL

[TD alt]

13 hours ago, PantherChris said:

Thank you captain obvious 

I mean, people can rate Bryce how they want. I didn't know everyone was rating him the same as me...

[kungfoodude]

On 7/11/2025 at 3:05 PM, t96 said:

Bryce ended last season at least 10x better than his play pre-benching. But that's mainly because of how truly atrocious he was in year 1 and at the beginning of last year. Like just flat out mind bogglingly bad for a 1st overall pick. Sure Reich and the team around him were a shitshow too, but Bryce started out even worse than Clausen was.

His play after the benching showed me he can be an NFL QB, but still very very few hints of the potential to be a legit top tier franchise QB and a guy who can win a SB in anything other than a 2000 Ravens or 2017 Eagles type season where the D is that insanely good, or everything else goes right as in the Eagles case, for example.

I just don't see Bryce being anything more than an efficient game manager at his peak. Nothing about his game says to me that he'll be a player that other teams actually try to game plan for. Could that be enough for us? Maybe, but I would strive for better and would not want to give that type of QB a 2nd contract. We'll see how he does this year with a legit OL, seemingly decent offensive coaching (and consistency there with the staff returning), and now a possible top skill position group too (yes the WRs and TEs are young or coming off injuries but the talent is there and a lot has been invested in the positions). In my view there are no more excuses this year and it's time for him to really put up or shut up. 

5.5-6 out of 10 seems pretty fair, I'd still go lower like 3-3.5, but it was at a negative 10 when he got benched so certainly trending up going into this season.

The bad part is the pivot from Bryce could result in another coaching change, IMO. If we dive into another one of those, I think the downward trend will actually steepen.

Edited 5 hours ago by kungfoodude

[t96]

1 hour ago, kungfoodude said:

The bad part is the pivot from Bryce could result in another coaching change, IMO. If we dive into another one of those, I think the downward trend will actually steepen.

I’d be surprised if Canales didn’t get a chance to handpick a QB before getting the can. But this is Tepper so yeah you’re probably right. Start out 1-3 and Tepper might fire him lol

[mrcompletely11]

5 minutes ago, t96 said:

I’d be surprised if Canales didn’t get a chance to handpick a QB before getting the can. But this is Tepper so yeah you’re probably right. Start out 1-3 and Tepper might fire him lol

I think if DC wins 5ish games this season he probably will get a chance to get his guy in but will be on a super short leash in 2026, which all things considered is pretty reasonable

[TD alt]

22 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

I think if DC wins 5ish games this season he probably will get a chance to get his guy in but will be on a super short leash in 2026, which all things considered is pretty reasonable

I don't think that Tepper would put Canales on a short leash much less a super short one for 2026, in regards to QB that is. I get the feeling that Tepper is learning that patience is necessary in this game and that allowing DC to finally get his guy and put him on a super short leash that very year makes little sense and is a recipe for continued wheel spinning. He'd at least wait until 2027, with 2028 being the cutoff. This is not to say that if the entire team looks like sh¡t this season that Canales and Morgan won't be canned or on a short leash in 2026. That could be considered "reasonable."

Edited 3 hours ago by TD alt

[kungfoodude]

26 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

I think if DC wins 5ish games this season he probably will get a chance to get his guy in but will be on a super short leash in 2026, which all things considered is pretty reasonable

I think the leash will be short, regardless, if he has another "comfortably" losing season. By that I mean, not really ever a threat to be 9-7. 

People forget that Tepper's track record is getting losing HC's out of here ASAP. The chances of him stomaching more than 3 losing seasons is almost zero.

[Icege]

Quote

This is only about 2025 on-field performance. I'm leaving stuff like contract value and long-term projections out of the equation. All I'm concerned with is what each player might do over the 17 games in the upcoming season and what that would look like in a league-average offensive architecture.

To do that, I'm trying to use recent history and other factors to project performance. While aging curves can't be perfectly applied to any one individual player, we know those in their mid-20s are more likely to sustain their performance or grow than similarly productive players in their mid-30s. It's impossible to perfectly project what each 2025 draft pick will do, but I can use the historical performance of players drafted in similar spots to guide our expectations. The best way to project someone such as Raiders wide receiver Jack Bech, the 58th pick in April's draft, is to look at the historical production from wideouts taken toward the end of Round 2.

Injury histories and suspensions matter. I can't see the future, but it would be foolish to not consider a player's recent track record of health in projecting what they might do next season. Tee Higgins is a star on a snap-by-snap basis, but he also has missed 10 games over the past two seasons with lower-leg injuries. Christian McCaffrey has been an MVP hopeful when healthy, but he has missed huge chunks of three of the past five seasons. I'm treating players such as Higgins and McCaffrey with a wider range of outcomes than guys such as CeeDee Lamb or Najee Harris, who have much better track records of staying healthy.

I don't know exactly how league investigations will pan out, but for a player such as Jordan Addison, there appears to be a clear risk of a potential suspension because of an upcoming court case. On the other hand, I'm not expecting potential hold-ins such as Terry McLaurin to miss meaningful time.

Wide receivers are weighted more heavily than running backs or tight ends. In the current NFL, the high point for a running back or tight end in terms of average salary is Saquon Barkley's new deal, which pays him $20 million per season.

Twenty-one different wide receivers have average salaries north of that mark. Eight wideouts make $30 million or more on their deals. This is a league that, even after spectacular seasons by a number of backs last season, still leans heavily toward valuing wide receivers over their brethren.

As a result, these rankings value elite wide receivers over elite running backs and tight ends. Outside of the true superstar backs and tight ends, the league also values very good and even above-average wideouts over most halfbacks and inline tight ends. I'll generally lean toward teams with better depth charts at wide receiver over teams whose talents are focused at running back and tight end, although I'm not going to ignore offenses that have great backs and tight ends.

The focus is on elite players and a team's top five contributors. Having great depth doesn't hurt, but if you gave NFL teams $50 million to work with at wide receiver, most would prefer to add Justin Jefferson and a few solid players around him than, say, five wideouts who make $10 million per year. Teams can win with the latter formula, as the Chiefs did without a recognized top wideout in 2022 and 2023, but that's much harder to do without Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce elsewhere on the roster.

Since teams can field five playmakers at a time, my focus here is on the five best players each team can line up at running back, wide receiver and tight end, with a further emphasis on the top playmaker for each team. I considered players outside that top five as tiebreakers between two close teams and I might mention them below, but the emphasis is on the guys who expect to see the most snaps.

I found ESPN's advanced receiver tracking metrics to be helpful in evaluating players independent of their quarterbacks; you can find details on how they're calculated here. No number is perfect, so I tried to align what the data suggested with what I saw from watching these players during the past few years on film.

With so many talented young wideouts flooding the league over these past few years, there aren't any truly bereft teams in the way there might have been toward the bottom of the rankings in previous years. That's good news for the 32nd-ranked team, which will hope to make life easier for the top player taken in April's draft

I really appreciate Bill explaining his methodology here because that gives interested parties a chance to try and recreate the results themselves.

I believe that it's safe to assume that despite emphasis being placed on WRs that Chuba Hubbard is one of the Panthers' top-5 weapons. Considering targets, yardage, receptions, etc... Adam Thielen and Xavier Legette are also on the list. Jalen Coker's success might have snuck him in there as well.

I can't draw a conclusion on who #5 is though. I've narrowed it down to Diontae Johnson, David Moore, Ja'Tavion Sanders, and possibly Rico Dowdle if they're taking into account his production for the Cowboys in 2024.

[CRA]

2 hours ago, TD alt said:

I don't think that Tepper would put Canales on a short leash much less a super short one for 2026, in regards to QB that is. I get the feeling that Tepper is learning that patience is necessary in this game and that allowing DC to finally get his guy and put him on a super short leash that very year makes little sense and is a recipe for continued wheel spinning. He'd at least wait until 2027, with 2028 being the cutoff. This is not to say that if the entire team looks like sh¡t this season that Canales and Morgan won't be canned or on a short leash in 2026. That could be considered "reasonable."

There are zero indications that Tepper has learned patience.  He is running 2 professional sports teams and patience is not a trademark of anything he does. 

Tepper was ready to move on from Bryce Young last season after 2 games.  Injury altered that.  

the least shocking thing ever would be for Tepper to fire Dean Smith at the conclusion of this year w/ FC if this miss the postseason and Dan Morgan at the conclusion of this year if the WRs don't pan out this year.  

[CRA]

2 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

I think the leash will be short, regardless, if he has another "comfortably" losing season. By that I mean, not really ever a threat to be 9-7. 

People forget that Tepper's track record is getting losing HC's out of here ASAP. The chances of him stomaching more than 3 losing seasons is almost zero.

He has Morgan on sort of an island with a lot of Fitterer's baggage.  He can dump Morgan and give DC one final hail mary attempt.   That's why I don't like the current setup.  Because that new GM won't be all in with Dave in that.