Street Talk

BEHIND THE NUMBERS: A Little Reminder When Drafting a Wide Receiver

by Scot Kleinfeld

April 24, 2009
4:00 am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The 2009 NFL draft is just a day away. You often hear that drafting a wide receiver in the first round is a bad idea and the Ravens draft history reflects their belief in this mantra. Only twice since 1996 have the Ravens used a first round draft pick on a WR. But what you don’t hear about is the percentage of top WRs that were drafted within the top three rounds.

If you look at the top-20 ranked WRs by total yardage for the 2008 regular season, you will see the vast majority were drafted in the 3rd round or higher.

Top-20 ranked WRs for 2008

Name	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Draft slot
1. Andre Johnson	115	1575	8	1^st rd / 3^rd pick
2. Larry Fitzgerald	96	1431	12	1^st rd / 3^rd pick
3. Steve Smith	78	1421	6	3^rd rd / 12^th pick
4. Roddy White	88	1382	7	1^st rd / 27^th pick
5. Calvin Johnson	78	1331	12	1^st rd / 2^nd pick
6. Greg Jennings	80	1292	9	2^nd rd / 20^th pick
7. Brandon Marshall	104	1265	6	4^th rd / 22^nd pick
8. Antonio Bryant	83	1248	7	2^nd rd / 31^st pick
9. Wes Welker	111	1165	3	Undrafted
10. Reggie Wayne	82	1145	6	1^st rd / 30^th pick
11. Vincent Jackson	59	1098	7	2^nd rd / 29^th pick
12. Tony Gonzalez	96	1058	10	1^st rd / 13^th pick
13. Terrell Owens	69	1052	10	3^rd rd / 28^th pick
14. Santana Moss	79	1044	6	1^st rd / 16^th pick
15. Hines Ward	81	1043	7	3^rd rd / 31^st pick
16. Anquan Boldin	89	1038	11	2^nd rd / 22^nd pick
17. Derrick Mason	80	1037	5	4^th rd / 2^nd pick
18. Dwayne Bowe	86	1022	7	1^st rd / 23^rd pick
19. Lee Evans	63	1017	3	1^st rd / 13^th pick
20. Donald Driver	74	1012	5	7^th rd / 7^th pick

A closer look at the draft slots above will reveal the following: 9/20 (45%) taken in the first round, 4/20 (20%) taken in the second round, 3/20 (15%) taken in the third round and 4/20 (20%) taken in the fourth round or later. In summary, of the top-20 ranked wide receivers, 80% were drafted in the third round or higher.

The Ravens average draft slot when taking a WR is the 4th round or even more precisely the 125th pick in the draft. They have taken WRs in the 5th round or later six times and in the 4th round or later an astounding 10 times.

When watching the draft this weekend, you should hope any WR taken by the Ravens is before the 4th round.

Otherwise history suggests it will be the same old imperfect storm that we’ve grown accustomed to when the Ravens, wide receivers and the NFL Draft converge.

Scot Kleinfeld

Scot is a Baltimore native, a Towson University graduate, and has followed sports since the early 1980's. Scot likes to go inside the numbers and get the real "411" on the wins and losses, hence his Behind The Numbers column. Besides being an avid sports fan, Scot has been involved with televison sports production as an Associate Producer since 1993 for WMAR, ESPN, ESPNU,ESPN2, and the former Home Team Sports network. In addition to his television work Scot has written articles for Baltimore Magazine, Lacrosse Magazine and Patuxent Publishing. These experiences make him a natural as the creator of the Media Watchdog, another of SK's fine contributions.