Has DeVonta Smith Topped Ja’Marr Chase as Top…

We begin this week at the end—the end of our Quick Reads tables, that is. Scroll down to the very bottom of this article and you’ll find that our least valuable wide receiver of Week 9 was Cincinnati Bengals rookie Ja’Marr Chase, who had six catches for 49 yards and a fumble against Cleveland. Meanwhile, if you scroll up a little higher you’ll see that the top receiver of the week was another rookie, Philadelphia’s DeVonta Smith, who put up a 5-116-1 statline against the Chargers. With Smith and Chase bookending the week’s receiving tables, we thought it would be a good idea to check in on this season’s most notable first-year wide receivers, as we did last week for quarterbacks.

There are six rookies who have gained at least 300 receiving yards so far in 2021. Five were taken in the first round, the other in the second. Here they are, in the order they were drafted … which means we aren’t starting with a wide receiver at all.

Technically, Pitts is a tight end, not a wideout, although the line between those two designations gets blurrier all the time. Pitts’ size—6-foot-6 and 248 pounds—makes it especially difficult to label him as one or the other. That’s much larger than the average wide receiver last year (6-foot-1, 202 pounds) and more in line with the average tight end (6-foot-5, 252 pounds). However, Pitts is fairly skinny for his height, with a BMI of 28.7. Only a handful of tight ends (such as Logan Thomas, Dalton Schultz, and Robert Tonyan) saw meaningful playing time with a BMI that low. Meanwhile, several notable wideouts (Terry McLaurin, Juju Smith-Schuster, Allen Robinson, and Davante Adams, to name a few) had BMIs of 28.0 or higher.

Regardless, we’re counting Pitts as a tight end, and he’s a fine one. Going into Monday Night Football this week, he is eighth at the position in receptions and third in yards. Our advanced stats like him too—he’s fifth among tight ends in DYAR. (In first place: Dallas’ Dalton Schultz, Pitts’ beanpole peer.)

There’s no doubt that Pitts is the top rookie tight end this season; the only question is whether he can threaten any all-time records. Pitts is already tied with Rob Gronkowski for 25th on the rookie tight end yardage list. He’s over halfway to the rookie record of 1,076 yards set by Mike Ditka in 1961, the only time a first-year tight end has ever hit quadruple-digits. He would need to average 58.9 yards in each of Atlanta’s nine remaining games to match Ditka. Pitts’ current average? 68.3 yards per game. Yes, the 17-game season certainly helps—Ditka averaged 76.9 yards in 14 games in his first year.

Pitts is also chasing Gronkowski for the rookie tight end DYAR record. Gronk had 243 DYAR with the Patriots in 2010; Ken Dilger (205 DYAR with the Colts in 1995) is the only other player at the position to top 200 DYAR in his first season. The biggest difference between Gronkowski and Pitts right now is touchdowns—Gronk had 10 as a freshman, while Pitts has just one in his first eight games. That probably says more about the 2010 Patriots and 2021 Falcons than it does about Gronkowski and Pitts, but we’re pretty sure that everyone in Atlanta would be happy to see Pitts in the end zone more often.

Speaking of DYAR, we should also point out that Pitts has gained 11 DYAR this year due to opponent adjustments. That’s not a ton, but it does make his raw stats more impressive, because it means Pitts has been putting up big numbers against defenses that are slightly better than average in coverage against tight ends. 

Oh, how things have turned around for Chase. Two weeks ago he was among the top 20 wide receivers in DYAR and threatening to join Michael Thomas (431 DYAR in 2016) and Randy Moss (428 in 1998) as the only rookie wideouts to clear the 400-DYAR threshold. Then Chase caught three of nine targets for 32 yards in the upset loss to the Jets, followed by a six-of-13-for-49-yard performance in a blowout against the Browns. That drops Chase all the way down to … 22nd among wide receivers in DYAR and still first by a wide margin among rookies. He’s doing just fine, in other words—finishing with 200 or so DYAR and a DVOA around 5.0% would put him in rookie company with Bill Brooks and Ernest Givins in 1986, or Andre Johnson and Anquan Boldin in 2003.

That’s an impressive list of names, but it’s also only four names spread out over nearly four decades, and none in the past 18 years. It’s not common to see a rookie post a DYAR as good as Chase’s with a DVOA that is so mundane. It means that Chase is getting gobs of volume—he’s on pace for 138 targets, more than any rookie since Kelvin Benjamin in 2014. More importantly, he’s on pace for 1,577 yards. That would shatter the all-time rookie pro football record, which is either 1,473 by Bill Groman with the Oilers in 1960 (if you count the first year of the AFL as pro football) or 1,400 on the nose by Justin Jefferson last year (if you don’t).

So no, the sky is not falling, and there’s no reason to think Chase won’t be a star for years to come. Even the best rookies have bad games once in a while.

Waddle’s numbers are disappointing on the surface and look even worse when you consider that the Dolphins traded up for him while the Eagles came out of the deal with better draft capital as well as DeVonta Smith, who so far looks like the superior former Crimson Tide wide receiver. (The Eagles also probably have the superior former Crimson Tide quarterback, but that’s an essay for another day.) Waddle was the nation’s most dangerous player after the catch at Tuscaloosa, but he has learned that NFL defenders are much faster than those in college football (yes, even in the SEC). He is averaging only 4.1 yards after the catch, less than the 4.4-yard average of NFL wide receivers this year, and has 15 failed receptions, second among wideouts to the 19 of the Chargers’ Keenan Allen. That includes this play against the Raiders, which is about as big a failure of a failed reception you’ll ever see:

That’s 2 and the ball 🙏@show_case29 was all over that for the safety.#MIAvsLV | Live on CBS pic.twitter.com/H4AbJkxw6b

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) September 26, 2021

Waddle is currently averaging more than 6.0 catches per game but less than 9.0 yards per catch. Per Stathead, only four other wide receivers have ever gained so little real estate with so much opportunity. (It’s a list that also includes Cole Beasley this year and JuJu Smith-Schuster last year—the death-by-a-thousand-checkdowns offense is a new and unwelcome development in the game of football.)

Only 11 wideouts have ever finished their first seasons with 50-plus targets and single-digit DYAR. The last to do it was Marquez Valdes-Scandling in 2018, and he turned out alright. Robert Woods did it too, in 2013. In between those two, you find the Carolina duo of Devin Funchess in 2015 and Kelvin Benjamin in 2014, plus Arizona’s John Brown also in 2014. That … is an eclectic mix of receivers with very little in common. But it offers at least some hope that the best for Waddle is yet to come.

Smith is flying under the radar somewhat because his best games have come in losses. He had seven catches for 122 yards in defeat against the Chiefs and five for 116 in Sunday’s loss to the Chargers. Unfortunately that’s nearly 45% of his output on the season—he has averaged just 42.7 yards in his other seven games. Put it all together, however, and Smith has performed like a quality veteran starter. In the DYAR rankings, he’s a little below Deebo Samuel and Mike Williams, and a little above Stefon Diggs and Julio Jones—not bad company, even if some of those vets aren’t having their best years.

Smith is on pace to finish with 164 DYAR and a 5.3% DVOA. Those almost exactly match the numbers Andre Johnson (169 DYAR, 5.4% DVOA) had as a rookie in 2003. Otherwise, as we discussed with Chase, it’s difficult to find historical comparisons to this year’s rookies. Again, it’s the workload that sets them apart. Smith is on pace for 117 targets. That’s less than the 125 that Justin Jefferson had last year, but more than any other rookie since 2016.

Speaking of flying under the radar, how many of you realized that Toney had a better DVOA than either Chase or Smith? (Put your hand down, Daniel Jones.) Mind you, Toney has been playing in drastically different circumstances than his peers. While Chase and Smith have been the unquestioned top wideouts for the Bengals and Eagles, Toney has mostly been a third receiver for the Giants behind Sterling Shepard and Kenny Golladay, when they have been healthy. He has also been very much a one-game wonder, with 10 catches for 189 yards (18.9 yards per reception) in a blowout loss to the Cowboys, 18 catches for 163 yards (9.1 yards per reception) in his other seven games.

Toney has been very good, however, at getting the Giants to midfield. Inside his own 40-yard line, he has 75 DYAR (11th-best among all wideouts) with a 41.2% DVOA. He hasn’t been nearly so dangerous beyond that point (-9 DYAR, -18.7% DVOA), but at least the Giants have one player they can rely on after forcing a punt.

Our metrics really likes Toney’s efficiency, even at a lighter workload. Recent rookies who finished with DVOA and DYAR similar to Toney’s projections include Deebo Samuel in 2019, Brandin Cooks in 2014, and DeAndre Hopkins in 2013. He’s one to watch, that’s for sure.

Kliff Kingsbury has turned Moore into the player the Dolphins wanted Waddle to be: a gadget weapon who can put a scare into defenses with only the faintest hint of a downfield passing game. His average depth of target this year is a miniscule 2.4 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, less than half that of any other wideout. And that number is skewed by the five deep balls he has seen—his median depth of target is 1.5 yards behind the line of scrimmage. But he leads all players at the position with 9.5 yards after the catch per reception, and in total YAC he trails only Deebo Samuel, Cooper Kupp, and Chris Godwin. Oh, and his total production on those five deep balls: 139 yards and a touchdown.

If there’s a downside to Moore, it’s that he’s no longer catching opponents off-guard—he had 11 catches for 182 yards (16.6 yards per catch) in Weeks 1 and 2, 23 catches for 170 yards (7.4 yards per catch)—and exactly zero DYAR—in seven games since. And if you thought Toney benefitted from being the third receiver in New York, consider that Moore has been the fifth weapon (behind DeAndre Hopkins, Christian Kirk, A.J. Green, and the tight end, whether it be Maxx Williams or the newly acquired Zach Ertz) in Arizona.

Though he’s trending downwards, for the time being Moore projects to finish with about 80 DYAR and a DVOA close to average. Those are numbers that also describe the rookie seasons of CeeDee Lamb in 2020, Tyreek Hill in 2016, Sammy Watkins in 2014, Emmanuel Sanders in 2010, and Calvin Johnson in 2007. Few players have ever lasted in the NFL with such a limited route tree, but then there are a lot of things going on in the desert this year that we have rarely seen before.