Michael Clayton and a few other wide receivers are brought up consistently by the anti-Odell Beckham at 1.01 crowd as we look ahead to 2015. One part of my gluttonous excel database includes an age curve for wide receivers dating back to the early 1990s. The wide receivers on that list, 161 of them currently, are not just any receivers. They have eclipsed one of the following benchmarks in their NFL career: had a 1,000-yard season or produced VBD. These are the best of NFL and fantasy football over the past 25-ish years.
Of those 161 top receivers in the database, 16 of them had a season of at least 14 PPR PPG in their age 21 or age 22 season. These are the phenoms of the NFL and at least WR2-caliber performers in fantasy. While I was not closely tracking dynasty value, ADP, and the like when at least half the list was busting out when they could barely drink, I have a feeling all were highly-valuable dynasty commodities at the time in relation to their older peers.
Here are a few different tidbits regarding the list as a whole:
Odell Beckham tops the list for best season of any wide receiver at age 21-22 at 23.7 PPR PPG. Josh Gordon’s 22.5 PPG at 22 years old is second.
Many of the 22-year-old standouts were WR3 or lower at age 21, if they were in the NFL. Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Josh Gordon, DeAndre Hopkins, and Larry Fitzgerald are some of the receivers that were in the 9-12 PPG range at 21 years old and built upon that success in their second NFL season.
Randy Moss did a vast majority of his fantasy damage at 26 years of age or younger. He churned out six straight seasons of 16+ PPR PPG to start his NFL career. Then he had two seasons passing that baseline over his final nine years.
Most of the 16 receivers, 11 to be exact, are still writing their fantasy career’s book. Those that are retired include Randy Moss, Terry Glenn, David Boston, Michael Clayton, and Koren Robinson.
Michael Clayton is discussed (in my experience) 10x more often that Koren Robinson as a brief candle of fantasy value before burning out. However, the two had very similar career arcs. Clayton had 15.3 PPG in his age 22 (rookie) season and would not surpass even 7.0 PPG in any other. Koren Robinson emerged with 14.5 PPG at age 22 (following 6.1 PPG as 21-year-old rookie), and had a softer landing with years of 11.9 and 9.3 PPG after his age 22 peak.
Terry Glenn was the classic good but never great fantasy option after a 15.9 PPG age 22 season. He had six more seasons of 12-15 PPG in his career plus another four seasons of 9-10 PPG.
Jeremy Maclin has logged two seasons of 13-14 PPG and a career-high 17.9 PPG since his age 22 breakout.
Hakeem Nicks faded to 15.8 and 11.7 PPG following his 19.3 age 22 peak. He feels like a what-might-have-been with injuries.
Larry Fitzgerald has had 11.4, 14.9, and 11.4 PPG the last three seasons after a solid run of seven seasons between 15.0 and 20.1 PPG. Time is running out, outside of a Randy Moss-like move to an ideal situation, to log more than a single fantasy starter-level season.
David Boston built upon his 14.3 PPG as a 22-year-old with 19.1 the following season, then faded with only two more seasons in double-digits.
Here are the remaining names: Julio Jones, Randall Cobb, Percy Harvin, Odell Beckham, Josh Gordon, Mike Evans, DeAndre Hopkins, and Keenan Allen. It has been two years since Harvin was relevant on a weekly basis. His career outlook is on a swivel based on his 2015 locale.
Julio Jones looks to be on the Larry Fitzgerald and Randy Moss-type track with three straight seasons of 16+ PPG following a strong 22-year-old rookie season.
Josh Gordon is an off-the-field question mark and had 10-11 PPG in his non-2013 seasons.
Randall Cobb could continue on the Fitzgerald-Jones-light track if he sticks in Green Bay this offseason.
Now, we are left with a pair of 2013 rookies and 2014 rookies. DeAndre Hopkins’ opening two years look similar to Jeremy Maclin, Koren Robinson, and Randall Cobb. Keenan Allen has the 4th-best age 21 season (of 13) on this list. His age 22 encore of 12.8 PPG, however, is dead last. In fact, none of the other 12 fell below even 14.3 PPG at age 22. Allen, historically-speaking, looks like a better bet to go the Koren Robinson route than any of the other early producers on the list.
Mike Evans’ age 21 season, at least of the last 25 years worth of receivers, is bested only by Randy Moss and Odell Beckham. Heck, only 3-of-16 hit 16.3 PPG even in their age 22 campaign. Julio Jones had 16.4 PPG at age 23; Percy Harvin 16.6 at age 23.
We plainly have not seen seasons like Odell Beckham at age 21. He was 4.8 PPG better than Randy Moss, 2nd on the list. Basically add Randall Cobb and Randy Moss together at age 21 on a per-game basis and you have Odell Beckham in 2014. Historically, that points to a Moss-Fitzgerald-Julio track…or better, based on career starts.
Here is the age curve for the 16 players combined:
Some of the 16 players are not in the projection model (only goes back to 1999 NFL Draft prospects and even that year is light on official metrics), but here are the metrics of the players available:
Overall Projection Model Scores
- 90 Larry Fitzgerald
- 85 Hakeem Nicks
- 78 David Boston
- 74 Julio Jones
- 73 Keenan Allen
- 66 DeAndre Hopkins
- 66 Koren Robinson
- 64 Odell Beckham
- 64 Randall Cobb
- 58 Michael Clayton
- 52 Mike Evans
- 44 Josh Gordon
- 41 Percy Harvin
- 38 Jeremy Maclin
