Charles Johnson Vs. The World

In 1996, Chris Ofili used elephant dung in the making of his painting The Holy Virgin Mary (which recently sold for $4.6 million).  In 1985, Dr. Emmett Brown made a time machine out of a DeLorean (Did you know that Back To The Future is banned in China for depicting time travel?).  Recently, an Australian teenager plotted to set loose a kangaroo strapped with plastic explosives, as part of ISIS plot to cause mayhem (Awesome?  Well, we have mixed feelings).  Finally, at some point in the late 1990s (For some reason I can't recall the exact date), I made a bong out of Legos.

I guess what I am trying to suggest here is that people sometimes find peculiar ways to utilize the resources they have at their disposal.

In a similar manner, we often have to wonder about the way that NFL teams choose to make use of the talent on their rosters.  While I could rant for days about offensive linemen, and my continued faith in the neglected and potentially misunderstood Eric Kush, that probably isn't a subject that interests many people.  Instead, we will focus today on the wide receiver position, which has a bit more flash to it.

Despite our attempts to try to quantify a player's abilities, and predict NFL success, we always struggle with the fact that we can't guarantee that someone will get an opportunity.  We still believe that Da'Rick Rogers was a legitimate NFL talent.  The statistics that are available from his brief appearances encourage us to believe that he was a superior player to his former Tennessee teammates Cordarelle Patterson and Justin Hunter, whom we had very little faith in.  Unfortunately, NFL coaches seemed to feel that Da'Rick was a bit of an asshole, a consideration our calculations don't really account for.  Skill doesn't trump a winning personality, evidently.

We also still believe that the Jets should have taken Ryan Spadola (who?) a bit more seriously, rather than continuing to give opportunities to Stephen Hill, whom we felt was probably doomed to fail.  While betting on an undrafted white wide receiver from Lehigh might seem a bit foolish, Spadola's pre-season statistics in 2013 were quite encouraging.  At this point, however, he may never escape the depths of a practice squad.  C'est la vie.

These are things that will always be beyond our control.  Still, we wanted to take another look at one of our other long-shot receivers, who is still dancing on the edge of semi-relevance.  So, we thought we would turn our gaze back to the frustrating subject of Vikings' wide receiver Charles Johnson.


Charles Johnson Vs. Mike Wallace

There are limits to how much we want to criticize Vikings' wide receiver Mike Wallace.  After all, he was one our preferred wide receiver prospects in the 2009 NFL Draft.  While he has his strengths and weaknesses, we thought at the time that his chances of success were reasonably good.  It's true, his salary may have eventually ballooned beyond what we feel is reasonable, but that isn't really what we are here to discuss.

Instead, we are mainly interested in the complicated situation that arose when the Vikings traded for him, prior to the 2015 season.  This worried us because of the way in which his arrival seemed poised to interfere with the possible continuing emergence of our other weird prospect Charles Johnson, who was starting to show some signs of life in 2014.

The reason for this concern, was that both players have mostly appeared to thrive in the role of an intermediate-to-deep range receiver.  Wallace wasn't likely to interfere with the short range role of someone like Jarius Wright.  That's simply not a role where Wallace's strengths appear to lie.  Instead, he was most likely to cut into the playing time for Johnson, which would sort of put a crimp in our deranged plans.

What's frustrating about this, is the question of whether Wallace was really a desirable enough acquisition, at this point in his career, to deserve bumping Johnson out of the way.  How much of Wallace's desirability hinged on his past successes, and reputation for being a deep threat?  How much of this reputation was still justifiable?

While judging a receiver based on his average yards per catch (YPC) is a fairly stupid thing to do, it does appear a bit odd how his numbers have steadily declined in this area, especially after the 2011 season.  From 2012 onward, his numbers have been, at best, rather pedestrian.

We can possibly lay some of the blame for this at the feet of quarterbacks like Teddy Bridgewater and Ryan Tannehill, whom he played with from 2013-2015, but that may not explain the entire situation.  Even in 2012, with Roethlisberger throwing the ball, Wallace's numbers already appeared to be slipping.  His usefulness as a deep threat may have already been eroding.

Like I said, judging a receiver based on YPC probably isn't a great idea.  So, let's instead look at the above chart to see his annual Yards Per Pass Route Run (YPRR).  Despite my occasional criticisms of PFF, I think YPRR might be a reasonably useful statistic.  It has its flaws, but is better than some of the alternatives.  It's basically a very simple sort of measure of a receiver's efficiency on a per play basis.  A YPRR over 2, generally suggests that a player was having a rather rare and exceptional year.  A YPRR under 1, might mean that a player is really just on the fringe of being useful.

We should probably mention that we calculate YPRR slightly differently from the folks at PFF, as they throw out certain plays for mysterious unknown reasons, while we don't.  Despite that, the differences in our results are very minor.  I have some nagging issues with YPRR, but that's a subject for another day.

Nonetheless, Wallace's numbers here would suggest that his only really exceptional years might have come in 2010 and 2011.  Beyond that, he was probably playing at a level that we might associate with a team's 2nd or 3rd receiver, which still isn't a bad thing at all, as long as he is being paid in a manner that fits those expectations.  Then we come to his 2015 season with the Vikings, where his numbers really went into the toilet.

The question is, could we have predicted this outcome in 2015?  I can't really say that this is the case.  While there are issues related to the Vikings' offensive system, and the effectiveness of Teddy Bridgewater, I probably wouldn't have expected Wallace's effectiveness to plummet to this degree.  Another year or two of solid but unspectacular production from Wallace probably wasn't an unrealistic thing to bet on.  This sort of rapid decline was probably unforeseeable.

Of course, there is the other question of whether maintaining his plateau of "good, but not great" performances, was something that the Vikings should have been investing in.  By trading with the Dolphins, to acquire Wallace's services, they also had to take on his salary of $9.9 million for 2015 (which goes up to $11.5 million for 2016 and 2017).  It's been quite a while since a salary of that sort was even halfway reasonable for what Wallace delivered on the field, which brings us to the real issue that interests us.  Would the team have been better off continuing to give playing time to Charles Johnson (who had a $510 thousand salary) instead?

I think comparing the statistics for these two players, prior to the 2015 season, is kind of interesting.  While no individual stat can undeniably answer the question of "Who is the better player?", it may at least spark some debate over what factors the team was considering (or not considering), when they made their decision to trade for Wallace.

Let's start by just examining some of their results from the 2014 season, side by side.  We will include their Catch % (the percentage of plays in which they caught the pass, when targeted), Drop % (percentage of passes dropped), YPC (Yards Per Catch), YPT (Yards Per Target), YPRR (Yards Per Route Run) and Target % (percentage of passing plays they were on the field for,  where they were targeted by their quarterback).

2014
Player	Catch%	Drop %	YPC	YPT	YPRR	Target%
M. Wallace	62.03	3.70	12.86	7.98	1.60	21.14
C. Johnson	56.36	1.81	15.35	8.65	1.65	19.09

While there are some differences between these two players, I feel they are at best relatively minor.  When it came to Drop %, YPC, YPT and YPRR, Charles Johnson had the advantage.  For Wallace, he seemed to take the lead when it came to catch rate and percentage of plays where he was targeted.  Personally, we think that the difference in individual catch rate can partially be explained by the depth at which the players caught their passes, since deeper passes tend to be lower probability plays.  That would perhaps work in Johnson's favor to some degree.  We also have to remember that 2014 was effectively Johnson's rookie season, for whatever that is worth.  Regardless, we could spin these numbers quite a bit further, but in the end, the question is fairly simple.  Do you believe there was a significant amount of evidence to separate these two players?

So, as we feared, Mike Wallace's 2015 arrival in Minnesota did appear to have a rather dramatic impact on Charles Johnson's playing time (just 94 passing snaps for Johnson, versus Wallace's 517).  Instead of potentially becoming the team's primary receiver, Johnson turned into a ghost, only being targeted by his team's quarterback in 6 games, and spending most of his time on the bench.  This extremely limited playing time makes a direct comparison of their individual numbers in 2015 a bit more unreliable.  Still, we think the statistics are worth looking at.

2015
Player	Catch%	Drop %	YPC	YPT	YPRR	Target%
M. Wallace	57.97	5.79	12.07	7.00	0.93	13.34
C. Johnson	69.23	0.00	14.11	9.76	1.35	13.82

While we can only speculate on how more playing time would have affected Johnson's numbers, for better or for worse, these results paint a peculiar picture.  In every single category, Johnson appears to have been outperforming Wallace.  Despite that, the team rarely felt it was worth putting Johnson on the field.

None of this is meant to suggest that Johnson would have had a monstrous season if he had played more, because I don't think that is likely.  Still, considering the near parity of their individual Target % results, we could somewhat reasonably propose that Johnson quite likely would have out-produced Wallace in 2015 if given an equal opportunity.  In the end, Wallace finished the season with 40 receptions for 483 yards (when we include the post-season).  If we extrapolate from Johnson's limited 2015 data,  this might have worked out to something like 49.5 receptions for 698 yards if Johnson had been given a similar opportunity, and his other numbers had remained steady.  Of course, this is all a bit speculative.

That would work out to a possible 23.7% improvement in receptions, and a 44.5% improvement in receiving yards, over Wallace's 2015 results.  It would have also put Johnson's productivity into a range that we consider to be slightly above average, relative to most NFL wide receivers, which is all that we are really hoping to find.

Or, perhaps you think Johnson's results from his limited 2015 snaps wouldn't have remained fixed at their current position.  I would actually agree with you on this. Because of the limited sample size of Johnson's snaps this year (again, just 94 passing snaps for Johnson, versus Wallace's 517), it's very hard to say how steady his results would have remained in a larger role.  Personally, I suspect Johnson's 2015 catch rate would have dropped a bit, if he had been a bigger focus of his team's offense.  On the other hand, I think the rate at which Johnson was targeted probably would have risen slightly, if he was serving as his team's primary or secondary receiver, rather than their fourth or fifth option.  If we just averaged out Johnson's 2014 and 2015 results, we might see him with a catch rate of 62.79%, a target percentage of 16.46%, and a YPC of 14.73 yards.  By receiving Wallace's 517 snaps on passing plays (including the post-season), this would result in Johnson possibly generating 53.4 receptions (a 33.4% improvement over Wallace's results) for a total of 787 yards (a 62.9% improvement over Wallace).  Again, this is just speculation, but I don't think these projections are terribly unreasonable.

Or, maybe we are completely nuts.  Perhaps Charles Johnson would have performed as poorly as Mike Wallace.  I certainly can't see any reason to suspect that Johnson would have done any worse than Wallace, but we're open to this possibility.  Johnson still would have had the advantage of costing about 1/19th of Wallace's 2015 salary, as well as retaining the 5th round draft pick that was traded to the Dolphins to acquire Wallace.

I guess what I'm wondering here is, why wasn't Johnson at least worked into the rotation a bit more, considering how poorly Wallace was performing?  It's seems doubtful that he could have done any worse, and most of the numbers would suggest that he might have performed better than Wallace, and at a much lower price.


Charles Johnson Vs. Stefon Diggs

We have no ax to grind when it comes to Stefon Diggs, but we probably have to throw him into this discussion as well.  While Diggs didn't make the cut, when we were putting together our list of 2015 Draft prospects whom we felt had a good chance of becoming successes in the NFL, we're always open to the possibility of someone slipping through the cracks and exceeding our expectations.  These things happen, from time to time.

While we felt that Diggs had too many risks associated with him to merit a draft pick, we can't deny that he did appear to become a productive player.  He also managed to generate a fair bit of hype.  So, we thought we should take a closer look at his 2015 results, in the same categories we just examined for Mike Wallace and Charles Johnson.

2015
Player	Catch%	Drop %	YPC	YPT	YPRR	Target%
S. Diggs.	67.46	2.4	13.32	8.98	1.65	18.44

Now, just for the sake of argument, go back and compare Diggs' 2015 results to Charles Johnson's 2014 results.  That way we are looking at two players, both of whom are effectively playing as rookies, and who both received a respectable amount of playing time.  In the end, I think it is kind of funny how eerily similar their results actually are, with the only notable difference being their catch rate.  Despite that, there seems to be a different set of expectations that some people hold about their individual futures.

Let's take things a bit further though.  While people seem rather optimistic about Stefon Diggs' future, there are some weird issues with his 2015 results which I think are worth commenting on.  In Diggs' first four NFL games, he had 25 receptions for 419 yards, which averages out to a ridiculous 104.75 yards per game.  In his next 10 games, he produced 31 receptions for 327 yards, or 32.7 yards per game.  There is obviously a rather huge difference in these results, so let's look at his results from these two periods of the 2015 season.

	Catch%	Drop %	YPC	YPT	YPRR	Target%
1st 4 games	69.44	2.77	16.76	11.63	3.05	26.27
last 10 games	65.95	2.12	10.54	6.95	1.04	15.01

While some might argue that Diggs' numbers dropped simply because he was being targeted less frequently in those final 10 games, which is true, I don't think that necessarily explains what is happening here.  After all, it is hard to explain this drop in the rate at which he was targeted, unless some other Vikings' receiver was suddenly becoming a more appealing option, or if opponents started to account for Diggs and shut him down.  The other concern for me is the question of why his YPC (a 37.2% drop) and YPT (a 40.3% drop) have plummeted to such a ridiculous degree.

So, what are we supposed to believe that the future holds for Stefon Diggs?  Do we bet on him returning to the shockingly good 3.05 YPRR we saw in his first four games?  Or, do we bet on the larger sample size of his final ten games, and the rather disappointing 1.04 YPRR he displayed there?  The funny thing about this is that many people seem willing to criticize Mike Wallace (deservedly so) for having a disappointing season, while ignoring the fact that for over 70% of the season Diggs' results really weren't significantly better.  Despite these concerns, we wouldn't argue with the Vikings using Diggs as a starting wide receiver.  After all, it's entirely possible that he was one of the team's better options. 

While I have no real stake in how any of this plays out, I'd have to stick to our initial hunch regarding Diggs.  His numbers in college made us quite wary of him, and so far the bulk of his playing time hasn't persuaded us to change our mind about how things will turn out in the long run.  Those results from his final 10 games are probably closer to what we would have expected of him.  We'll have to wait and see what happens next year.


I guess I've been rambling a bit...

Maybe this all seems a bit pointless.

Perhaps it is a bit odd that we would be focused on such a player, whom we admittedly don't feel was likely to enter into the discussion of the league's most productive receivers.  Then again, we have some doubts that anybody was likely to do so, playing in the Vikings offense.  The team's stubborn focus on giving Adrian Peterson the ball, as well as some possible issues with Bridgewater's development, probably aren't ideal factors for a record setting season by a receiver.

While we have admittedly had some hopes in the past that Charles Johnson could emerge as the next late-round or undrafted receiver to earn comparisons to Victor Cruz, Marques Colston, Wes Welker or Rod Smith, it's entirely possible that this will never happen.  Maybe Johnson will just become a good, somewhat above average receiver, which would still be an excellent outcome for a former 7th round draft pick.  Maybe he won't.  Who really knows?

All we can really say is that whatever potential he might possess won't be discovered by having him sit on the bench, while the players ahead of him continue to under-perform.  The possibility that prime years in a potentially talented player's career might be getting squandered somewhat irritates us.  There's really only a small window where these players are likely to shine, after all.

It would be nice to think that all the talented players eventually rise up to gain the attention of their coaches, but we have our doubts about this.  For every Cameron Wake, who goes undrafted and gets bounced to the CFL, only to return to terrorize the NFL, there are probably numerous other players who never get their shot.  The mistakes made in the NFL Draft have far reaching consequences, and those initial impressions that teams form about a player seem difficult to shake.

Think about this for a second.  Wouldn't we all agree that former top 10 draft selection, Matt Leinart, was a rather significant failure?  Yet, we often seem to forget that Leinart still spent 7 seasons in the NFL.  That means that for seven years, somebody was getting bumped off of a team's roster to make room for Leinart.  While the player's getting cut to make room for Leinart likely wouldn't have gone on to stardom, it was still a potential missed opportunity to explore other options.  It was one less chance, or 7,  to look under some rock looking for talent.  The only explanation for these decisions seems to have been "Well, Leinart was a former 1st round pick".  He certainly didn't seem to possess any other real qualifications.  This is why I sometimes hate the NFL Draft, even while I still obsess over it each year.  Draft status simply matters more than it should.

At this point though, my hopes are rapidly diminishing as to whether we'll ever discover the truth about Charles Johnson.  For now, I'll probably just go back to playing with my Legos, or working on my plans for militarized kangaroos.  It might be a more productive use of my time.

WR Size Matters (that's what she said)

The Browns' somewhat recent release of wide receiver Charles Johnson has left me feeling sad and despondent.  I had such great plans for him, and now...well...I guess I'll just get drunk and listen to The Cure.  Robert Smith understands my pain.  My hopes have been dashed against the rocks that are the skulls of the Browns' brain-trust, and there's nothing I can do.

I have no real issue with the Browns.  I may live in Baltimore, but I can't say that I have any real allegiance to my local team (or any team), or any hatred for their rivals.  Yes, I think the Browns organization may be run by  individuals who are riding the short bus, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have a lower opinion of them than I do of the 31 other teams.  It's just that in this particular case, I am completely confounded as to what their plan might be at the wide receiver position.  What's the deal with all of those midget receivers that they seem to be clinging to, at the expense of my Chosen One?  Yes, I'm looking at you Andrew Hawkins, Travis Benjamin and Taylor Gabriel.  Your diminutive stature confuses me.

I'm not saying that these sorts of guys can't be good, but I do tend to believe that the odds aren't in their favor.  They're not just small; they're really really really small.  They're so small, that they ask their wives to reach things that are on high shelves.  They're so small that calling them 'cute' or 'adorable' seems kind of like a fitting description.  Nobody calls Demaryius Thomas or Calvin Johnson cute.  No, they're too terrifying and huge for that.

Instead of doing my regular ranting about the degree to which combine data and statistical production in college may be able to predict success (to some degree), let's just make this a ridiculously simple discussion about physical mass.  I'm going to present 2 lists.  The first list will show all of the wide receivers who are under 190 pounds, who have managed to rank in the top 25 for receiving yards during the last five years.  The second list will show all of the receivers who weigh 214 pounds or more, who have managed to rank in the top 25 in receiving yards during the last five years.  Choosing 214 pounds as the cutoff point may seem like a random number, but there is a reason for it, which we'll get to a bit later.  Regardless, this is all intended to look at the two extreme ends of the bell curve when it comes to one very simple measurement, weight.  I couldn't make this simpler if I tried.

Besides listing where the players ranked in NFL receiving yards (just among wide receivers, since we want to exclude tight ends and running backs), we will also list where they ranked in the the NFL when it came to receiving touchdowns.  I should also mention that these players have their height listed in inches, and their weight is based on their current listed weight, rather than their combine weigh in.  Okey dokey, let's get to the list.

2013
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Antonio Brown	70	186	110	1,499	8	2	13
DeSean Jackson	69	178	82	1,332	9	9	11
T.Y. Hilton	69	183	82	1,083	5	17	25
Harry Douglas	71	183	85	1,067	2	19	69
2012
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Wes Welker	69	185	118	1,354	6	8	26
2011
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Wes Welker	69	185	122	1,569	9	2	4
Antonio Brown	70	186	69	1,108	2	13	68
Nate Washington	73	183	74	1,023	7	16	18
Percy Harvin	71	184	87	967	6	19	26
DeSean Jackson	69	178	58	961	4	20	43
2010
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
DeSean Jackson	69	178	47	1056	6	12	24
Johnny Knox	72	185	51	960	5	20	35
Mario Manningham	71	185	60	944	9	21	11
Anthony Armstrong	70	185	44	871	3	24	52
Percy Harvin	71	184	71	868	5	25	35
2009
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Wes Welker	69	185	123	1,348	4	2	37
DeSean Jackson	69	178	62	1,156	9	11	7
Chad Johnson	73	188	72	1047	9	18	7

So, out of 125 possible opportunities for a sub-190 pound receiver to make it into the NFL's top 25 for receiving yards (5 years times 25 possible slots, duh?), we seem to have 18 occasions where this actually happened.  This means that sub-190 pound receivers seem to appear in the top 25 about 14.4% of the time.  Whether this is actually a good result or not somewhat depends on how many sub-190 pound receivers there are in the league.  If, for example, only 10% of the receivers coming into the league are in the sub-190 pound range, appearing in the top 25 around 14.4% of the time might be a good result.  On the other hand, if significantly more than 14.4% of the receivers that come into the league are under 190 pounds, then perhaps these pipsqueaks aren't the best guys to bet on.

To answer this question I decided to look outside of my own database of players, and went to NFLCombineresults.com.  I wanted to make sure that I was getting a fairly random sample of NFL Draft prospects, and their weights, since there was no way to determine if my own database of players wasn't biased.  In the end, it seems that 136 out of the 583 wide receiver prospects on NFLcombineresults.com fell into the sub-190 pound range.  That works out to 23.32% of the wide receiver draft pool.  To double check this, I compared it to my own database of players, where we got a result of 22.55% who fell into this weight range.  Either way, the results are pretty similar, and significantly more than the 14.4% that are making it into the list above.  So, it seems that sub-190 pound receivers are making it into the top 25 receiving yards list about 36-38% less often than we might expect, relative to the percentage of the NFL receiver population that they probably make up.

Now, we come to the receivers who weigh 214 pounds or more, and I guess I should explain why I chose 214 pounds as the cutoff point.  Initially, I was going to set the bar at 210 pounds, but this wound up with a larger pool of wide receivers than I really wanted.  When I moved the mark to 214 pounds, I ended up with a group that makes up a very similar portion of the NFL receiver population to what we find with the sub-190 pound players, only at the opposite end of the scale.  According to NFLcombineresults.com, players who weigh 214 pounds or more should make up about 20.96% of the NFL's receivers.  In my own database of players, they make up about 23.42% of the league's receivers.  So, about 21-23.4% should be 214 pounds or more, and about 22.5-23.3% should be under 190 pounds.  That seems close enough for government work, and should make our comparisons reasonably fair, as they both seem to occupy a similar portion of the league's receiver population.

Now, onto the list of receivers who weigh 214 pounds or more, who finished in the top 25 for receiving yards during the last 5 years.

2013
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Josh Gordon	75	225	87	1646	9	1	11
Calvin Johnson	77	236	84	1492	12	3	3
Demaryius Thomas	75	229	92	1430	14	4	1
Alshon Jeffery	75	216	89	1421	7	6	18
Andre Johnson	75	230	109	1407	5	7	25
Pierre Garcon	72	216	113	1346	5	8	25
Jordy Nelson	75	217	85	1314	8	10	13
Brandon Marshall	76	230	100	1295	12	11	3
Eric Decker	75	214	87	1288	11	12	5
Dez Bryant	74	220	93	1233	13	13	2
Vincent Jackson	77	230	78	1224	7	14	18
Anquan Boldin	73	220	85	1179	7	15	18
Michael Floyd	74	220	65	1041	5	22	25
Larry Fitzgerald	75	218	82	954	10	25	7
2012
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Calvin Johnson	77	236	122	1964	5	1	30
Andre Johnson	75	230	112	1598	4	2	40
Brandon Marshall	76	230	118	1508	11	3	4
Demaryius Thomas	75	229	94	1434	10	4	6
Vincent Jackson	77	230	72	1384	8	5	12
Dez Bryant	74	220	92	1382	12	6	3
Julio Jones	75	220	79	1198	10	11	6
Marques Colston	76	225	83	1154	10	13	6
Michael Crabtree	73	214	85	1105	9	14	10
Eric Decker	75	214	85	1064	13	17	2
Miles Austin	74	215	66	943	6	23	26
Anquan Boldin	73	220	65	921	4	24	40
2011
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Calvin Johnson	77	236	96	1681	16	1	1
Larry Fitzgerald	75	218	80	1411	8	4	9
Jordy Nelson	75	217	68	1263	15	7	2
Brandon Marshall	76	230	81	1214	6	8	26
Dwayne Bowe	74	221	81	1159	5	11	33
Marques Colston	76	225	80	1143	8	12	9
Vincent Jackson	77	230	60	1106	9	14	4
Dar. Heyward-Bey	74	219	64	975	4	18	43
Julio Jones	75	220	54	959	8	22	9
Pierre Garcon	72	216	70	947	6	24	26
2010
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Andre Johnson	75	230	86	1216	8	6	14
Dwayne Bowe	74	221	72	1162	15	7	1
Larry Fitzgerald	75	218	90	1137	6	8	24
Calvin Johnson	77	236	77	1120	12	9	2
Miles Austin	74	215	69	1041	7	14	17
Marques Colston	76	225	84	1023	7	15	17
Brandon Marshall	76	230	86	1014	3	16	52
Terrell Owens	75	224	72	983	9	17	11
Braylon Edwards	75	214	53	904	7	22	17
2009
Player	Height	Weight	Rec.	Yards	TDs	Yrd/Rank	TD/Rank
Andre Johnson	75	230	101	1569	9	1	7
Miles Austin	74	215	81	1320	11	3	3
Vincent Jackson	77	230	68	1167	9	9	7
Brandon Marshall	76	230	101	1120	10	13	5
Larry Fitzgerald	75	218	97	1092	13	15	1
Marques Colston	76	225	70	1074	9	16	7
Anquan Boldin	73	220	84	1024	4	20	37
Calvin Johnson	77	236	67	984	5	21	28

Okay, let's get to it.  Out of 125 possible slots in the top 25, receivers who weigh 214 pounds or more have filled 53 of them.  That works out to 42.4% of the league's top 25 receiving years, in terms of yards, coming from a group that should only make up about 21-23.4% of the league's total pool of receivers.  It could be said that these bulkier receivers seem to be dominating the league at a rate that is perhaps 81-97% higher than what you might expect given the percentage of the league's receiver population that they occupy.  I guess this isn't exactly shocking, since this is sort of what we probably all expected, isn't it?

Let's consider something outside of the degree to which these players dominate in the receiving yards category.  Let's look at how they fare when it comes to producing touchdowns.  What if we examined the difference between each player's "TD/Rank" and their "Yrd/Rank"? Well, If we did that, sub-190 pound receivers' TD/Rank would fall between 14.05 to 10.5 slots lower than their Yrd/Rank, depending on whether we were looking at the average or median level of decline.  Small guys may get good yardage, but they don't tend to score a lot of touchdowns.  On the other hand, when we look at the receivers who weigh 214 pounds or more, their TD/Rank only falls between 3.09 to 2 slots, again depending on whether we are looking at the average or median level of decline.  I'd say that this minimal drop in TD/Rank is almost nonexistent, though touchdown catches can still always be a bit fluky.  So, not that this will come as any real surprise, the larger receivers not only dominate when it comes to appearances in the top 25 for receiving yards, but they also tend to rank much higher when it comes to producing touchdowns.  Yes, duh, duh duh.  Everybody knows this, or suspects it.  I'm just not sure that the Browns have figured it out yet.

Okay, so everybody kind of expects larger receivers to dominate.  Still, the degree to which this happens seems to get overlooked to some extent.  Among players in the top 25 in receiving yards, players who weigh 214 pounds make 2.94 times more appearances than sub-190 pound players.  Among players in the top 25 for touchdowns, we see players who weigh 214 pounds appearing 4.66 times as often as sub-190 pound players.  But what if we step things up a bit, and look at the top10 rather than the top 25?  When we do that, there are 4.8 times as many top 10 receiving yards appearances for players who weigh 214 pounds or more than there are for sub-190 pound players.  With top 10 appearances for receiving touchdowns, players who weigh 214 pounds or more show up 9.33 times more often than such appearances by sub-190 pound receivers.  The more demanding your expectations become, the more you seem to wander into the land of the plus sized receiver. 

And yet, the Browns felt it was vitally important to hold onto 3 rather minuscule wide receivers, while cutting my love-child Charles Johnson.  Let's take a look at the evil hobgoblins who have been upsetting my dreams, and see how they compare to the sub-190 pound receivers who have made it in to the top 25 in the past five years.

Browns' Midgets	Height	Weight
Taylor Gabriel	68	167
Andrew Hawkins	67	180
Travis Benjamin	70	175
AVG Top 25 Midget	70.22	183.27

Even by the average standards of munchkin sized receivers, this trio of Browns' receivers appears to be surprisingly small.  Of course, whenever a team signs players like these guys fans start saying things like "This guy could be our Wes Welker/DeSean Jackson/Antonio Brown!".  Sure, that could happen, but the odds are that it won't.  Wes Welker, DeSean Jackson and Antonio Brown are somewhat peculiar players, and in no way do I wish to diminish their accomplishments.  They've been excellent.  Still, they are sort of the exceptions to the rule, and considering that only one of them was selected before the 6th round, it's not as if we can really trust the idea that NFL talent scouts have a great eye for these types of players.  These players are most likely the proverbial nut found by a blind squirrel.

Oddly enough, if there was one pint sized receiver on the Browns' roster that actually interests me, it might be Taylor Gabriel, who's the smallest of the lot.  At least he was reasonably productive in college, which is more than I can say for Travis Benjamin.  Hawkins is a bit more of a mystery, since he split time at cornerback while at Toledo, making his statistical profile a bit peculiar.  Still, the question remains, do they really need to hold onto three of these guys?  How many kick returner/slot receiver types of players does one team need?  Also, what do you do with a slot receiver, when you have practically nobody to 'slot' them between?  Are we really counting on Miles "Ouch, my hamstring" Austin to make it through a complete season uninjured?  It seems unlikely.

The real problem is that there appears to be a bit of a ceiling for munchkin receivers, that perhaps isn't there for the larger players.  Saying where an individual player's 'ceiling' and 'floor' exists, isn't something I would really like to do.  Yes, occasionally a little guy breaks through, and produces at a high level.  But is that a reason to horde these types of players just on the off chance of this happening?  So far, the 28 year old Hawkins has averaged 28.42 receiving yards per game played, with a total of 4 career receiving touchdowns.  Benjamin has averaged 18.31 receiving yards per game played, and 2 career receiving touchdowns.  Both fall a bit short of the 35 yards per game played that I generally consider to be an average result.  Oh, but Benjamin was drafted in the 3rd round, so the team can't possibly cut him...uggh.  Shoot me now.

Do we really think that the highly athletic 6'2" and 215# Charles Johnson's floor couldn't have at least equaled such mediocre production?  A mere 454 receiving yard season with 1 or 2 touchdowns would have been sufficient to exceed the output of these players, and his size alone should make him a much more viable red zone threat.  I would think that practically any halfway competent receiver could hit that mark if given a chance.

Maybe the Browns have some ingenious plan to join all three of these waifish receivers together to form something like Voltron.  That would certainly be awesome, and make my suffering worthwhile.  Maybe they will develop some insane offense that involves lateraling the ball from one pipsqueak to another and then to another.  Maybe the Browns will become the 'all kick return' team, and completely forgo having a passing offense.  Yeah, they might just catch everyone sleeping with their super secret special teams assault.  Maybe they are constructing some sort of wide receiver Russian nesting doll, and needed a few pipsqueaks for the inner layers.  I also really have to wonder if Browns' GM Ray Farmer has his house guarded by a swarming pack of chihuahuas, figuring that as a group they might accomplish the job of one rottweiler.

While I genuinely wish Cleveland fans the best, I have to admit that I'm not feeling terribly fond of their GM at this point.  You're killing my dreams Mr. Farmer!  There will be no Christmas gifts or birthday cards for you.  If you want to apologize, I'll just be lying here weeping into my pillow, and waiting for you to give Charles Johnson another look.

Charles Johnson: No, The Other One

Argghh!  I wrote this a couple of days ago, and it is already outdated due to today's Miles Austin signing.  Oh well, I'm posting it anyway.

I have to admit, that the possible year long suspension of Josh Gordon strikes me as hilarious.  How he could possibly be facing this sort of punishment for smoking marijuana, while Ray Rice will probably only miss a handful of games (if he is suspended at all) for knocking his fiancee out cold, is beyond insane.  I realize that Gordon's prior behavior factors into this, but at this point in time do any of us really care about a football player smoking weed?  Of course, being a jazz musician who grew up in the 1930's probably has an effect on my views of this subject.




Leaving aside my perhaps unpopular thoughts on pot persecution, this leads to an interesting and obvious question.  Who would fill the Josh Gordon void, for the Cleveland Browns?  Somebody is going to have to catch the ball, but who is it going to be?  To answer that question, let's first make a list of every wide receiver who is currently on the Browns' roster, and examine their physical characteristics.

While there are numerous other physical factors we could consider, I want to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible.  The Browns' receivers will be listed in descending order, according to their weight.  Beside their name, I will list their 40-time, Kangaroo Score and Agility Score.  The Kangaroo Score (our measure of lower body power) and the Agility Score, will be given in the form of how many standard deviations that a player is above or below the average result for someone in their position group.  So, simply put, we are just looking for speed, power and agility.

NAME	Height	Weight	40-yard	Kangaroo	Agility
Greg Little	6' 2.5"	231	4.51	2.300	0.313
Tori Gurley	6' 4"	216	4.53	0.027	-0.441
Charles Johnson	6' 2"	215	4.39	1.470	-0.629
Nate Burleson	6' 0.5"	197	4.51	0.749	0.109
Conner Vernon	6' 0.25"	196	4.54	-0.773	-0.034
Willie Snead	5' 11"	195	4.62	-1.067	-1.284
Josh Cooper	5' 11"	190	4.65	-1.499	-0.968
Jonathan Krause	5' 11"	187	4.37	-0.396	0.592
Chandler Jones	5' 8.5"	183	4.34	-1.466	-0.209
Andrew Hawkins	5' 7"	182	4.34	-1.001	0.946
Kenny Shaw	5' 11"	174	4.56	-1.840	0.543
Travis Benjamin	5' 10"	172	4.36	-1.327	0.073

Okay, so what do we really have here?  Well, the Browns do appear to have some rather fast, but tiny, receivers in Benjamin, Hawkins, Jones, and Krause.  While these four are all lacking significant power, that is fairly typical amongst small receivers.  Amongst the pipsqueaks, only Hawkins and Krause really catch my eye though, as their Agility Score at least suggests the possibility of some sort of elusiveness, which seems like a good thing for a small underpowered player to have.  Of course, small speedy receivers tend to play more of a complementary role in today's NFL, and don't tend to be the primary target for most offenses.

When we shift our attention to the bigger receivers, Greg Little and Charles Johnson are probably the players who will create the most interest.  Physically, they both exhibit the measurable traits we are generally seeking to find when looking at large receivers, namely power (Kangaroo Score) and at least passable speed.  Though their Agility Scores are just average, at best, this is a rather typical outcome amongst larger receivers, and not necessarily a huge concern.  As for Tori Gurley, well, he is quite large, but there's nothing to suggest that he possesses any exceptional physical traits within his large frame.

A couple players, like Nate Burleson and Conner Vernon, fall somewhere in the middle, in terms of size.  While Burleson has fairly nice physical characteristics, with results that fall into the average to above average range in most areas, he has also recently broken his arm, which doesn't bode well for the immediate future.  He is also a soon to be 33 year old wide receiver, who has generally had statistical production of the "average to good" variety, which seems unlikely to change at this point in his career.  Conner Vernon, on the other hand, was a moderately interesting college prospect, but probably lacks the athletic ability to be anything more than a possession receiver.

Still, these sorts of physical traits can't tell the whole story.  At some point you need to know if a player can actually produce, and hold onto the ball.  Instead of listing the player's Stat Scores, the way I normally do, I wanted to do something a bit simpler.  This time, we're just going to look at what percentage of their team's offense that each player was responsible for generating in their final two years in college.  The average result for a player in their final college season is 17.75%.  In their next to last season, the average result is 15.34%.  These averages are based only on drafted receivers (or, players who were expected to be drafted), so the real averages would obviously be a bit lower if we included all college receivers.  With these results, we are just hoping to get a glimpse into how heavily a team 'leaned on' a player.  While some players may be underutilized in college, and blossom later in their NFL careers, this doesn't tend to happen very frequently.  Instead, it tends to be a safer bet to keep your attention focused on players with a proven track record of success. 

So, here are these same 12 receivers, roughly sorted according to how heavily their college offenses relied upon them.

NAME	% Offense Year 1	% Offense Year 2
Nate Burleson	14.76	31.22
Willie Snead	19.31	24.45
Charles Johnson	20.02	22.97
Conner Vernon	21.75	20.06
Chandler Jones	11.91	22.90
Greg Little	3.49	18.09
Jonathan Krause	1.39	14.98
Travis Benjamin	13.56	13.43
Kenny Shaw	8.08	12.83
Josh Cooper	10.88	10.07
Tori Gurley	9.74	8.45
Andrew Hawkins	N/A	N/A

Typically, I wouldn't pay much attention to players with results lower than what we see with Chandler Jones or Greg Little.  It's not that a player with lesser results can't succeed, it's just that it becomes much less likely.  As for Andrew Hawkins, who has had some limited success in the NFL, it is difficult to come to any real conclusion, as he was actually a cornerback in college, so no statistical data exists for him as a receiver.

Perhaps it's not surprising, that Nate Burleson has what is easily the best single year result of any player in this list, producing 31.22% of his team's offensive yards in his final college season.  Still, as I've said already, there is probably little remaining upside to Burleson at this point in his career.  Greg Little, while possessing rather strong athletic traits, appears to have had college production that was merely just average to below average, which could perhaps be linked to his current issues with actually catching the ball.  Willie Snead, while appearing to be quite productive in college, still suffers from the question of how much you want to place your faith in a small receiver who ran a 4.62 forty yard dash.  The history of players like Snead finding success just isn't so hot.

So, who does that really leave us with, except Charles Johnson?  Athletically, he is superb, possessing the size, speed, and power to potentially become a rather dangerous receiving threat.  His production in college, was above average, though it obviously came at a lower level of competition (Grand Valley State University).  While some of you may not have heard of him before, I can assure you that every draft geek, who is into examining the numbers, is keenly aware of Johnson and his intriguing potential.  I even made him a 6th round pick in our 2013 Ozzie Newsome Challenge (since he was one of the computer's favorite receiver prospects in the 2013 draft class), so you can bet that I am hoping that things work out for him.

Of course, Johnson is still a longshot.  Opportunities don't come easily to late round draft picks, especially when they come from rather goofy college programs.  It is entirely possible that the Browns will trade for a receiver, or pick one up when teams start cutting players later in the summer.  In fact, I would almost bet on this happening (I jinxed myself).  But if they don't?  Well, then suddenly Charles Johnson would have a very valuable opportunity to perhaps surprise some people.  If you have ever wondered how some teams stumble into a late-round/undrafted prospect like Victor Cruz, Miles Austin, or Marques Colston, this is pretty much how it happens.  All three of these players were somewhat similarly gifted athletes, with proven production, who just happened to play at lesser programs like UMass, Monmouth, and Hofstra.  Maybe history will repeat itself with Charles Johnson, or maybe it won't (damn you, Miles Austin!).

One of the drawbacks to getting excited about a player like Charles Johnson, is that you pretty much have to blindly trust the numbers, as there are very few video clips of him for us to watch.  Forming a subjective opinion of his skills is somewhat impossible for me.  This is one of the few examples I have been able to come across, which really only gives us a brief glimpse of what he may really be like as a player.





Perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with Johnson, which the numbers don't show.  Maybe he leans a bit in the direction of Greg Little, when it comes to catching the ball.  It is hard to say, without more data.  To claim that Johnson can single-handedly replace the 1,646 receiving yards that Josh Gordon produced last year would be irresponsible and idiotic.  All I can say is that people who fit Johnson's profile have a surprisingly strong history of turning into at least adequate players, even if they were initially overlooked by most teams.  Sometimes, perhaps more often than you might suspect,  they even turn out to be great.  At this point, I'm just hoping that the Browns organization sees his potential, and doesn't prematurely dismiss him as "just another disposable late round draft pick", and that they give him a real chance to compete for a role on their offense.  The potential rewards for giving him such an opportunity could be enormous.

Update: So, the Browns have now signed Miles Austin.  This obviously forces me to pull my voodoo doll out of the closet and stick needles in its knees, in hopes of getting Johnson an opportunity.  Oh, nevermind, Austin is bound to injure himself without my help.