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Breakout Wide Receivers - Part Two

Earlier this summer, we published a statistical analysis to help us find wire receivers that may have breakout seasons in 2010. You can find this article by clicking here. The definition of a breakout wide receiver in that article is: at least 150 points in a point per reception scoring system and an increase of at least 40 points or 25%. In this article we will look in detail at the receivers that respect our criteria to try and determine which are more likely to breakout. Please note that we removed all players that weren’t amongst the top 72 wide receivers in average draft position.

Second year:
Success rate: 29 of 67 – 43.3%
Dropped by 25%: 3 of 67 – 4.5%
Average improvement for all candidates: 46 points – 40.2%
Average improvement for breakout WRs: 97 points – 85.1%

2010 candidates:

The group of second year receivers is generally a very good one since the ones that do breakout improve by almost 100 points and this year it is especially good with eight players. It’s interesting to note that the average improvement for all candidates is 46 points but the expected improvement based on ADP is only 34 and only 24 if we don’t include Michael Crabtree. The one player that we don’t really like in this group is Julian Edelman because Wes Welker is now healthy so Edelman’s role will be limited. The other seven players all have excellent breakout potential and we wouldn’t mind having any of them on our fantasy teams.

Third year:
Success rate: 30 of 88 – 34.1%
Dropped by 25%: 14 of 88 – 15.9%
Average improvement for all candidates: 31 points – 24.5%
Average improvement for breakout WRs: 94 points – 72.7%

2010 candidates:

Similar to second year receivers, third year receivers have great potential but this group has a bigger downside since 15.9% see a drop of 25% or more and only 34.1% breakout. Many are expecting Pierre Garcon to breakout in 2010 because of the way he played in the postseason, but you can’t forget that he’ll be competing for receptions with Anthony Gonzalez and Austin Collie; we’re not fans of him this year. Eddie Royal definitely has the potential for a bounce back year and we know he has the abilities to catch 90+ passes in a season. Devin Thomas hasn’t shown much yet but someone will have to play opposite of Santana Moss and if it’s Thomas, he could surprise. Finally, Donnie Avery and Mario Manningham are both expected to be worse than last year and it would be a surprise if either of them broke out but we still think both of them are somewhat undervalued.

Fourth year:
Success rate: 31 of 82 – 37.8%
Dropped by 25%: 11 of 82 – 13.4%
Average improvement for candidates: 25 points – 18.2%
Average improvement for breakout WRs: 83 points – 58.7%

2010 candidates:

Fourth year receivers may not have as much upside but they are generally much safer than third year receivers. There are some very good candidates in 2010 but unfortunately the top four are expected to improve over last year and two of them are expect to improve by the “average improvement for breakout WRs”. We don’t really see it happening for Calvin Johnson but Dwayne Bowe could be worth it since he had those numbers in only 11 games last year. Sims-Walker had a huge year in 2009 and could easily have 250 or more fantasy points but he could also have less than 150. Steve Breaston will also have his opportunities but it all depends on how Matt Leinart performs while James Jones probably won’t have enough opportunities to breakout.

Fifth year:
Success rate: 25 of 73 – 34.2%
Dropped by 25%: 8 of 73 – 11.0%
Average improvement for candidates: 25 points – 21.1%
Average improvement for breakout WRs: 81 points – 68.9%

2010 candidates:

Fifth year receivers are very similar to fourth year receivers: pretty good reward and pretty low risk. Unfortunately, there is only one candidate this year but the good news is that he has excellent breakout potential. He had 57 catches in only 13 games last year and he only needs about 55 to live up to his average draft position. With Mike Martz running the offense, we could see three wide receivers catching over 60 passes, like Detroit WRs did in 2006, and Hester should be one of them.

Touchdown to Receptions Ratio:
Success rate: 41 of 95 – 43.2%
Dropped by 25%: 13 of 95 – 13.7%
Average improvement for all candidates: 26 points – 18.1%
Average improvement for breakout WRs: 77 points – 55.7%

2010 candidates:

Wide receivers with a low touchdown to reception ratio have almost as good a chance of breaking out as second year receivers but they usually fly under the radar a lot more. As we mentioned before, we don’t really like Edelman this year and we like Crabtree but so do a lot of people. The other three players: Steve Breaston, Devin Hester and Mike Thomas aren’t expected to breakout baed on their average draft position but we think they have a very good chance to do so and are being undervalued.

Of the 19 wide receivers named in this article, we expect about 17 to reach 250 receiving yards which means that based on historical statistics, six or seven should breakout. The average improvement for our breakout wide receivers is about 90 points and only three of the receivers we named are expected to improve by more than 75 points. Basically, there are probably four or five guys that we named in this article who will end up being very undervalued at the end of the year, you just have to pick the right ones. Here is our breakdown for 2010:

Undervalued and good breakout potential:
Devin Hester
Dwayne Bowe
Eddie Royal
Jeremy Maclin
Johnny Knox
Mike Thomas
Percy Harvin

Decent but not our favorites:
Devin Thomas
Kenny Britt
Michael Crabtree
Mike Sims-Walker
Mohamed Massaquoi
Steve Breaston

Overvalued or not expected to improve over 2009:
Calvin Johnson
Donnie Avery
Mario Manningham
Pierre Garcon

Probably won’t have much of a fantasy impact:
James Jones
Julian Edelman

On a final note, we’re offering three free 2010 Ultimate Draft Tools to the first three of you that create a post in our forums (ask a question or start an interesting discussion) and send us a private message. The ones that do that on or before August 25, 2010 but are not amongst the first three will still get 25% off.