Dynasty DeLorean wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 1:14 pm
@Prov, I haven’t found a single WR that profiles like Pittman (big, athletic, productive in college, and great draft capital. Have my own definitions and cutoffs for reach) that has busted solely from having a “bad” breakout age. You can find wrs that check all boxes except for production that have busted. Or check all except athleticism that have busted. Or checked all except draft capital that have busted. But I haven’t found a single player that checks all but breakout age that has busted. I think it’s clear that from a macro point of view, on the whole a good breakout age is better. But when you start looking at it from a micro point of view, as in examining maybe a single player or certain subset of players, you can get very different results of its efficacy. Hopefully that answers your question.
First, the phrase that nobody "busted solely from having a 'bad' breakout age" demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept in general. It's like saying "nobody's ever died from obesity". People don't die from obesity (they die from illnesses strongly associated with obesity) and people don't bust "because" of a late breakout but rather they bust because of some deficiency that presented itself when they weren't productive until they were older college players.
Second, breakout age is a
production metric so saying that somebody checks a production box but not the breakout age box is inherently flawed. It's like saying that somebody checks the size box but not the weight box, or checks the athleticism box but not the forty/jump box.
Third, and this is immediately off the top of my head, but Breshad Perriman was big, athletic, productive, and drafted in the first round, but had a 20 year old breakout age and busted. Kevin White was also big, athletic, productive, and drafted in the first round, but didn't break out until age 21, and he busted.
But I'm going to go out on the sturdiest limb of all time and suggest that maybe you've just narrowed your parameters the the point where the sample size is tiny and you can't draw a relevant conclusion from it anyway.
For everybody who's actually curious, here's why narrowing the sample size doesn't make sense. When you try to cut your sample size by, say, players who are 6'2" or taller, what you're saying is that you suspect there's a reason that 6'2" WRs will break out later. The problem is that there's no probably causality there, so all you're doing is making your sample-size smaller. The more you cut your sample size, the less meaningful your data becomes. So when you cut your data to WRs taller than 6'2" and drafted in the 2nd round or earlier who had 1000 yards in their last season of college and whose dads had 10 year NFL careers, sure, you can get the data to say whatever you want, but it's not meaningful.
For the 19thish GD time, just in case somebody other than Dunning and Kruger decide to read this thread, I'd recommend simply considering Pittman's relatively late breakout age as a piece of a large profile. Late breakout, declared as a senior, good market share numbers, early draft capital, good athleticism. If you really like Pittman, and you want to make an argument for him, it's really easy to say that you suspect his late breakout came from inexperience at the position and legitimate competition from multiple NFL WRs throughout his career- JuJu, and St. Brown in particular, and that you thought he was productive enough as a senior while surrounded by NFL talent, and you think he'll be propped up by a good situation, etc. There's no reason to try to run headlong into a losing argument where you try to invalidate a thoroughly well demonstrated concept like breakout age because you like this one player who broke out at 20.9.