WR size consideration (FUN for the 1.1!)

[Valhalla]

Update: Check the bottom of the post. Corrections are in red.

This is just a quick study that I'm sure has been done many times before and more comprehensively, but I couldn't find one so I did the work myself. I've read some "Brian Thomas is too tall and skinny" comments and that got me digging a bit.

This is just a list of tall and considered successful WRs I could think of since I've followed football. I'm SURE I am missing players. I'm SURE that my arbitrary cut-off of 6'2.5" (sorry Andre and others) is going to be called out, but I had to limit the list somehow. I KNOW there are plenty of guys drafted in this size range that DON'T pan out. This list is more just to address the question...how thick do we want a taller WR to be to alleviate our concerns? What do the success stories look like? I pulled these stats from a combine results website. Yell and scream and ridicule in all caps if you think they are wrong.

Moss (first listed cause...well...he's the best)- 6'3.6" 194lbs, BMI 24.44 -- BMI 23.9
Michael Thomas 6'2.75" 212lbs, BMI 27.32 -- BMI 26.7
Plaxico 6'5.4" 231lbs, BMI 27.76 -- BMI 27.1
Evans 6'4.75" 231lbs, BMI 28.23 -- BMI 27.6
Marshall 6'4.5" 229lbs, BMI 28.17 -- BMI 27.5
VJax 6'4.75" 241lbs, BMI 29.46 -- BMI 28.8
Julio 6'2.75" 220lbs, BMI 28.35 -- BMI 27.7
AJ Green 6'3.63" 211lbs, BMI 26.56 -- BMI 25.9
T.O. 6'2.9" 213lbs, BMI 27.34 -- BMI 26.7
Megatron 6'5" 239lbs, BMI 29.02 -- BMI 28.3
Fitz 6'2.875" 225lbs, BMI 28.2 -- BMI 28.2
Metcalf 6'3.38" 228lbs, BMI 28.89 -- BMI 28.2
Alshon (just making the cut for "do I care", buddy) 6'2.88" 216lbs, BMI 27.74 -- BMI 27.1
Colston 6'4.63" 224lbs, BMI 26.8

Moss is an outlier for his BMI and success. I bet it has nothing to do with his BLAZING speed, incredible hands, kind of off the charts college production, or being continuously mentored/pushed by Cris Carter, though. Yeah, his size profile alone checks out.

Seriously, just by these success stories of taller WRs, it seems we want a BMI roughly 27.5-29 26.7-28.3, with guys like AJ (below) and VJax (above) being slight outliers.
Again, these are guys from my recall. I know I'm forgetting people. And I'm not listing the failures. That would take forever.

UNOFFICIAL! We'll know more this time next week, but this is speculation of size from the webbernet:
Brian Thomas 6'4" 205lbs, BMI 25.0. A little lighter than I'd like to see, for sure.
Marvin Harrison JR 6'4" 205lbs, BMI 25.0.

Update: NFLcombineresults.com was used, and I double checked the site and the numbers I put into this post are exactly what they have recorded...but when I calculate BMI, I get lower numbers across the board. From what I can tell, their height and weight numbers are accurate. I don't know why their BMI doesn't come out right in the calculation, but I just calculated out the BMI for each player, and posted that in red. I don't know what's up with that website, but it seems at quick glance that everyone's BMI is about 0.7 higher than the height weight calculates it to be. As a result, the range dropped about 0.7 in BMI on the high and low end. There IS still a tight grouping, and if Brian Thomas (and more importantly Marvin) come out as their projected height and weight at the combine, then they ARE outliers on the light side. They just aren't as far of outliers as the original post indicated.

[Valhalla]

[Paul717]

Those are some absolute studs there. Maybe this is a biased memory, but all those guys were like 4.45 or faster in my mind. (No way am I going to look it up out of laziness though)

If Brian Thomas runs a 4.28 or something stupid like that, I don't care if he only weighs 205. GET IN MY BELLY! Er, I mean, get on my team!

Sure, tackling a bigger dude like Brandon Marshall was a pain in the a** for smaller CBs. But so was catching him in the first place. Tall + fast = some team will take him high and so will my Fantasy team.

Or was this a sneaky anti Brian Thomas thread, Sir? Get out of here with that on a Friday!

[hockeyBjj]

Is there a way to get a counter of the non fantasy studs that originally had potential?

Actually well bleep. I was about to use Quentin Johnston as my neg example of an alpha-framed WR who's looking like a bust- but at 6'4" 208 lbs he's actually one of the small BMI you're warning about. I really thought he was 220. His BMI is 25.3

[Bronco Billy]

Those are some absolute studs there. Maybe this is a biased memory, but all those guys were like 4.45 or faster in my mind. (No way am I going to look it up out of laziness though)

If Brian Thomas runs a 4.28 or something stupid like that, I don't care if he only weighs 205. GET IN MY BELLY! Er, I mean, get on my team!

Sure, tackling a bigger dude like Brandon Marshall was a pain in the a** for smaller CBs. But so was catching him in the first place. Tall + fast = some team will take him high and so will my Fantasy team.

Or was this a sneaky anti Brian Thomas thread, Sir? Get out of here with that on a Friday!

You must have loved Martavis Bryant (pretty decent comp for Thomas IMO).

[Paul717]

Those are some absolute studs there. Maybe this is a biased memory, but all those guys were like 4.45 or faster in my mind. (No way am I going to look it up out of laziness though)

If Brian Thomas runs a 4.28 or something stupid like that, I don't care if he only weighs 205. GET IN MY BELLY! Er, I mean, get on my team!

Sure, tackling a bigger dude like Brandon Marshall was a pain in the a** for smaller CBs. But so was catching him in the first place. Tall + fast = some team will take him high and so will my Fantasy team.

Or was this a sneaky anti Brian Thomas thread, Sir? Get out of here with that on a Friday!

You must have loved Martavis Bryant (pretty decent comp for Thomas IMO).

I did! Oh...wait. Lol.

He should've been better in the NFL. But PFF shows he was a 4.42 guy. Thomas might be faster!!

[Valhalla]

Uh oh...there's something wrong with the combine website I used. I noticed AJ Green's BMI looked suspiciously high for his height and weight so I calculated it and...the website was wrong on either height, weight or BMI. I don't know what else is wrong.
This whole study may be trash simply because it was all based on a pretty firm BMI range I was seeing...but it seems that those BMI scores posted are incorrect (or height or weight were incorrect).
I'll correct/edit when I have time.

[Jigga94]

Those are some absolute studs there. Maybe this is a biased memory, but all those guys were like 4.45 or faster in my mind. (No way am I going to look it up out of laziness though)

If Brian Thomas runs a 4.28 or something stupid like that, I don't care if he only weighs 205. GET IN MY BELLY! Er, I mean, get on my team!

Sure, tackling a bigger dude like Brandon Marshall was a pain in the a** for smaller CBs. But so was catching him in the first place. Tall + fast = some team will take him high and so will my Fantasy team.

Or was this a sneaky anti Brian Thomas thread, Sir? Get out of here with that on a Friday!

You must have loved Martavis Bryant (pretty decent comp for Thomas IMO).

Good comp. Martavis would have been solid if not for the mental aspect.

[Jigga94]

Uh oh...there's something wrong with the combine website I used. I noticed AJ Green's BMI looked suspiciously high for his height and weight so I calculated it and...the website was wrong on either height, weight or BMI. I don't know what else is wrong.
This whole study may be trash simply because it was all based on a pretty firm BMI range I was seeing...but it seems that those BMI scores posted are incorrect (or height or weight were incorrect).
I'll correct/edit when I have time.

This is my main hang-up with trying to do any research based on ht/wt for players. Generally its hard to pinpoint a number for any specific player. Some players don't go to the combine, some show up overweight to hit a threshold and some show up slimmed down to run faster.

For example, hockeyBjj posted above about QJ at 6'4 208 being on the low end BMI (25.3). However, I have him at 6'3 212 (26.5 BMI). I think BMI is more suited for RB research, but I have seen huge discrepancies with players like Kamara and Pollard before.

---

I don't think there's any correlation with BMI and WR success. Now if you want to look at Speed Score, or height adjusted speed score (HASS), I bet most of those in the OP are very, very high up.

Just for fun, The highest HASS WR I have in my notes for the past 4 drafts
Rd 1: Chase, London, Ruggs, Burks, Jamo, Jefferson
Rd 2: Claypool, Watson, D Mims, Pierce, Mingo, Pittman, Thornton, Terrace Marshall
Rd 3: Velus Jones, Nico Collins

Filter out the bad Breakout ages like Claypool and Velus and the hit rate looks a bit better. Filter by good route runners (something this big and fast guys usually lack) and you will find your studs of the draft. That's my biggest question when it comes to Thomas specifically, because we know he has speed/size

[81-]

Can he get open and does he have good hands? Anything else is just waxing

[Dynasty DeLorean]

I’ve been looking into this for like 5+ years. I don’t think bmi works, I just use a baseline of 110lbs. And top 2 round draft capital. And they have to be pretty productive in college. And they should be reasonably fast and good leaper. I’ve posted about this before. It’s why I was so high on Pittman when everyone else was worried about him being a senior.

And also, no site has 100% correct numbers. So some of the heights and weights your using are likely wrong if you haven’t double checked

[yinzername]

This is a DD thread now

[Valhalla]

Can anyone name a stud wr in the last 25 years that was over 6’2.5” that was outside of this BMI range? Thinner frame than AJ Green? Yes, Moss. He was a freak. Am I missing other players?
Seems to me that this is somewhat comprehensive of the very good taller wrs…and 6’4 205 is just quite a bit slimmer built than anyone but Moss. Would I draft Marvin 1? Yep. Does this make me worry some whereas before I had no doubt? Yeah it does honestly.

[Anteaters]

Can anyone name a stud wr in the last 25 years that was over 6’2.5” that was outside of this BMI range? Thinner frame than AJ Green? Yes, Moss. He was a freak. Am I missing other players?
Seems to me that this is somewhat comprehensive of the very good taller wrs…and 6’4 205 is just quite a bit slimmer built than anyone but Moss. Would I draft Marvin 1? Yep. Does this make me worry some whereas before I had no doubt? Yeah it does honestly.

I'm too lazy, but ...

Go through the last 5, 10, 15 NFL drafts and identify WRs (drafted in rounds 1-3) who fit the physical profile and BMI of MHJr. Chart how they performed over their pro careers.

Doing that should add pertinent data to your theory.

[Bronco Billy]

Would I draft Marvin 1? Yep. Does this make me worry some whereas before I had no doubt? Yeah it does honestly.

That’ll happen when you try to find some finite bracket and then try to force all players to fit into it. These are human beings, not assembly line automatons. If humans do anything with certainty, it’s that they continue to prove that there are exceptions to the rule. But if worrying about this despite what you see on the field works for you, knock yourself out.