Reception Perception Database

[StealYoGurley]

Ishmael Zamora​

In a class with the well-discussed Joe Mixon, there lies another character vs. ability riddle for NFL teams to solve. Despite not receiving much of the spotlight afforded to his running back draft class mate, Ishmael Zamora also presents the talent to flip a football field with the shadow of off-field baggage not far behind.

Just like Mixon, the NFL barred Zamora from attending the Scouting Combine after he faced discipline during his final year at Baylor in the wake of a video surfacing showing the wide receiver viciously and inexcusably abusing a dog. Zamora may well work out for scouts at Baylor’s pro day next week, where he will likely show why teams will have to weigh this dark mark against his ability.

Ishmael Zamora is physically gifted. It takes a mere naked eye to see that while watching him play. Even better, he put out a product that catches the more well-trained glance in his final season at Baylor. Should Zamora tear up his private and public workouts leading up to the draft, it will bring his ability back to the forefront.

How much of that is worth mining will be up to NFL teams to decide; but no matter what, prospects like Zamora come in with a razor-thin margin for error. Reception Perception shows that he may have the special traits to make it through when he hits the NFL field.

Alignment and Target Data
Games Sampled: Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Boise State

In his final collegiate season, Ishmael Zamora almost exclusively played as Baylor’s X-receiver. Zamora took 90.4 percent of his snaps at left wide receiver, the second-most only to Chad Hansen among prospects charted this year, with 81.3 percent of his snaps coming with his foot on the line of scrimmage. Listed on Baylor’s roster at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, the lengthy Zamora carries the prototypical build of split-end No. 1 receiver, something of a rarity in this class.

We know from Corey Coleman’s Reception Perception evaluation last draft season that the Baylor offense will naturally inflate the target data results in the methodology. Baylor, over the last few years, coached their wide receivers to not run routes when their side of the field isn’t on the designed read progression. Rather, simply stroll a few steps off the line. Those plays are not charted as “routes” in Reception Perception, thus these receivers’ raw stats per route data is skewed.

Ishmael Zamora is no exception, garnering a target on over half of his 125 routes run in his six games sampled for Reception Perception. With his quarterbacks throwing the ball his way on 53.6 percent of his routes run, and hauling in 65.7 percent of them, we see that Zamora was not only meant to be a big part of the offense, but largely converted when given the chance. However, painful focus drops will occasionally creep into his game, and his 9.0 drop rate is one of the highest in this year’s class.

Ancillary Metrics
It’s clear from the data surrounding his deployment, not only where he lined up but the offense in which he operated, that Ishmael Zamora will enter the NFL with a big learning curve. That, coupled with the difficult-to-swallow animal abuse act accompanied by a video on his resume, could well cause him to go completely passed over by NFL teams. Yet, his performance on the field as a pure playmaker will make him tough to ignore in the later rounds, as it rivals some of the best receivers in this class.

While he may drop the occasional maddening ball over the middle, Zamora more than negates them by reeling in some of the most spectacular catches among charted rookies. His 80 percent contested catch rate puts him in the 90th percentile for prospects studied the last two years. His large frame is naturally an asset. Yet, Zamora shows the concentration to track the ball over his shoulder and strong timing in knowing when to pluck the ball from the air.

GETTY IMAGES SPORT / JOHN WEAST

With a powerful mindset in shielding defenders and willingness to leap, Zamora offers tremendous appeal as a catch-point player. He’s strong enough in this phase of the game to offer hope he can, at a bare minimum, translate those skills to the NFL.

While he’s a player that can win in the air, it would be a mistake to underrate what Zamora can do with the ball in his hands. Zamora went down on first contact on 36.7 percent of his “in space” attempts, a below average rate in this class. A steady player after the catch, Zamora broke a single tackle on 53.3 percent of his in space attempts. His long frame loaded with power make him a tough task for smaller defensive backs.

Zamora’s ability to not only win in the air but also on the ground after the catch will help him draw easy comparisons to another former Baylor receiver. It’s almost no coincidence he’ll enter the NFL with a character cloud hanging over him, just as Josh Gordon once did.

Success Rate vs. Coverage
We know that Ishmael Zamora offers a tantalizing combination of an impressive skill set and overwhelming size that is rare to not only this class, but the wide receiver group in general. What remains to be seen with this player is how often he integrated all of his clear athletic gifts into strong and tangible execution as route-runner.

With a 66.2 percent success rate vs. man coverage, Zamora falls right within the two-year prospect average range. Certainly still a work in progress in some regards, Zamora can see his game foiled by cornerbacks who are superior technicians. Of course, scoring at the average in one separation metric at that size and armed with his contested catch prowess is far from a siren-worthy note.

Elsewhere, Zamora was a strong performer when facing zone or press, despite only registering 46 and 17 attempts against them, respectively. His 87 percent success rate vs. zone coverage trails only Carlos Henderson among prospects charted the last two years. Despite still rounding out some of his mid-route technique, Zamora flashed strong hands and foot quickness off the line. His 70.6 percent success rate vs. press coverage fell just below the 72nd percentile.

Overall, Zamora’s success rate vs. coverage scores as a whole were largely positive. Of course, further context on a route-by-route basis is often needed with receivers from offenses like Baylor’s spread-heavy attack.

Route Data
It will come as no surprise to discover that Ishmael Zamora did not earn much experience running a variety of routes at Baylor. If a resume with only 72 career catches didn’t explain just how raw this situation, his route charts certainly will.

Red is below the two-year prospect average, green is above and yellow is within the average.

Much like other air-raid style receivers we’ve studied previously, the bulk of Zamora’s routes were short in-breaking patterns. Yet, this is still an extreme example. A whopping 73.6 percent of his charted routes were either a screen, slant or curl concept. Along with the dig, those were the branches of the tree that checked in with an above average percentage. The team even rarely assigned Zamora to go deep, with his nine (12.8 percent) and post (1.6 percent) percentage missing the average by a wide margin.

We expect receivers of this ilk to primarily focus on inside breaking concepts, but Zamora never ran a traditional out-breaking route over the six games sampled for Reception Perception. Typically, that should not get levied as a criticism towards a prospect; aim to grade the results, not the environment. Nevertheless, it does provide insight into just what kind of journey lies ahead of them in adapting to the pro game, and again, Zamora’s route percentage chart is an extreme case.

Little assurance comes with the results on his route success rate chart. With clouds destined to cast a shadow on his projection either way due to his off-the-field transgression, Reception Perception quantifying his rawness does little to change the forecast.

Zamora only posted an above average success rate vs. coverage score on three patterns: the slant, screen and “other” which typically was an end zone style fade for him. With nothing happening on the out-breaking routes, the four other options came back with negative results.

There is more to being a deep threat than size and speed, which we know Zamora has in spades. With little deception techniques at the capacity to deploy yet, opposing corners can blot him out if he cannot simply run away from them. Of course, we know Zamora is a dominant contested catch receiver, and that alone will always make him a downfield threat even if he is not one of the best separators.

Zamora’s Closest Comp
Zamora’s strong performance on the slant pattern, with an 83.9 percent success rate, and his smooth ability to separate from defenders on that route is one of the many reasons that he presents a similar proposition to that of another wide receiver in the news of late, Martavis Bryant.

While his vertical ability is no doubt more refined that Zamora’s, and Reception Perception has always held that he is underrated as a complete receiver, Bryant’s most frightening plays come with the ball in his hands on slants. Zamora, coming with a similar build, is also a threat to take a quick slant to the house and presents the same matchup nightmare at the catch point as the current Steelers wideout.

Bryant is also a comparable case for Zamora as he came into the NFL with similar question marks, from a surface-level perspective. Zamora’s act was a singular moment of disturbing and sickening violence, whereas Bryant came with worries regarding his work ethic, and substance abuse issues have haunted him at the next level. Yet, we know that the NFL tends to just file all off-field issues under “character concerns” even if that is both unfair and illogical.

Both players also came with overall inexperience. Zamora was a surprise declaration for the draft this year, but even his final campaign was more productive than Bryant’s, who caught 11 fewer passes than his Baylor counterpart in one more season played.

Despite Bryant landing an indefinite suspension last year, the Steelers blueprint with him is likely one that will appeal to a team interested in drafting Ishmael Zamora. A Day 3 pick in 2014, Bryant only handled limited duties as a big-play weapon midway through his first pro season. After capitalizing on those at every chance he got, Bryant saw more get put on his plate and was a high-end starter by the time his second season rolled around.

Moving Forward
Zamora’s future team should revisit that case. Allow him to grow and learn on the job while providing a dynamic asset as a big play machine. If he returns in kind with executing those, gradually put more on his deck until he integrates his ability with passable technique to give you a true steal of a draft pick.

Yet, Martavis Bryant’s tale also shows us the fragility of these propositions. A fourth-round pick with little expectations, Bryant slid through that narrow margin for error to earn early favor with the Steelers. Imagine, had he not shown ability in his first season and made his value apparent almost right away, Bryant could have easily washed out of the NFL altogether within a matter of two to three years before we heard a peep from him. Players drafted on Day 3 already have a steep hill to climb to relevance and prospects of this ilk with off the field questions almost always fall later than their talent would dictate they go. Additionally, those drafted later are afforded shorter leashes for off-field mishaps than premium picks, so these particular players are trapped on a circuitous carousel with many more possibilities for derailment than success.

Perhaps Ishmael Zamora’s animal abuse incident was an isolated occurrence, something he’s truly learned from and an event squarely located in his past with no impact to be felt in his future behavior. We should hope so, but even if that’s true, he will nevertheless enter the NFL behind the eight ball and in need of chances to prove his value right away, chances he will need to make for himself. The journey for Ishmael Zamora is destined to come with clouds overhead, but the possible destination is without a doubt one that could contain something special.

 

[StealYoGurley]

Chad Hansen​

Everyone sees things differently and that’s okay. As soon as you can accept that reality and be settled with it, the closer you are to finding peace in not just many social walks of life, but also in debates surrounding football players.

A group of three individuals can watch a robbery unfold and all recount to the police a trio of quite different accounts of the event. Past constructs of socialization, previous interactions and pure biological intake of information can influence that witness’ tale given to the authorities.

The three members of the group are all correct in what they perceived to have happened and internalize it as truth. They just disagree on the objective reality that occurred before them.

Much in the same way, three analysts can watch a player on film and come away with entirely conflicting takeaways. Past opinions on other prospects, as well as preferences over time spent scouting tape are just some of the influencers of that opinion. Each individual analyst is completely correct in what each perceives to be the truth of the evaluation based on what they’ve absorbed. As with any study involving human subjects, football evaluators are at the mercy of an inexact and fragile path in finding some sort of truth.

So, we essentially have no choice but to accept that we will all see different things when watching film. Again, that’s not necessarily a negative. Perhaps in a marriage of multiple opinions, the truth lies somewhere between, or one viewer just emphasizes two separate aspects of a player’s game or values a different trait over another.

A charting methodology like Reception Perception looks to smooth over some of the rough edges in the pure observational science of watching a player. Yet, it’s a system operated by a human, recording the actions of other humans. There’s always the chance of human error, as such.

What it can help us do, however, is unfurl the different attributes of a wide receiver’s game in order to gain a better understanding of why so many analysts view their stock so differently. It’s a method that certainly comes in handy with a prospect where opinions are so divided like Chad Hansen out of the University of California-Berkeley. With that being said, it might not be his play that needs your perception the most, but rather the package in which it was delivered.

Alignment Data
Games Sampled: Stanford, UCLA, Washington, San Diego State, Texas, Oregon State

In an item we’ve observed throughout the Reception Perception series, not only does Chad Hansen fall in the group of players who spent their college careers on one side of the field, he sits right at the top of the list. Hansen took an eye-popping 97.5 percent of his snaps at right wide receiver, leading all prospects charted over the last two seasons.

Yes, some of the players on that list struggled to find immediate success in the NFL and this metric could be a part of the root cause. Yet, we don’t have enough data or a requisite sample size to suggest it is a trend, at this time. We can at least propose that a receiver only playing one assignment and position in college, especially at the wild rate of Hansen, will present a massive learning curve once in the NFL where he’ll need to reverse his release moves and route timing to move around the formation.

Despite seeing little action in the Jared Goff-led Cal offense of 2015, Hansen was a target hog in 2016 with Davis Webb under center. Hansen drew a target on 44.5 percent of his 218 routes run over the six-game sampled for Reception Perception. He only caught 53.6 percent of those passes sent his way, which speaks not only the mistake-laden nature of his play but also to the team’s utilization of him.

Success Rate vs. Coverage
Analysts seem captivated by Chad Hansen’s speed and quickness displayed on film. As we’ve seen throughout Reception Perception’s history, being fast isn’t always the best assistance in becoming a consistent separator.

Hansen posted a 64.6 percent success rate vs. man coverage on 127 attempts in his Reception Perception sample. Not only was that below the two-year average score for college prospects, it fell at the 36th percentile. It’s difficult to get around that as a red flag when we already know he existed in a limited role by playing right wide receiver almost exclusively.

Not a natural separator, Hansen struggles to take an 85th percentile agility score, per Player Profiler, and integrate it with his technique. Appearing stiff at times, he’s also not necessarily a player to use a variety of moves or deception at the breakpoints of routes.

GETTY IMAGES SPORT / BRIAN BAHR

In other areas of success rate vs. coverage, Hansen posted better results. His 83 percent success rate when facing zones checked in at the 91st percentile. Certainly able to stop and flip back at the proper time on the curl, or shift through the traffic running the slant, Hansen knows how to find a hole in zone coverage. He also showed better ability winning at the line of scrimmage than further throughout the route. His 67.3 percent success rate vs. press coverage was above the two-year prospect average, falling at the 70th percentile.

With positive results against zone and press but a strikingly poor score against man coverage, which he faced most often, Hansen remains a mystery to this point of his Reception Perception evaluation. In these cases, this is where sifting out their work on a route-by-route basis is extremely helpful.

Route Data
We’ll once again mention Hansen’s 97.5 percentage of snaps played at right wide receiver, as it influences a theme in his route data too. The one side metric does quantify a limited assignment given to a wideout. With the player only responsible for mastering releases, timing, route breaks and depths from one side of the field, their performance can be elevated. It’s not something we see replicated in a fashion even close to that degree at the NFL level. The item is noteworthy with any receiver, but even more so when the player comes with a limited route tree.

Red is below the two-year prospect average, green is above and yellow is within the average.

A whopping 80.8 percent of Hansen’s routes run fall under the screen, slant, curl or nine. That’s one of the more skewed and unbalanced charts we’ve seen in Reception Perception this year. If it weren’t for the dig at an above average 5.9 percent, it would be something we’ve never seen before.

We already know that Hansen worked with a limited assignment playing on just one side of the field, but this just takes it another step further. Most of the NFL passing game revolves around slant, curl and vertical route concepts, but not quite to this degree. Hansen only executing an out-breaking route on five percent of his charted routes is alarming.

Hansen truly exploded onto the college football radar this season after never registering much of a blip in previous years. His minuscule task portfolio may be a reason as to how he rose up so quickly.

Hansen’s 57.4 percent success rate on the nine route is above the two-year prospect average, and a strong score when compared to his peers. There are makings of a vertical threat here with the former Cal Bear. Fast in a straight line, and with the body control to adjust to balls in the deep game, Hansen could develop into a player who functions as an NFL shot play target in a spot role.

We also see Hansen check out above the two-year prospect average in success rate vs. coverage on the slant route at 82.2 percent. He gets off the jam well at the line of scrimmage and his clean release helps him create separation on the slant given his speed. Should he continue to master those two routes as he enters the pro level, that alone will help Hansen stick on a roster and help him earn small handfuls of playing time.

As we get to more portions of the tree, Hansen was a mixed bag on the other two routes he ran at a high-degree compared to his peers. He scored above average on the dig with a 76.9 percent mark but his 71.4 percent success rate on the curl was quite poor. The route he ran most often in his games sampled, Hansen did not show the needed ability to sell the vertical route before snapping back to the quarterback on curls. This made him easier for defenders to stick with and predict, thus getting him tired up in tight man coverage.

GETTY IMAGES SPORT / EZRA SHAW

He hardly ran out-breaking routes in college and it was no surprise for them all to show up in the red on his success rate chart. To say he’s a work in progress as a route runner would be an understatement.

In the past, I’ve dismissed “doesn’t run the full route tree” as a valid criticism of NFL Draft prospects. It’s mostly a recycled old piece of jargon that gets overrated considering how some of the NFL’s top receivers also run a small handful of routes on the majority of their plays. All that is still true. With that being said, Hansen’s level of inexperience, quantified with multiple metrics, is still striking. Additionally, a prospect like Corey Coleman who didn’t run a full route tree, showed he was worth the investment with special success rate scores and strong performance in Reception Perception’s ancillary metrics. Chad Hansen can’t quite claim the same feat.

Ancillary Metrics
For being a player who ran so many in-breaking routes, Chad Hansen was not a strong player after the catch. Hansen was “in space” on 11.5 percent of his routes, right within the prospect average. He went down on first contact on 60 percent of those plays, a rate over 11 points higher than the average prospect and the second-highest in the 2017 class. None of his in space attempts saw Hansen break more than one tackle.

Even worse, Hansen is in a dubious company in costed catch conversion rate. Well, he’s really in a class of his own. Hansen’s 25 percent conversion rate on contested catch attempts is tied with Alabama’s Ardarius Stewart for the lowest in the series’ history. One difference: Hansen registered 16 attempts, more than four times what Stewart collected.

Hansen tracks the ball well deep but struggles when contact arrives. Despite showing plenty of catch radius with notable leaping ability on his highlight reels, leaving his feet with a defender in close quarters proved to be a task too much for the Cal receiver.

Moving Forward
There is no arguing that Hansen shows so positive marks in his Reception Perception profile. A strong success rate vs. press and a handful of positive route success rate scores show there may well be a player worth developing here.

However, his narrow assignment in college, including one of the more limited route trees recorded and only playing on side of the field show he has a long way to go to being an impactful NFL-level receiver. Unlike a Corey Coleman type of player, Hansen didn’t check ancillary metrics or show the special separation production to confidently say the destination at the end of the development path is one worth the journey.

Chad Hansen is a project receiver, that much is clear. Without question, he’s a player that should go on Day 3 of the NFL Draft. With proper time and coaching, he could turn into a contributing receiver in the pros. Just how much he’s capable of will depend on his ability to extrapolate his performance on a limited assignment portfolio in college to the rest of his game.

 

[jrry32]

Glad he took the time to profile Zamora. I've been pushing him for awhile. Don't know if the Rams will consider him due to his character concerns, but he's a freak of nature. If we want a Josh Gordon-like talent, we should go after him.

That all said, he's incredibly raw. So people would have to keep their expectations in check during his rookie year.

 

[Merlin]

Thanks for putting these up @StealYoGurley. I don't necessarily agree with all his determinations on future NFL roles, but the volume of his work is impressive and very useful.

I'd be interested in seeing his take on Stewart. He's not a guy who jumped off the film for me, personally, but I see him talked up quite a bit around the internet.

 

[StealYoGurley]

Ryan Switzer​

The clearance rack is a fascinating place. Without a doubt, a good half of the items curtained there belong in the department store’s version of the Island of Misfit Toys. Yet, it’s also home to pieces that serve as true finds for the keen-eyed shopper able to spot the gems.

Any self-respecting amateur fashionista has plucked an item off that clearance rack and thought to themselves, “What is this even doing here?” in the portion of the store so deeply discounted. A true hipster does it at least once or twice every other shopping excursion, at a minimum.

It’s important to remember that a piece of clothing doesn’t end up on the clearance rack because of something that’s inherently wrong with it. Rather, public perception and reaction is what puts it there. Whether it’s “not the right season for flannel” or “that shirt clashes with jeans” or “graphic tees are a dime a dozen,” the clientele at large’s pushback to certain items see them slapped with that red sticker; nothing more, nothing less.

In the same vein, every few years we see stellar examples from the traditional slot receiver archetype slip into the clearance rack portions of the NFL Draft’s third day. The 2017 iteration of that player is Ryan Switzer out of UNC.

Despite a senior season spent as the apple of future top quarterback selection Mitchell Trubisky’s eye while catching 96 passes, Switzer catches little buzz from the NFL Draft analysis machine. As analysts spent the draft season attempting to decipher how to best justify overspending on hot ticket items at the “big slot” position in Cooper Kupp and Zay Jones, Switzer existed on the periphery with little questions on his resume.

The prototypical undersized slot receivers constantly find themselves on the draft’s clearance rack because the first two days “aren’t the right value for them” or “they’re scheme specific” or “those little guys are a dime a dozen.” Now, some of that might be fair, but it doesn’t change the fact that in the proper offense those players can go on to consistently churn out productive seasons and help move the chains. Ryan Switzer has every bit the look of the next player to come out from under the radar to make his future pro team quite happy as an interior player.

Alignment and target data
Games Sampled: Georgia, Pittsburgh, Florida State, Virginia Tech, NC State, Stanford

While players like Kupp and Jones, in the minds of some, at least offered reasons in their profiles for analysts to consider whether they could operate outside, there’s no mistaking where Ryan Switzer belongs. The UNC senior took 86.9 percent of the snaps played in his six games sampled for Reception Perception from the slot. That was the highest ratio of any player charted in this class. Switzer operated off the line of scrimmage on 93.6 percent of his plays, affording him a free release and assisting in avoiding physical coverage early in the route.

The Tarheels’ leader in receptions and receiving yards, Switzer was the clear favorite target of one-year starter Mitchell Trubisky. The future first round quarterback targeted Switzer on 35.6 percent of the slot maven’s 222 routes over his sampled contests. Naturally, he ran a number of high percentage patterns, but Switzer’s excellent hands still show up in a 72.2 catch rate, fourth-best in the class. Despite all the targets sent his way, he only dropped three passes.

Success rate vs. coverage
The slot receiver is most well-known for its typically undersized subjects who excel in the short-area quickness department. Ryan Switzer certainly fits the bill there, standing at just 5-foot-8 and weighing 181 pounds. He also showed well in agility drills at the NFL Scouting Combing, including the 60-yard shuttle (86th percentile), 20-yard shuttle (92nd) and three-cone drill (75th), per Mockdraftable.

With that being said, the most important quality for a slot receiver to possess is strong technique. In order to fulfill their destinies as underneath producers and reliable dump off options for their quarterbacks, these players need to come with a strong craftsman approach to the position to separate early and often in their routes. Ryan Switzer has that ability in spades.

Operating on the interior, Switzer faced zones far more often than one-on-one coverage. His 138 registered attempts vs. zone coverage checked in as the second-most in this class, trailing only Zay Jones. Switzer’s 81.2 percent success rate shows why he’s such an ideal fit at the position, checking in at the 79th percentile among prospects charted the last two years. He already proved that the coverage he’ll see most often in the NFL is no issue for him to foil.

Of course, there will be situations in which Switzer is tasked with beating man coverage or is even roughed up at the line of scrimmage by a nickel corner. He verified that he could indeed separate from isolated coverage, not just sift through zones, by posting a 71.1 percent success rate vs. man coverage, a score falling in the 67th percentile. His technical prowess and route-running acumen makes him a chore to cover, even for cornerbacks with more overall athletic ability. Switzer rarely saw press coverage operating in the slot so often, a class low 14 attempts, but did show well in limited reps with an above 71.4 percent success rate (74th percentile).

Route data
We typically expect the slot receiver to mostly function on the short-area routes near the line of scrimmage, piling up catches on slants and drags but not much else. Yet, we will occasionally see an interior receiver break that mold and post big plays on a variety of patterns. Washington’s 5-foot-9, 179-pound receiver Jamison Crowder proved to be one of those players in the NFL this year. Some of the data gleaned from Ryan Switzer’s route tree appears to lend credence to the idea he could be one of them, as well.

Red is below the two-year prospect average, green is above and yellow is within the average.

The most interesting figure is indeed a below average 14.4 route percentage on slants. It’s a pattern we typically associate with the slot receiver, but it was not one of Switzer’s highest usage routes in relation to other prospects. The flat route, however, came in at an above average 13.1 percent and that is another pattern commonly associated with the slot position.

It’s striking to note Switzer’s above average rate on more intermediate routes such as the the dig, post corner and out. UNC not only asked Switzer to work the middle of the field, but also heaped out-breaking assignments on his plate.

In addition to the example of Jamison Crowder, Doug Baldwin is another slot receiver who operates well beyond the typical confines of the position. Despite being almost exclusively an interior player, Baldwin is an outlier in that he also functions as his team’s true No. 1 receiver. His ability to function as a threat in the intermediate game is one of the biggest reasons why. It appears that Switzer showed some of the ability as the Tarheels’ top receiver in 2016, at least from a usage standpoint.

Obviously, Switzer did not see much use in the deep game, and his 6.8 route percentage on the nine was the lowest among 2017 draft prospects. However, he did show an ability to get open with a sterling 73.3 percent success rate vs. coverage. Switzer isn’t typically separating with speed or precision against man coverage on those patterns, but rather, finding holes in zones and presenting a chunk play option for his quarterback.

We noted that Switzer wasn’t as much of a threat on slants as one would typically expect from a slot receiver, and his 75 percent success rate vs. coverage was a below average score. The same can be noted for other in-breaking routes like the dig and post. Perhaps this isn’t the central point of his game because he’s not a consistent “make the first defender miss” player.

Switzer was “in space” on 12.6 percent of his charted routes, an above average rate. However, he went down on first contact on 53.6 percent of his “in space” attempts, fourth-highest in the class. Yet, he did show some ability to occasionally break a big play, as his multiple broken tackle rate of 14.3 percent was above the two-year prospect average.

It appears that Switzer may fit best as a threat on out-breaking routes such as the corner and flat, where he posted above average success rates. Not only can he consistently earn first downs on those plays, but especially on the corner, he can also pick up chunk yardage for his offense if paired with a precise passer.

Some of Switzer’s ability to be a safety blanket also shows up in his route success rate chart. Switzer’s “other” route percentage fell at the class average, and the vast majority of those plays were situations where he broke off his original route to work open for a scrambling quarterback. His strong 81.8 percent success rate on those patterns show he has a knack for improvisation, and option routes that often earn interior receivers long term NFL roles. Switzer’s 77.4 percent success rate vs. coverage on the curl is a score that reminds of Willie Snead, who moved to the slot in New Orleans this past season and remains the steady force in that receiving group.

So much of Ryan Switzer’s profile, Reception Perception-based or otherwise, screams of a future successful NFL slot receiver in the making. He’s adept at beating multiple forms of coverage with a strong set of route-running tools, but also shows Baldwin and Crowder-like abilities to work in areas of the field beyond near the line of scrimmage.

As with most slot receivers, much of his future role and the following production will be dictated by landing spot. These type of receivers, in particular, require precise, intelligent quarterbacks in high volume passing games to make noise in the stat sheets. If Switzer does land in one of those spots, expect him to go on to be one of the annual steals off the clearance rack that the football world at large looks back and wonders how they missed on that up and coming item.

Either way, Switzer looks destined to outperform the expectations of a player curtained on the clearance rack. His archetype will likely land him there on draft day, as public perception so often dictates it does, but that will just be another reward for those with the keen eye to spot the bargain at hand.

 

[StealYoGurley]

Josh Reynolds​

As the draft creeps ever closer, it’s been hard to miss the steady drumbeat growing among film watchers for Texas A&M receiver Josh Reynolds. Lauded for his ability to high-point the ball and make the spectacular grab, even a cursory glance at his game provides an easy piece of evidence for why he has so many fans.

Reception Perception aims to do what is a challenge for just the average note-taker: place all portions of a wide receiver’s performance in context and congruence with each other. Through the number of metrics provided by the charting methodology, we can observe which players exist in a limited or narrow role, while also noting their strengths and proficiency in that assignment. Most importantly, the success rates in the series help show whether that player in question can ever hope to function outside of their collegiate role.

Josh Reynolds is a fascinating case, as his evaluation brought on a healthy mix of questions and answers. After questioning whether some of the anecdotes of his strongest traits hold up, we may have stumbled on how he truly stands out among players incubated in similar collegiate environments.

Alignment and Target Data
Games Sampled: South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi State, LSU, Kansas State

Throughout the 2017 Reception Perception draft series we’ve placed little emphasis on the wide receivers who primarily stuck to one side of the field, as fully explained in JuJu Smith-Schuster’s profile. With players like Laquon Treadwell, Kevin White and Dorial Green-Beckham primarily playing one side of the field in college and also getting off to slow starts in the NFL, we might be seeing the beginning of a trend developing. With such a limited collegiate assignment that does not replicate a pro receiver’s deployment, perhaps these players are naturally predisposed to a steeper learning curve.

Josh Reynolds becomes the latest among a group of prospects charted the last three years to operate almost exclusively from one position on over 70 percent of their charted snaps. Of these players, Green-Beckham posted the highest yardage total in his NFL rookie season with just 549.

The former Aggies receiver took 84.2 percent of his snaps at right wide receiver over the six games charted for Reception Perception. Over 66 percent of them came with Reynolds attached to the line of scrimmage playing the X-receiver spot. He gained some experience playing in the slot, traveling there on 5.3 percent of his snaps, 24 in total.

Texas A&M plays a wide-open spread passing offense much like the offense Chad Hansen operated in at Cal-Berkeley. Unlike his Cal counterpart, Reynolds wasn’t the target hog of the Aggies’ offense in 2016, drawing a target on 26 percent of his charted routes. Reynolds only caught a pass on 14.7 percent of his patterns, the second-lowest rate among 2017 draft prospects with only Josh Malone’s 13.1 percent trailing him.

One of the issues sure to stick with other analysts, though they tend to be overstated in general, is his propensity for drops. Reynolds checked in with a 9.4 drop rate in his sampled games, one of three highest in this class. Drops are often overweighed by fans because the negative effect they have on us tends to overwhelm our perspective and casts a shadow over positive traits. On the other hand, spectacular catches can have the inverse effect and cause us to extrapolate those high moments to the rest of our takeaways.

Ancillary Metrics
Before digging into his route running, it’s important to note the attributes that most often draw analyst’s affection. Simply put: Josh Reynolds makes some of the most spectacular catches among the wide receiver prospects in this draft. His highlight clips and cutups are littered with impressive, leap-driven catches where Reynolds plucks the ball with strong hands in midair. Yet, in the inverse effect of the overpowering negative visceral reaction to drops, observing a few of those awe-inspiring catches can leave a stamp of positive reaction that’s tough to wash away.

Given some of the sterling catches he makes in the air, it was disappointing to see Reynolds check in with a 64.3 percent contested catch conversion rate in Reception Perception. Now, for context, that’s far from a poor score. It is above the two-year prospect average. However, it falls just above the 58th percentile. Reynolds is certainly capable of winning this brand of difficult reception, but his ability in the air is far from a dominant trait on the level of a Chris Godwin, and even falls below some smaller receivers like Carlos Henderson or Taywan Taylor.

GETTY IMAGES SPORT / JOE ROBBINS

One area where Reynolds did live up to the hype was after the catch, going down on first contact on just 35.7 percent of his “in space” attempts. He was proficient in making the first defender miss, breaking a single tackle on 50 percent of his in space attempts, and at busting out big plays, shown by breaking two or more tackles on the remaining 14.3 percent. Both of those scores checked in above the two-year prospect average.

In this area, Reynolds compared to a similarly built current NFL player in Marvin Jones. During his final season with the Bengals, Jones broke a single tackle on 62.5 percent of his in space attempts and multiple tackles on 12.5 percent. Of course, Jones still holds the Reception Perception record with a 90 percent contested catch conversion rate from that 2015 campaign. Should Reynolds soon hone that skill in the air as Jones has, he could enjoy a similar career to the now Lions wideout. He certainly has the potential route-running acumen to do so.

Success Rate vs. Coverage
In his work as a separator, Josh Reynolds shows his true value and placement among the receivers in this year’s class. Despite his tall and lanky frame at 6-foot-3, 194 pounds and propensity to high-point passes in high-leverage situations, Reynolds showed well in all layers of success rate vs. coverage.

With a 71.1 percent success rate vs. man coverage, Reynolds scored at the 67th percentile among prospects charted for Reception Perception. He also showed well when asked to defeat jams at the line of scrimmage, with a 67.3 percent success rate vs. press coverage. That score put him above the two-year prospect average, but only by a few percentage points.

Reynolds’ best work came against zone coverage, with a success rate (83.9 percent) above the 94th percentile. He showed a strong ability to sift through traffic in the middle of the field, as well as diagnosing coverage at or above the level of his quarterback. It should be noted, however, that Reynolds only faced 56 attempts against zones, compared to 149 in man coverage.

Route Data
We noted that Reynolds comes from a similar college offense to that of Chad Hansen or Ishmael Zamora, who came with limited assignments as route-runners. Not only did Reynolds primarily play just one receiver position, he also was not responsible for a wide array of patterns.

Essentially, Reynolds’ deployment portfolio primarily contained just three routes, with 75 percent of his charted patterns being slants, curls or nines. Those were the only routes he ran at a rate above the prospect average. He did check in at the average for out route percentage and mixed in some posts and digs at a mild level, but by in large, his work was done on just those three routes.

Reynolds’ deployment on just one side of the field in conjunction with a narrow usage pattern on the route tree simply cannot be ignored. It would not be surprising to see this player struggle to make an early impact in the NFL, given his overall lack of a diverse set of assignment experiences. However, his route success rate scores give optimism that with the proper seasoning, there is something to be mined with Reynolds’ potential.

Among those three routes Reynolds ran at a high rate, the only one that did not come with an above average success rate was the nine. His 80.8 percent success rate on slants, and especially his 85.7 percent success rate on curls were some of the best scores in the 2017 draft class.

With his ability to play the ball in the air, Reynolds makes sense as a threat on curl routes in breaking back to the quarterback. It helps that he demonstrates an understanding of deceptive routes running, not tipping off his intent when cutting off a vertical stem. Similarly, as he’s a quantifiable threat to break tackles in the open field, his NFL team will likely make use of him on slants to get him into space.

Though he was not asked to run many other routes at a high frequency, Reynolds largely passed any and all tests in limited showings by scoring above the average on all routes outside of the nine and post. It may take time, but Reception Perception indicates the senior wideout could develop into a more complete player as his career goes on.

Unlike the litany of other receivers who will likely face a steep learning curve due to their college offense and limited roles, Josh Reynolds shows the route-running acumen and separation to potentially eschew those worries. With strong success rates across the route tree and overall marks against man and zone, Reynolds passed the Reception Perception test.

With verifiable strengths in the air in the contested catch game and more notably on the ground after the catch, Reynolds has abilities to lean on while he marinates in the technical portions of the wide receiver craft. Of all the developmental receivers who need to overcome limitations brought on by their college role, take Josh Reynolds as the one to see his ability shine through over his assignment. The ceiling might not be tremendous in his future outlook, with a lack of spectacular scores across the board, but don’t be surprised if by 2019 or earlier, Reynolds is competing for or locked down a prominent complementary spot in a passing game.