The need, the need for speed: Ravens tendencies at WR
Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Now I wouldn’t call the Ravens front office insane, but their record on drafting wide receivers is at least a little crazy.
They would say that their approach has changed under DeCosta, I ventured to suggest in my piece looking at the Steelers draft tendencies, that they are taking more of a Pittsburgh model to drafting receivers. I would argue they need to take more than a leaf out of our rivals’ approach.
I remember when the Steelers took Diontae Johnson two years ago, in the third round, out of Toledo. It was a year after they had taken Terrell Edmunds in the first round and arguably equally surprising that Johnson had been taken in the third, as Edmunds being taken in the first. The Johnson pick though, was far less vilified simply because of the perception of the Steelers’ ability to pick good receivers out of the crowd.
The Ravens are entirely the opposite. They couldn’t pick a good receiver out of a line-up, even if you lined up Breshad Perriman, Tommy Streeter, Yamon Figurs and Julio Jones.
But the Ravens and DeCosta have latched on to one part of the successful strategy that the Steelers employ here. Taking more swings at it. I’ve written about this before but I believe DeCosta’s references to taking more receivers in the draft is an indirect tip of the hat to the Steelers approach at the position. They have taken a swing at the position on day two, seven out of the last eight drafts. With our draft room now firmly under Eric DeCosta’s direction, we have emulated this in both the 2019 and 2020 draft with Boykin and then Duvernay.
It could be said that Pittsburgh’s laser focus on wide receivers on day two is a nod to their pass heavy offense in recent years and is more of a necessity than it is for the Ravens. And, that this predominance of wide receivers on day two has hurt the Steelers at other positions. Investing so much draft capital in the position has left their team imbalanced with talent, with little depth in other areas that they now so desperately need to step up in the midst of their cap crunch.
Despite all this though, I don’t think the Ravens have gone far enough in employing the Steelers’ approach to the position.
Firstly they have missed the subtle change that the Steelers made to their strategy, signalled by the Juju pick in 2017. They stopped spending later third round picks on wide receivers and started regularly using their second round picks. They also stopped caring so much about speed at the position. They realised that a baseline of speed is necessary but that a 4.5 40 is enough for, and sometimes a better indicator of, success at the next level.
The Ravens are still obsessed with speed at the position, especially in the earlier rounds. The clearest tendency that they have in all of their receiver selections is their need for speed on day one and two of the NFL Draft. A 4.4 40 or faster highlights the profile of all of these selections. They also like to find wide receivers who are big, and fast for their size – in the case of Aaron Mellette or Jaleel Scott, or receivers who are simply big and fast for anyone’s size – in the case of Tommy Streeter or Miles Boykin.
It looks like they believe that physical traits are what signals success at the next level for wide receivers – their hypothesis being, if they’re not big and fast, they won’t get open. And this leads us to another thing they’ve missed from the Steelers’ approach. There is way more than one way to skin the cat at the next level in terms of being a successful wide receiver.
We see lots of different flavours of receiver working at the next level. Yes, fast guys get open, but so do guys who run excellent routes, guys who are strong at the catch point and not necessarily abnormally tall to allow them to do it. The Steelers started taking very different types of receiver and it has worked for them. All of this is neglecting to mention that routinely, the most consistent athletic profile of the most elite receivers in the league is within an inch either way of 6”0 and around 4.5/4.6 in the 40 yard dash.
It’s all small degrees of difference but I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that this profile differs clearly from what the Ravens look for. The 4.5 40 guys they take are all too big to sink their hips and change direction in the way that receivers need to, to be successful. And the 4.4 40 guys they take are more coveted and therefore over-drafted leading us to take them earlier in the draft than their skills for playing the position of wide receiver would warrant. Traits at receiver are more than just physical ones, the Ravens know this, they signed Steve Smith and traded for Anquan Boldin. They just don’t seem to apply it to their evaluation of the position.
In terms of other things they seem to prioritise and other tendencies, there really isn’t too much to write home about. Nothing other than measurable speed sticks out about the athletic profile. They do like a decent baseline of production in terms of receiving yardage across a receiver’s best season in college. Of the last twelve wide receivers selected (not including Darren Waller) all have had more than 800 yards receiving in their best season and eight had more than 1000 yards. Ten of the twelve also had 8 touchdowns or more.
Drops for a receiver fluctuate from year to year and five to six is nothing to be too alarmed about, hands are better evaluated on tape. But unlike other teams, the Ravens haven’t habitually avoided receivers with large numbers of drops – see Jordan Lasley and Breshad Perriman – but in the DeCosta years they do seem to care more about this.
As there was a distinct lack of any profile of what the Ravens look for beyond speed and some of these more tenuous links, I started to look at every other wide receiver statistic I could put my hands on from the college level. The fantasy community is big on the predictive nature of the college dominator rating and breakout age statistics. While I’m a still a little unconvinced of this being wholly predictive, Ravens selections in the draft at receiver had absolutely no discernible pattern here. Other advanced metrics like target share, yards per route run or average depth of target yielded no evidence of the Ravens sticking to any particular data mantra or the data betraying a specific approach at the position.
The only extra thing I could notice was that the Ravens prefer evidence of an ability to play outside if they are to be selected in the draft – every receiver since 2015 has spent at least one season playing over three quarters of their snaps from the outside receiver position. The only exception was James Proche who got close in his freshman year but then settled into a more regular 50/50 split between outside and the slot – still plenty of snaps to evaluate his ability on the outside as a four year starter.
I’d like to see the Ravens start consistently, maybe not as much as the Steelers as the position isn’t as important to our scheme, taking swings at wide receiver in the second round. I’d like to see the Ravens stop taking the same types of receiver over and over again. Take some different profiles and more consistently swing at guys who are more likely to be successful – 6”0 4.5 guys, if the height and speed is the most important thing to you.
For an analytically driven front office, its remarkable to see them be so wrong about a position even from a data perspective. The definition of insanity thing really rings true here. It is so clear what they prioritise at the evaluation of the position and it hasn’t worked – for decades. I would want to try something completely different.
This would be my plan to change things:
1. Take every wide receiver off the main draft board. Build your receiver board separately to the main board.
2. In terms of building the board, firstly take the athletic profile out of it, establish some baselines, yes, but be loose with them. Davante Adams and DeAndre Hopkins are both 6”1 and both ran a 4.6 40 yard dash. You cannot afford to set the baseline any higher than this or you could miss out on a Davante Adams or a DeAndre Hopkins.
3. Once you’ve established the baseline, be as analytically driven as possible – there are some interesting potential predictors of success or bust at the position. I would use the data to narrow down the pool of potential receivers to look at. They’ve proven they can’t draft the position so use the numbers to give a statistically higher chance of success.
4. Then for those players left, change up the tape evaluation process – focus on two or three traits that haven’t been prioritised as much before. I would start with competitiveness at the catch-point, ability to change direction in and out of breaks, and hands.
5. After all this has been taken into account, take the highest rated receiver on the board you’ve built, still available in the second round.
It’s radical, I know, but they need a complete reset at the position. They have been so abjectly bad at drafting for it over the history of the franchise. The evaluation portion of the criticism could be unfair, they could have scouted well and just not been in position to take the guys they liked the most. But they should go back and look at those boards and look in detail at what they’re missing when they underrate a player who goes on to be a success.
I’m not under any illusions about the amateur nature of my evaluation process. I’ve got some big hits over the years and I’ve had some big misses too. But I don’t think I bat significantly lower than NFL teams or any other analysts, mainly because this whole thing is a crap shoot.
I think you have to look at your failures as well as your successes if you’re to learn and grow at anything.
So the receiver I would focus on if I were the Ravens, would be one of the guys I thought would be a star and who I would have given my red star to in the 2014 draft. At pick 48 in that draft we took Timmy Jernigan. Five spots later, the Packers took Davante Adams. Why did we pass on him? What did we miss in our evaluation of him? Then adjust how we scout accordingly.