2023 wide receiver rankings and top analytical comps

Adding analytical comps to existing research to rank-order the top wide receiver prospects in the 2023 draft class

This piece has my rankings for the 2023 wide receiver class. I already published purely model-based rankings that accounted for expected draft position, combine measurables and production metrics. I’ll used those model outputs, along with updated draft expectations and draft-agnostic comps to form my final rankings. Estimated draft positions (EDP) are based on weighted mock data from Grinding the Mocks.

The draft-agnostic top comparable players below are based on a matching algorithm using a number of advanced and charted stats from PFF. Specifically, the matching stats are:

• Yards per route run

• Touchdowns per route run

• Yards per reception

• Yards-after-catch per reception

• Percentage of routes lined up in the slot

• Average depth of target

• Drop rate

• Avoided tackles per reception

The numbers below are all given as percentiles among all wide receivers from 2014-2022 who were targeted at least 50 times in their final college seasons. For drop rate that are considered negatives, I reverse the percentile so that lower is better.

Each of the comparable players has a similarity score (Sim Score) that quantifies the euclidean distance,¹or similarity, between the normalized values of all metrics. For simplicity, each metric is weighted equally, as the goal is to find players who had a similar statistical profile without attaching value judgments.

Because draft position is not part of the matching features, you should make a mental note when comps are way out of the players’ like draft ranges, but also think about what that might mean. Eight historical draft classes isn’t the biggest sample, but it’s all we have for these advanced metrics. The historical comps were restricted to prospects who ended up with at least 20 targets in an NFL season.

I’m only ranking prospects who are currently estimated to be taken in the first 100 picks, according to recent mocks. Some prospects on this list will fall beyond that mark in the actual draft, and some not included will make it into Day 2 of the draft. I’ll update these rankings post-draft once we know exactly were every prospect was, or wasn’t, taken.

TIER 1

Ranking: 1st; Model Rank: 1st; EDP: 13; Declare: True Junior

Height: 6’0”; Weight: 196; Forty: 4.52 (Pro Day)

Smith-Njigba checks all the boxes to be the WR1 of the class, though the competition isn’t particularly stiff in this draft. The stats in the comps table are from JSN’s sophomore season in 2021, only running 40 routes due to injury. Even if JSN ends up primarily playing the slot in the NFL, he can still be a valuable option, though perhaps without the upside of other prospects.

JSN’s comps are a mixed bag, with all at the 70th percentile or higher in routes run from the slot, and average or lower depth of target. Treylon Burks and Jerry Jeudy were easier projections to play outside in the NFL due to their respective size and speed.

TIER 2