When we’re talking about players who check all the boxes, we typically mean that they are players who perhaps don’t jump off the page, yet they do a little bit of everything. Justin Jefferson’s prospect profile didn’t wow us with massive market shares or blazing speed, but he was good at everything: he declared early, he broke out early, he hit all our favorite production thresholds, and he possessed above-average athleticism.
Shawn recently conducted another checking-all-the-boxes thought experiment:
Let’s say we want to build the perfect receiver by asking him to meet a handful of volume and efficiency thresholds . . .
- 30% targets per route
- 3.25 yards per route
- 3.50 air yards per route
- 50% air conversion
We would come up with this type of prospect:
Player Season Air/Route YPRR TPRR Air Conv Yds TDs Tee Higgins 2019 5.27 4.23 0.33 0.56 1167 13 Marvin Harrison Jr. 2023 4.65 3.58 0.35 0.50 1211 14 Marvin Harrison Jr. 2022 4.60 3.38 0.32 0.54 1263 14 DeVonta Smith 2020 4.24 4.94 0.40 0.57 1856 23 Troy Franklin 2023 4.10 3.74 0.31 0.55 1383 14 Elijah Moore 2020 3.87 4.28 0.36 0.63 1193 8 Tyler Johnson 2019 3.78 3.83 0.36 0.67 1318 13 Drake London 2021 3.73 3.70 0.42 0.56 1084 7 CeeDee Lamb 2019 3.73 4.41 0.31 0.57 1327 14 Malik Nabers 2023 3.71 3.89 0.32 0.65 1569 15
In addition to the metrics Shawn mentions, we might also posit things like early declare, early breakout, and a certain minimum threshold of athleticism we’d like to see (say, either a 4.5 forty or a 7.0 three cone — of course faster is better). Adding these criteria would remove Tyler Johnson (a four-year player with below-average athleticism), DeVonta Smith (a four-year player who proves that every rule has exceptions), and Tee Higgins (a below-average athlete who proves that athleticism is the least important of these boxes).
Troy Franklin Checks These Boxes and More
Seeing Troy Franklin’s name on a list with a group of first-rounders and other fantasy stars might make him seem out of place, but Shawn’s thought experiment gets at something crucial about Franklin’s profile that is easy to overlook: he too checks all the boxes.
Franklin declared for the draft after his true junior season at Oregon, a season in which he managed a 31% dominator rating with 31% of the team’s receiving yards. His sophomore season, while not a true breakout season, was almost as good. He finished his college career before turning 21, and gets a listed breakout age in our database of 20.9. And his athleticism was on display at the combine as he turned in a 4.41 forty, a 6.9 three cone, and a 39-inch vertical.
Well, Almost All the Boxes
There is one red flag, of course:
