The Patriots have one of the worst track records of drafting wide receivers since the turn of the century. Sadly, 2024 did not yield much better results, as I detailed in an offseason preview of the team:
The Patriots’ track record of evaluating wide receiver talent over the past 25 years is one of the worst in the league. Outside of transitioning Julian Edelman from a college QB, signing Wes Welker, and trading for a disgruntled Randy Moss, there are not many other WR moves that could be described as hits for the team since the turn of the century.
Unfortunately, the new front-office regime perpetuated the poor history of WR picks by selecting Ja’Lynn Polk (37th overall) and Javon Baker (110th) in the 2024 draft. Polk’s standing as the WR243 in FPOE paints him as one of the least efficient WRs in the entire NFL last season, while Baker’s inability to see the field despite the lack of competition from legitimate NFL WR talent should tell us all we need to know about his future prospects.
The latest in the line of Patriots WR draft picks is Kyle Williams, who New England selected at the start of the third round in this year’s draft. Williams combines consistent production and impressive athleticism with advanced age and some questionable peripherals. Joining a WR corps with few sure things, can Williams rise up the depth chart and break the Patriots’ WR curse?
Kyle Williams’ NFL Comps
Williams is an older prospect who spent five years in college, but he has been productive throughout his entire career, which included time at UNLV and Washington State. He kicked off his true freshman season in Las Vegas by posting a 36% dominator rating (DR) and 2.2 yards per team attempt (YPTA) in his six active games, then followed it up with a sophomore season where he posted a 26% DR and again eclipsed 2.0 YPTA across 10 games. Williams’ counting stats stayed fairly consistent year-over-year at UNLV, and he put together a second season exceeding a 30% DR in 2022 despite seeing his YPTA fall below 2.0 yards.
Williams kicked off his career at Washington State with another productive season in 2023 before posting a massive 2024 that saw him hit a 38% DR, nearly 3.0 YPTA, and 17.0 yards per reception. Overall, Williams never saw a DR of less than 22% throughout his college career, while only falling below 1.9 YPTA once.
Over his five years in college, Williams’ advanced stats are all over the place. He was able to post two seasons of 30%-plus evasion rates (EVAS%) at UNLV before dipping below 10.0% EVAS% in 2023 and then climbing back to 25.7% in 2024. During the three seasons when Williams posted strong EVAS%, his production heavily favored forced missed tackles over broken tackles. Otherwise, most of Williams’ best numbers came in his final season, with his impressive marks of a 125.2 receiver rating (sixth in the 2025 rookie class), 8.7 yards after the catch (first), 17.0 yards per reception (fourth), 3.0 yards per route run (fourth), and 61.0% positive rate (seventh) being giant upgrades over marks that were average at best in his previous four seasons.
If there is one glaring red flag for Williams, it is his inconsistency in reeling in the ball. The only time he was able to surpass a 90.0% on-target catch rate was as a freshman. As we may be able to deduce, Williams has had a problem with drops over the past five years, with only one season below a 7.9% drop rate. The only WR in this year’s draft class to have a worse 2024 drop rate than Williams’ 9.9% was Dominic Lovett. Sadly, 2024 did not represent Williams’ worst finish in the metric, as he had drop rates of 15.5% in 2021 and 11.8% in 2022.
Following the conclusion of the 2024 college season, Williams became a steady riser in mock drafts. While a 39th-percentile explosion score is not ideal, his performance at the combine did nothing to slow the positive drumbeat.
