Shawn Siegele looks at the WR Freak Scores for the NFL’s fastest combine class ever.
If you’ve been compiling picks for the maligned 2022 rookie draft, you got what you wanted on Thursday. A record eight WRs ran below 4.4 at the 2022 NFL combine, and several of the other big names also ran well. Many of these players will start rising on draft boards. When we’re done, this class may even measure up to the recent greats.
How can we translate these numbers into reality and fantasy success? The Freak Score stretches all the way back to the Fantasy Douche era. Last offseason, Matt Spencer revisited the metric and found that the Freak Score Has Been Finding TDs for Six Years and Counting.
The Freak Score builds off FD’s research demonstrating that height is a key component in red zone TD scoring. Matt verified that this combination of speed, weight, and height has been extremely effective in finding TDs and locating sleepers. Both of those elements are critical to us as fantasy participants.
Now that we have physical measurements and 40 times for most of the healthy WRs in the class, it’s time to look at 2022 Freak Scores. With all of these fast times, can anyone threaten Calvin Johnson’s seemingly unbreakable mark (98)? What about reaching the same rarified air as D.K. Metcalf (91) or Julio Jones (86)? Who will be the breakout sleeper like Chase Claypool (90) was two years ago?
