Bryant's buyer beware: Picking a wide receiver in the draft's first round is a risky decision
Bryant's buyer beware: Picking a wide receiver in the draft's first round is a risky decision
By Jeff Legwold
The Denver Post
POSTED: 04/08/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
There's always one — one player most folks involved with the NFL draft think should be better.
A guy who would seem to have all he needs to succeed in the NFL but often leaves personnel people trying to figure out if he will flourish and just how high he should be drafted because of far more questions than answers.
This year, that guy is Oklahoma State's Dez Bryant.
Watch him play and you see a 6-foot-2, 225-pound wide receiver with quality hands and top-shelf athleticism. A guy who snatches the ball, gets upfield and overpowers defensive backs in the scoring zone.
But it's the other things that are nagging at personnel people. Things like Bryant's suspension for most of the 2009 season because he lied to NCAA investigators about his relationship with Deion Sanders. Things like his 40-yard dash time at his personal workout — between 4.50 and 4.61 seconds, depending on which scout was holding which stopwatch. Things like many in attendance at the workout not feeling all of the competitiveness they wanted to feel coming from Bryant, that air about an elite player that says it's his time to shine.
Before his difficulties last season and even before his workout last month, there were people in the league who saw Bryant as one of the top five players on the draft board. They saw the 19 touchdown receptions in 2008 to go with an average of 17 yards per catch. And they saw that in just three games last season, he had 17 receptions for 323 yards and four touchdowns.
Oklahoma State's 2009 offense wasn't the same without Bryant, who finished fifth on the team in catches despite missing 10 games.
In recent weeks, it's become fashionable inside and outside the league to hand Bryant to the Broncos with the 11th overall pick in the April 22-24 draft. (Despite league personnel executives continually mocking the seemingly innumerable mock drafts these days, teams conduct the same exercise within their own confines to gauge how they think things will shake out during the draft.)
The thinking is that the Broncos will eventually come off their desire for a first-round pick for wide receiver Brandon Marshall and trade him, so they will need a replacement. True enough, but to seek immediate impact from a wide receiver in the draft is to be almost continually disappointed. No other position on the draft board, outside of quarterback, brings as much heartache for an NFL rookie as wide receiver.
Only a handful of receivers since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 have had 1,000-yard seasons in their rookie years, and 50-catch seasons are more the exception than the rule in a wideout's rookie year. Consider the rookie record for yards receiving was set in 1960 by Bill Groman (1,473).
Last year's rookie class, with the advent of three-wide offenses and a pass-happy rule book, was productive. Austin Collie, Percy Harvin, Hakeem Nicks and Michael Crabtree had quality rookie years. But the two wideouts drafted among the top 10 picks — Darius Heyward-Bey (by the Raiders, seventh overall) and Crabtree (by the 49ers, 10th overall) — did not have the immediate impact Collie did as the 127th player drafted.
That is the rub. Players like Bryant always are among the most athletic, most desirable players in the draft, but the position they play is fraught with vocational potholes.
Experience is a fierce teacher for rookie wide receivers in the NFL. That's why a team drafting a wideout in the first round would be wise to simply stand up and say it's making the pick for later impact instead of an impact now. Because, frankly, that's how it almost always works out.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
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