Skinny WRs have actually exceeded draft expectations, and DeVonta Smith is the most skilled we've seen

There's no evidence that slight receivers can't succeed. There's plenty of evidence that Devonta Smith is special.

We have officially reached the portion of the NFL calendar when body measurements become talking points and the subject of heated internet tiffs. Inevitably, the never-ending debate over which measurements matter for draft prospects starts back up again and never really gets resolved.

The debate, itself, seems silly. We’ve seen players of all shapes and sizes succeed at positions all over the field, but that doesn’t mean we can (or should) just totally dismiss physical thresholds. They do seem to matter.

Which brings us to this week’s main character on Draft Twitter, Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith, who told the media Monday that he’s weighing in at 170 pounds at the moment. Even for receiver standards, that’s light. For first-round receiver prospects, it’s pretty much unprecedented.

And here's the BMI of every WR drafted from '94 to '20, on the Y-Axis, next to the round they were drafted in on the X-Axis. And yes, I put Smith down in the first round.

He will be a pretty unique player. pic.twitter.com/OvWl8X9NeW

— Football Perspective (@fbgchase) March 23, 2021

Since the turn of the century, only one receiver weighing fewer than 180 pounds was drafted in the first round. That was Ted Ginn in 2007.

Mike Tanier wrote about the spotty track record of sub-180 receivers who have been drafted over the last two decades for Fansided and found that almost all of them topped out as useful role players rather than stars. DeSean Jackson was the best out of the bunch, and while he was more than a role player, he’s had a hard time staying healthy.

Tanier makes a compelling point, for sure. The track record is concerning, but I don’t know if any of the players on that list are comparable to what we think of Smith as a prospect. Yes, 95% of the skinny receivers drafted over the last 20 years did not become star players; but, outside of Ginn, none of those players were really expected to develop into stars in the first place. At least based on where they were drafted.

Using Chase Stuart’s draft value chart, I compared that group of players’ expected Approximate Value through the first five years of their careers to their actual AV through the first five years and found that only seven out of the 22 failed to exceed expectations based on draft position.

Here it is in bar chart form…

Based on those results, an argument can be made the league undervalues lighter receivers. But, really, the sample size is too small to draw any firm conclusions. And I just don’t know how useful any of this is for a prospect as unique as Smith, who will almost certainly join Ginn as the second sub-180 receiver taken in the first round in the past 20 years.

But even a Smith-Ginn comparison is a bit of a reach. Ginn was a top-10 pick, but that was seen as a stretch due to his lack of polish as a receiver. This isn’t hindsight, either. Directly after the draft, an anonymous scout wrote this for ESPN:

“While he has excellent speed, he ran just three routes at Ohio State, so he has a tremendous amount of work to do in that area.”

There are no such concerns with Smith, who is an elite route-runner with a strong pair of hands that allowed him to finish tied for fifth in the class in contested catches, per Pro Football Focus. He’s seen as an all-around receiver who can win in just about any way an offense could ask of him. The film doesn’t show a player with play strength issues, either. He has no problem working against press coverage or worthing through contact down the field.

If those issues did show up on a film, then his weight would be a legitimate concern. I’m just not seeing any evidence, that in his particular case, that it should be something we’re concerned about.

Devonta Smith vs. Press per PFF from @NFLResearch pic.twitter.com/WOjMuUWojm

— Patrick Claybon (@PatrickClaybon) March 23, 2021

I guess another concern would be durability. Smith is a hard-nosed ball carrier who will take on tacklers in the open field and that might be unsustainable at the next level. But he didn’t miss any time playing in the SEC, which is probably the closest approximation to the NFL you’ll find. And, other than Jackson, injuries weren’t really an issue for players on that list above.

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call Smith a truly unique prospect. That doesn’t mean he’ll turn out to be an exception to the rule. But we can say that his scouting report already is an exception and should probably be viewed through a different lens.