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The 2014 WR Draft Class: How Does it Rank after 7 Years


folz

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If we're going to play the hindsight game, why not stay at #9 and pick - oh, I don't know - maybe the best defensive player of all time?  We didn't of course, because we picked a fat tub of lard the year before. 

1996 - amazing year for WR's.  We picked what, the fifth WR in the draft and got near HOF quality.

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8 hours ago, bills6969 said:

Imagine Mike Evans opposite Diggs in this offense?

 

FU WHALEY!!

 

 

DK Metcalf or AJ Brown would be a lot better.    Great,  much younger and not on a gigantic contract like Evans.   Instead the Bills have.......Cody Ford.   

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3 hours ago, st pete gogolak said:

If we're going to play the hindsight game, why not stay at #9 and pick - oh, I don't know - maybe the best defensive player of all time?  We didn't of course, because we picked a fat tub of lard the year before. 

1996 - amazing year for WR's.  We picked what, the fifth WR in the draft and got near HOF quality.

 

 

Correct on Donald.   

 

Moulds wasn't that near HOF quality though.   Hall of very good........a very easy scratch for voters.   He had one truly great season and didn't rank consistently among the very elite WR of his time like Andre Reed did year-in-and-out in the late 80's and early 90's.    He played an ugly game for the back half of his career and had few signature moments......his only chance was an accumulator and he simply didn't accumulate enough to be in strong consideration for the HOF.        

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On 5/24/2021 at 11:38 PM, folz said:

Bored, off-season post:

 

With Kelvin Benjamin signing with the Giants last week, it made me think about the 2014 WR draft class. At the time, and in the first couple of years, it was billed as possibly the greatest WR draft class of all-time. So, after seven years, I wondered if that still held true.

 

2014 WRs

Round (pick)              Player                   Career (rec/yds/TDs)                Last two years average or player status 

 1st (#4)            Sammy Watkins         321 for 4,665 and 33                         45 for 547 and 3 TDs

 1st (#7)               Mike Evans              532 for 8,266 and 61                         69 for 1,082 and 11 TDs

 1st (#12)         Odell Beckham, Jr.      487 for 6,830 and 51                         49 for 677 and 4 TDs

 1st (#20)           Brandin Cooks          483 for 6,880 and 40                        62 for 867 and 4 TDs

 1st (#28)          Kelvin Benjamin         209 for 3,021 and 20              was out of league (signed by NYG as TE this year)

 2nd (#39)        Marquise Lee              174 for 2,184 and 8                                   out of league

 2nd (#42)      Jordan Matthews         274 for 3,288 and 22             out of league (was on SF practice squad last year)

 2nd (#45)       Paul Richardson          238 for 1,804 and 12                                  out of league

 2nd (#53)       Davonte Adams          546 for 6,568 and 62                          99 for 1,186 and 12 TDs

 2nd (#56)         Cody Latimer               70 for 935 and 2                                      out of league

 2nd (#61)         Allen Robinson            457 for 5,999 and 39                          100 for 1,196 and 7 TDs

 2nd (#63)           Jarvis Landry            636 for 7,028 and 35                          78 for 1,007 and 5 TDs

 3rd (#86)            Josh Huff                    51 for 523 and 4                                      out of league

 3rd (#90)        Donte Moncrief             205 for 2,576 and 21                             5 for 26 and 0 TDs

 3rd (#91)           John Brown                320 for 4,748 and 31                           53 for 759 and 5 TDs

 3rd (#97)            Dri Archer                      3 for 15 and 0                                       out of league

 

There were 18 more WRs selected in rounds 4-7. The following are the only ones with more than 300 career yards:

Bruce Ellington (769 yds) - out of league 

Martavius Bryant (2,183 yds) - out of league (playing in CFL and Indoor league)

Ryan Grant (1,333 yds) - out of the league (playing in the CFL)

T.J. Jones (852 yds) - out of the league

Quincy Enunwa (1,617 yds) - out of the league (mostly due to injuries)

 

Interesting to note that Jarvis Landry has the 2nd most yards in the class after Mike Evans (although Landry doesn't score as many TDs). Obviously Adams, Landry, and Robinson were the best values in the draft, although I definitely wouldn't have been upset drafting Mike Evans at #7.

 

After seven seasons there are only 10 of 34 WRs from the 2014 draft left in the league...but it's a pretty good group (well 7 or 8 of them at least):

Davonte Adams, Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, Jr., Brandin Cooks, Allen Robinson, John Brown, Sammy Watkins, Donte Moncrief, and Kelvin Benjamin

 

 

So, how do you think they stack up against other great WR classes thus far? Here are a few of the other (Super Bowl era) years considered the best for reference:

 

1996: Terrell Owens, Keyshawn Johnson, Marvin Harrison, Eric Moulds, Amani Toomer, Joe Horn, Mushin Muhammad, Bobby Engram, Eddie Kennison, Terry Glenn

1988: Michael Irvin, Tim Brown, Sterling Sharpe, Anthony Miller, Quinn Early, Michael Haynes, Flipper Anderson, Brian Blades, Brett Permian

1985: Jerry Rice, Andre Reed, Al Toon, Chris Burkett, Eddie Brown, Jessie Hester, Vance Johnson, Reggie Langhorne, Eric Martin

1974: Lynn Swan, John Stallworth, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, Roger Carr, Nat Moore, Freddie Scott, Sam McCullum

2001: Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, Steve Smith, Santana Moss, T.J. Houshmandzadah, Chris Chambers

1976: Steve Largent, Sammy White, Dave Logan, Henry Marshall, Duriel Harris, Pat Tilley

1991: Herman Moore, Ed McCaffrey, Keenan McCardell, Shawn Jefferson, Rocket Ismail, Jake Reed, Mike Pritchard, Michael Jackson, Jeff Graham

2015: Stephon Diggs, Tyler Lockett, Amari Cooper, Jamison Crowder, Devante Parker

2010: Demaryius Thomas, Dez Bryant, Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, Golden Tate, Brandon LaFell, Victor Cruz, Eric Decker

2011: Julio Jones, A.J. Green, Randall Cobb, Torrey Smith, Cecil Shorts, Jeremy Kerley, Denarius Moore

1998: Randy Moss, Hines Ward, Tim Dwight, Joe Jurevicius, Az-Zahir Hakim, Kevin Dyson

1986: Ernest Givens, John Taylor, Tim McGee, Webster Slaughter, Mark Jackson, Bill Brooks

 

 

2001, 2010, and 1996 look the strongest to me with a complimentary shout out to 1985 just because Jerry Rice and Andre Reed (I did not know they were from the same draft class.) All in all, I feel like 2014 lived up to the hype for the most part besides Sammy Watkins. What surprised me the most is Marquise Lee. I thought that guy was going to be a stud in the NFL and then Robert Woods, his team mate @ USC ends up being the better player in the end.

 

Thanks for the post. It's so refreshing seeing one that's well-researched and written where you actually walk away learning a thing or two. That type of thing is becoming less & less common on this board. 

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On 5/24/2021 at 11:57 PM, Logic said:

Thanks for the post.

 

The things that stick out to me:

 

- Blame injuries or QBs or coaching or whatever, but after some early All-World play, OBJ has actually had a pretty unremarkable career.

 

- Mike Evans is a beast.

 

- Jarvis Landry is vastly underrated.

 

- John Brown has had just as good a career in terms of production as the guy we traded up for, Sammy Watkins.

 

- The 1996 WR class is still the best of all time, in my opinion. No one can ever convince me that Eric Moulds wasn’t a HOF level talent whose career was wasted by mostly bad QB play and mostly bad offenses.


 

OBJ benefited from playing in NYC.

 

dtill...if Watkins was able to be healthy he would have bern the best one. He had flashes when healthy 

 

 

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On 5/25/2021 at 5:54 PM, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

DK Metcalf or AJ Brown would be a lot better.    Great,  much younger and not on a gigantic contract like Evans.   Instead the Bills have.......Cody Ford.   

Well when there’s a revisit of the 2019 NFL draft, you can post this.

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55 minutes ago, Jay_Fixit said:

Well when there’s a revisit of the 2019 NFL draft, you can post this.

 

The post I was responding to was pondering what the Bills WR corps might look like NOW if they made a different decision in 2014.............not simply "revisiting the 2014 draft".........8 drafts ago is an eternity in the NFL though.......if you found that off-topic,  which I did not,  you should take it up with @bills6969.      In the meantime, it's called "advancing a discussion", officer.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Captain Hindsight said:

That trade up was so dumb. Watkins was supremely talented, but that draft was so loaded with WR talent, to trade up and give away a future one? Da Fuq?

The real problem was using the pick on the wrong player...If we'd selected Evans, Mack, or Donald, no one would be talking about that extra first rounder we gave up...

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On 5/25/2021 at 1:33 PM, ganesh said:

You never invest two 1st rd picks on a WR when you don't have the Franchise QB.   It will always go to waste.  It was shame to see us betting that Manuel and then Kyle Orton doing any magic with Watson.  

 

If Watson was with Allen, it would have been a different ball game

 

 

Watson?

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On 5/25/2021 at 12:49 PM, Mango said:

Mike Evans has rather quietly had an amazing start to his career. At least relatively. This board Hs talked a lot about OBJ being on the board, but Evans is the big miss here. 
 

It also feels like half that class was signed by the Bills at some point. 

And now evans has a ring to go along with that great career. Dude is a beast 

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If we didn't give that pick up in 98 for Rob Johnson, Moss would have been awesome. Considering we even still had Reed at the time. Imagine Eric Moulds, Randy Moss and Andre Reed in 3 WR sets. And a solid 1 and 2 for after Reed left. Peerless Price was good for a few years but man, imagine

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On 5/25/2021 at 1:33 PM, ganesh said:

You never invest two 1st rd picks on a WR when you don't have the Franchise QB.   It will always go to waste.  It was shame to see us betting that Manuel and then Kyle Orton doing any magic with Watson.  

 

If Watson was with Allen, it would have been a different ball game

I am pretty sure Sammy Watkins would underachieve with any QB as evidenced by his mediocre performance with Mahomes in KC.  He simply was not was good as the hype, was seriously over drafted, and never had the makeup to reach his potential.  Major blunder by Doug Whaley and staff.  

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On 5/24/2021 at 11:09 PM, Utah John said:

Looking at that 1996 list is just amazing.  Clearly the best year ever. 

 

We've often had great receivers.  Andre Reed, Wagon Wheels Dubenion (after he got old), Jerry Butler, Moulds, Watkins, Marlin Briscoe, Lee Evans, James Lofton, Don Beebe, Bobby Chandler,  not to mention newcomers / short-timers like Diggs, Cole Beasley, Terrell Owens, and Ahmad Rashad, and pretty good players like Stevie Johnson, Robert Woods and Peerless Price (sorry if I forgot someone who deserves to be included).

 

No apologies needed, but Frank Lewis! He played 6 seasons with Buffalo from 1978-1983, including two 1,000-yard receiving seasons: 1979 (1,082 yards) and 1981 (1,244 yards). He and Jerry Butler were a remarkable tandem.

Edited by chongli
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On 5/25/2021 at 7:07 AM, Thurman#1 said:

 

And yeah, Logic is right that for whatever reason, OBJ looked historically good and lately has only been pretty OK. It's fair to wonder if we've seen his best and it's in the past. 

 

 

OBJ's downfall has been #1 injuries and #2 Cleveland going heavy in the running game. Looking at his per game production, outside of 2020, he has still been a dominant receiver when on the field. Problem is he has only played in 36 out of 64 games over the past 4 seasons. And since getting to Cleveland his production has declined greatly as Cleveland incorporates more of a running game over league average. 

 

Will be interesting to see how many HOF'ers can come out of the class. No locks yet but definitely some guys with some good starts. For some reason I think Landry has a better shot then Evans. I just don't know that Evans is a guy who will ultimately play long enough. I could see his body starting to break down this year or next. Landry on the other hand looks like a type who could have a very long career.

 

Definitely love that 1996 class.

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I know it’s mandatory as Bills fans to loathe the Cowboys, but the 88’ class probably deserves a little more love than it’s getting. Michael Irvin dig aside, Sterling Sharpe was the best receiver in the league not named Jerry Rice. Damn shame he got injured as it would have been fun to watch him with Favre once Favre reached MVP level play. Not necessarily the deepest class, but two HOFers and a HOF talent in a class ain’t bad. 🤷‍♂️

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