Michael Pittman is a player I am often asked about and people seem surprised by my answer and I am surprised by their surprise.

Is he bulletproof?

Lets find out!

Pittman has that alpha X receiver size that I love at 6-4 and 223 pounds.

I use @rotounderworld 's signature athleticism score to build my player comps

Michael Pittman's comp list is absolute

Keep in mind this is more an indication of role and ceiling than quality...

But if Pittman hit's it will be

His closest comp from a draft capital/size/athleticism stand point is Kevin White. Dont read too much into that. lol

From a ceiling perspective there was this crazy good article on @DLFootball talking about how BMI and WR1 ceiling are intertwined by @FF_TomB

I cannot recommend enough to be following @FF_TomB

He helps people win championships on a daily basis https://dynastyleaguefootball.com/2020/01/29/bmi-matters-for-wide-receiver-prospects/

You will be pleased to know that Pittman emphatically checks the BMI box clearing the threshold laid out by @FF_TomB of 26.0.

Pittman checks in at 27.1

If you've been following along with these threads you probably already know that I am a big fan of the early declare WR's.

@AmItheRealBlair did a pretty great article on @rotoviz about it linked below. Check it out immediately if you havent yet!

https://www.rotoviz.com/2019/01/one-weird-trick-for-finding-top-wr-prospects-early-declaration-and-draft-age-the-wrong-read-no-53/

This is where things start going off the rails on the Michael Pittman profile.

Pittman played all four years in college and was a senior coming out.

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The great @pahowdy was kind enough to provide this fantastic chart illustrating the importance of breakout age.

Michael Pittman locked in an age 20.9 (39th-percentile) breakout age in college.

With Pittman being the 2.02 pick in the NFL draft and escaping the age 21 breakout by less than a month he falls somewhere in the circle below. haha

Needless to say, it isn't great.

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And then we get to college production. I use two different metrics for this, age adjusted market share of receiving yards (AAMSRY) and yards per team pass attempt (Y/TPA)

Here is an example of how the top WR's in dynasty produced in AAMSRY https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1227547156485033984?s=20

Pittman doesnt really look like those successful guys.

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These graphs are made possible by @pahowdy @theDudeZee and @DLFootball

Yards per team pass attempt is awfully similar to market share of receiving yards but it incorporates an element of efficiency

I was skeptical of incorporating it but when I did the correlation and the hit rate improved and that's enough for me to give it the stamp of approval

Michael Pittman had four years to impress in this metric and he failed to do so three times!

This is hardly stacking excellence.

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It's not like he had poor quarterback play. He played at USC which has been churning out some quality QB prospects lately.

Sam Darnold
JT Daniels
Kedon Slovis

So was Pittman just a victim of circumstance and his putrid college production was because he was "crowded out" by better players?

Let's look at his teammates next

Welp at age 18 he did play with Juju Smith-Schuster but finishing 10th on the team in receiving yards is not really an indication that he was crowded out by Juju.

On the plus side he somehow beat Leonard Fournette's new backup, Ronald Jones

Then in his age 19 season the receiving room was wide open as Juju left for the NFL.

Burnett, Vaughns, and Mitchell shouldnt have been a problem for a future NFL star............... unless of course we arent talking about a future NFL star?

Then at age 20 some of those pesky NFL stars finally got out of Pittman's way.... He promptly went toe-to-toe with 18 year old Amon-Ra.

Not necessarily a bad sign, but being a physical specimen with two years experience should have netted him a bit more I'd have expected.

And then finally at age 21 it was Pittman's turn to take over.

Now that he was among the oldest and most experienced players in college football and he ascended as a 1A in his own offense

Im just kidding, Pittman had a good final year for sure

1 outta 4 aint bad... right?!

Once you roll all of this together we see a player with a crazy high ceiling and a crazy low floor.

Grade: Bust.

The process is still under construction but as it stands right now, players with a bust grade that were drafted rounds 1-3 in the NFL draft have a 12% hit rate in the NFL

9/75 have hit a top 24 season in their career.

If you are into this kind of thing this is what powers my rankings on patreon.

The first tier is only $3, come on in! https://www.patreon.com/DFBeanCounter 

This thread has some details on what is included in each tier including some samples. https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1303893793293303808?s=20

Anyway, if you like the content please like and retweet!