WR Height - Is it important?

I’ve seen a few different threads and posts about this year WR class and their lack of height. So I thought I’d dive into it in a bit more detail.

There are certainly some noteworthy candidates who are lacking in height including several sub 6ft options:

Rondale Moore 5’ 9”
Elijah Moore 5’ 9”
Amari Rodgers 5’ 9”
Jaylen Waddle 5’ 10”
Kadarius Toney 5’ 11”
Amon-Ra St. Brown 5’ 11”
Tylan Wallace 5’ 11”

So looking at historical data there has been some great sub 6ft WRs including Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham, Steve Smith and Jarvis Landry. However, the volume of WR’s consistently hitting as top 24 WR’s isn’t as close in volume when compared to the amount hitting above 6ft

But after reading into @ff_spaceman and his dive into BMI I wondered what the % were when compared to the overall amount of receivers in each bracket.

So the total number of receivers in the data set can be split as below:

The volume of receivers over 6ft largely outweigh the volume of receivers under 6ft.

Plotting the heights against the % of receivers at each individual height that have had at least one top 24 season give the overall look that height is almost irrelevant when trying to determine future success:

Yes, WR who are 75 inches (6ft 3) have the highest percentage of hits as a top 24 season but it is not a vast difference compared to over heights.

So I’m fairly confident that height is not relevant to future success at the WR position.

I decided to take it one step further and only look at receivers drafted in the first 3 rounds to see if that had any greater effect on hit rate/height.

The true answer is no; it is almost as random for WR with draft capital:

So to conclude I am just as confident about smaller WRs hitting and their supposed “less than ideal height” is not a concern for me.

Just remember this when someone tells you that a WR prospect lacks "ideal size" at the WR position