FO has a great writeup today about just how good the rookie WRs are this year http://www.footballoutsiders.com/audibles/2014/quick-reads-week-16 Quick Reads: Week 16by Vincent Verhei2014 has not been a banner year for the New York Football Giants, but they have found at least one bright spot: Odell Beckham, Jr., who made the Rams his latest victims on Sunday, torching them for 148 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Though Beckham's game did not make our top-five tables this week (mostly because he was targeted on four incompletions and a failed third-down catch), his advanced numbers this season are jaw-dropping. And in raw numbers, Beckham is doing things no other rookie has done in half a century.The 12th overall pick in this year's draft, Beckham got off to a slow start in New York. A hamstring injury knocked the LSU product out of most of training camp, then cost him the first four games of the regular season. He made his debut in Week 5 against Atlanta, and early results were predictably modest. He gained 44 yards against the Falcons, followed by a 28-yard game against the Eagles and a 34-yard game against the Cowboys. And then all hell broke loose, as Beckham ravaged the Colts for 156 yards. The phrase "breakout game" is an overused cliche, but Beckham very clearly broke out against the Colts, and nobody since has been able to contain him. In his last eight games, including the Indianapolis contest, Beckham has caught at least six passes and gained at least 90 yards every single week, catching eight touchdown passes along the way.Beckham has now gained 1,120 yards since his Week 5 debut, more than anyone in that timeframe except Demaryius Thomas (1,248 yards) and Antonio Brown (1,143). Beckham and Dez Bryant are the only two players to catch 11 touchdown passes in the past 12 weeks. Obviously, Thomas, Brown, and Bryant are established veterans, while Beckham is still a rookie. To really analyze his impact, we need to compare him to other first-year players.Beckham's 1,120 yards is already one of the top ten rookie totals ever. Bill Groman's rookie record of 1,473 yards is out of reach, but Beckham needs only 74 yards to pass Harlon Hill, Bill Brooks, Terry Glenn, and Michael Clayton. That would put him in the top five, behind Billy Howton, Randy Moss, Anquan Boldin, and Groman. He already has six 100-yard games, more than any rookie ever outside of Groman. And remember, he has ammassed those totals despite missing four games. We can somewhat adjust for that by using yards per game, where Beckham (101.8), Howton (102.6), and Groman (105.2) are the only three rookies to break triple digits. Beckham needs 80 yards against the Eagles on Sunday to stay above the century mark, and he can surpass Groman's average with 144 yards. That'll be tough, but it's doable; Beckham has gained 130 yards or more four times in his last five games.(A quick note on Groman: all of his rookie marks come with a heaping helping of asterisks. His rookie season came with the 1960 Houston Oilers in the first year of the AFL, when the league was composed almost entirely of players who weren't good enough to play in the NFL. As the talent level in the AFL rose over the years, Groman's productivity plummeted, to 83.9 yards per game in his second season, then never more than 31.2 yards per game after that.)Beckham is the shining star of this year's rookie wideout crop, but it must be said that the Class of 2014 is one of the best we have ever seen. Beckham is just the 18th rookie to top 1,000 yards receiving, but Kelvin Benjamin (at 999 yards entering Week 17), Mike Evans (997), and Sammy Watkins (925) might all join him. Only once before have even two rookies topped 1,000 yards in the same season (Ernest Givins and Bill Brooks both pulled it off in 1986). As the full list of 1,000-yard rookies shows, getting four such players in a single decade is unprecedented, let alone a single season:1950s: Billy Howton (1952), Harlon Hill (1954).1960s: Bill Groman (1960), Mike Ditka* (1961), Bob Hayes (1965).1970s: John Jefferson (1978).1980s: Cris Collinsworth (1981), Ernest Givins (1986), Bill Brooks (1986).1990s: Joey Galloway (1995), Terry Glenn (1996), Randy Moss (1998).2000s: Anquan Boldin (2003), Michael Clayton (2004), Marques Colston (2006).2010s: A.J. Green (2011), Keenan Allen (2013), Odell Beckham (2014).* Ditka was tight end, not a wide receiver, but he is listed here for the sake of completeness.Part of this, no doubt, is due to the hyper-inflated passing stats of this era in the NFL. Still, we have never seen this many freshmen have this much success in one season, and it's highly unlikely that this will be a regular occurrence.This is all well and good, but it's also a lot of information you could have found anywhere else. You come to Quick Reads for DVOA and DYAR data. How do Beckham and his peers stand up to great rookies of the past? The following table includes the top 20 rookie wideouts from 1989 to 2013 in either DYAR or DVOA, listed by DYAR. It also includes all rookies with at least 40 targets (in case, say, Donte Moncrief gets six targets this Sunday and qualifies for the year-end tables), some of whom will no doubt qualify for those top-20 lists when the dust settles on Sunday:Top Rookie Wide Receivers, 1989-2013, with 2014 ClassName Year Team Passes Catches Yards TD DYAR Rank DVOA RankRandy Moss 1998 MIN 124 69 1317 17 428 1 30.1% 6Odell Beckham 2014 NYG 109 79 1120 11 390 -- 32.0% --Michael Clayton 2004 TB 122 80 1196 7 389 2 26.1% 9Keenan Allen 2013 SD 104 71 1053 8 343 3 28.2% 8A.J. Green 2011 CIN 115 65 1057 7 288 4 17.4% 16Lee Evans 2004 BUF 75 48 843 9 284 5 36.0% 3Marques Colston 2006 NO 115 70 1039 8 258 6 14.9% 21Anquan Boldin 2003 ARI 165 101 1377 8 249 7 6.3% 42Chris Chambers 2001 MIA 90 48 883 7 247 8 22.0% 12Anthony Gonzalez 2007 IND 51 37 576 3 239 9 43.4% 1Mike Wallace 2009 PIT 72 39 756 6 229 10 29.1% 7Austin Collie 2009 IND 90 60 676 7 218 11 16.9% 18Chris Sanders 1995 HOIL 87 35 823 9 213 12 18.7% 14Santonio Holmes 2006 PIT 86 49 824 2 209 13 17.1% 17Dwayne Bowe 2007 KC 118 70 995 5 207 14 9.9% 33Kenny Stills 2013 NO 51 33 644 5 206 15 40.1% 2Fred Barnett 1990 PHI 69 36 721 8 204 16 25.3% 10Mike Evans 2014 TB 116 63 997 11 187 -- 8.7% --Derrick Alexander 1994 CLE1 81 48 828 2 185 17 16.3% 19Torrey Smith 2011 BAL 96 51 851 7 183 18 11.6% 25J.J. Stokes 1995 SF 52 38 517 4 182 19 33.0% 4Hakeem Nicks 2009 NYG 74 47 790 6 182 20 18.4% 15Donte Stallworth 2002 NO 69 42 594 8 172 23 19.6% 13Ashley Lelie 2002 DEN 53 35 525 2 171 24 30.8% 5Jordan Shipley 2010 CIN 74 52 600 3 163 27 15.2% 20Brian Hartline 2009 MIA 56 31 506 3 160 29 22.8% 11Jordan Matthews 2014 PHI 93 59 767 7 160 -- 9.5% --Jarvis Landry 2014 MIA 103 79 703 5 144 -- 5.5% --Martavis Bryant 2014 PIT 46 25 528 7 128 -- 22.9% --Brandin Cooks 2014 NO 69 53 550 3 125 -- 10.0% --Donte Moncrief 2014 IND 44 29 428 3 67 -- 7.1% --Sammy Watkins 2014 BUF 123 62 925 6 63 -- -6.1% --Kelvin Benjamin 2014 CAR 140 72 999 9 32 -- -9.7% --Davante Adams 2014 GB 66 38 446 3 22 -- -8.5% --Taylor Gabriel 2014 CLE 66 33 555 1 20 -- -8.8% --Allen Robinson 2014 JAC 81 48 548 2 12 -- -10.9% --John Brown 2014 ARI 93 44 645 5 5 -- -11.9% --Marqise Lee 2014 JAC 61 35 414 1 -4 -- -13.6% --Allen Hurns 2014 JAC 93 49 662 6 -7 -- -13.7% --Includes top 20 wide receivers in either DYAR or DVOA, 1989-2013, sorted by DYAR, minimum 50 targets.Also includes all rookie wide receivers in 2014, minimum 40 targets.While a number of this year's rookies could make the top 20 in DYAR when the dust settles, Beckham is head and shoulders above his peers.His 390 DYAR are the most in the NFL this season since he debuted in Week 5, and they already represent the second-best rookie total in our database. He needs only 38 more DYAR (a total he has topped in five of 11 career games) to surpass Randy Moss' benchmark. And this cannot be stressed strongly enough: Beckham missed a quarter of the season. He also looks to finish among the top five rookies in DVOA.If your team's out of the playoffs and your fantasy season is done, and you're looking for a game to watch in Week 17, you could do a lot worse than Giants-Eagles. No, neither team is in the playoff race. But it's your last chance to get a glimpse of one of the best inaugural seasons there has ever been.
