To get a general idea of what Pat Bryant might do — beyond Sean Payton making the Michael Thomas comparison when it came to traits, it’s wise to look at what third-round rookie wide receivers have done over the last quarter century.
That encompasses 108 individual rookie campaigns between the 2000 and 2024 seasons (not counting rookie seasons completely wiped out to injury or other factors).
The average rookie season for a Round 3 rookie receiver in the last 25 years?
• 33 targets
• 19 receptions
• 259 yards
• 13.3 yards per catch
• 1.5 touchdowns
Just one Round 3 rookie has posted a 1,000-yard receiving season since 2000 — Keenan Allen of the then-San Diego Chargers in 2013, so start there: A 1,000-yard season is unlikely for Bryant, given the 1-in-108 trend of the first part of this century.
But those averages include a cluster of receivers who simply didn’t get used, for reasons of injury, ineffectiveness or falling into disfavor.
Taking all of the data for Round 3 receivers and averaging it on a per-game basis would translate to these numbers:
• 47 targets
• 33 receptions
• 363 yards
• 13.3 yards per catch
• 2.8 touchdowns
This sort of campaign for Pat Bryant would be a success.
The reception total would put him in the top 25 of all third-round rookie receivers since 2000. The yardage tally would easily place him in the top third of Round 3 receivers this century — 32nd among the previous 108, to be exact. Even three touchdown catches would put him in the top 20.
And that’s why it’s important to note the production of Round 3 receivers. A 500-yard season happens 17 percent of the time (18 of 108). Want to go for 750 yards? Just 5.6 percent of third-round receivers this century have gotten there.
Bryant being somewhere in the mid-300s in yardage would be pretty good, all things considered.
PAT BRYANT JOINS A CROWD OF YOUNG RECEIVERS
And then there is the competition.
The fact that Pat Bryant steps into a wide-receiver room filled with young players could be to his advantage, of course. Beyond Courtland Sutton and Marvin Mims Jr., no one else in the room has proven themselves as a steady, starting-level contributor.
And with Mims, his role is unique, with the team only truly figuring out his usage in the second half of last season when it began moving him around, working him out of the backfield from time to time. In the final seven weeks of the regular season, Mims was on a 1,000-yard pace.
Bryant has a chance because Devaughn Vele and Troy Franklin are still defined by what they are becoming, more than what they have accomplished. But that said, they can be expected to make leaps, as well.
Next week, we’ll start learning more about how Vele and Franklin can build off of their rookie-year progress. Where they are could have as much of an impact on Bryant’s contributions as anything Bryant does himself.
And that’s why the expectations probably should be kept at a reasonable level — at least initially.
Another reason? One of the incumbents — Vele — had an extraordinary rookie campaign that demands appreciation.
Among 140 Round 7 draft picks since 2000, Vele’s reception and yardage tally ranked second, trailing only Marques Colston, a seventh-round pick of Sean Payton’s Saints in 2006.
Certainly, Vele wasn’t an average rookie; he turned 27 last December.
But what matters more in a player’s improvement and ceiling — the ability to blossom once the adjustment to a new level of play has been made, or a ceiling created by a player’s age?
The answer to the question may determine where Vele goes — and indirectly could help determine how much Bryant breaks into the rotation.
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