Minnesota Vikings Jarius Wright an underrated weapon

The Minnesota Vikings wide receiver corps will be a topic of great discussion this offseason, because it’s unclear where all of the pieces fit into the future puzzle. Cordarrelle Patterson has the first-round pedigree and raw talent to make up for his atrocious 2014 season, Greg Jennings‘s contract undermines his solid and underrated play, and new starting “X” receiver Charles Johnson looks like the team’s most promising playmaker after averaging 16.6 yards per catch last season.

Johnson has the hype heading into the offseason, while fellow young wideout Jarius Wright has questions about the future as heads in to the final year of his deal. Wright stated that he  deserves an extension, and you could make the case that he was the team’s most productive wide receiver last season despite the fact that he led the team in drop rate after letting five passes slip through his fingers.

Wright always had talent coming out of Arkansas, and the 2012 fourth-round pick has sub-4.4 wheels. He made good on that speed in limited playing time in his first two seasons, averaging 14.1 and 16.7 yards per reception in his first two seasons, and he put up 14.0 yards per reception this past season for the Vikings, lining up in various places in the offense. He finished his third season with breakout numbers, catching 42 passes for 588 yards, including monstrous 100-yard efforts against the Atlanta Falcons and New York Jets.

Wright as a playmaker and YAC demon

As the Jets found out, Wright is capable of going the distance on any given play, and he was quietly an explosive playmaker for the Vikings last season. His 87-yard touchdown pass to win the game against the Jets in overtime certainly wasn’t quiet, as it was one of the most electric catch-and-run plays of the 2014 season. You can check out the play below, courtesy of Sporting News, and it showcases some insane open-field speed and short-area explosion; watch how quickly he accelerates after adjusting to the high screen pass.

An average of 14.0 yards per reception is always nice, but, as evidenced by his game-winning screen TD, it’s even nicer when you do that work on your own. Teddy Bridgewater isn’t known for his deep ball, but there’s more than one way to generate big yards per reception totals; you generate those yards after the catch. Wright averaged an astounding eight yards after the catch per reception last season, so over half of his yards came after he had already made the play, and that’s huge for a spread-the-ball-around-in-the-intermediate-range QB like Bridgewater.

Although Wright dropped five passes, he was ultimately reliable, as he caught, per Advanced Football Analytics, 67.7% of all the passes thrown at him. Only Kyle Rudolph had a higher catch rate, but he averaged under ten yards per reception and had 28 more targets than Rudolph; Wright’s catch rate is much more impressive. And yes, he had a higher catch rate than Greg Jennings, who averaged about two yards per reception less.

It’s a bit too easy to harp on Patterson after a dreadful season that included a team-low 49.3% catch rate, but it’s telling that Wright managed to outgain the Tennessee product by 204 yards despite the fact that he had five less targets. That’s impressive, and it’s not a surprise that his 9.5 yards per target was first on the team. Johnson and Jennings averaged 8.8 and 8.2 yards per target respectively, but Johnson’s 8.8 comes with an asterisk; he had a catch rate below 60% and a YPR above 16, and it’s much easier for someone with a massive YPR to have more yards per target.

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Wright’s place in the offense

Wright’s combination of playmaking ability and reliability made him an efficient member of the Vikings wide receiver corps. We tend to magnify the importance of drops, because while drops are back-breakers, catch rate is ultimately more important, and his 67.7% catch rate trumps those drops, which are only detractors simply because they contribute to a decline in catch rate that can be directly blamed on the receiver.

Bridgewater had a QB Rating over 100 when targeting Jennings, but he also had a QB Rating of 98.5 when throwing it to Wright, per Pro Football Focus. That’s impressive considering his quarterback had a QB Rating of 85.2, and it shows that both he and Jennings were the two most dependable wide receivers in the offense. But, unlike Jennings, Wright showed that he could generate major yards after the catch, and that’s the sort of playmaking ability that only he and Johnson could consistently bring to the table for the Vikings offense.

Generally only star players get contract extensions before their deals run out, so I wouldn’t expect the Vikings to hand Wright a new deal before 2016. That said, he deserves to stay with the Vikings, because he shared two things in common with two receivers who are very different from each other. He had a similar catch rate to Jennings, and he had similar playmaking numbers to Johnson.

With Bridgewater at the helm, the Vikings will likely stress having depth at the WR position and players who can make things happen after the catch, since those suit Bridgewater’s strengths as an accurate decision-maker who can calmly and quickly progress through reads; Wright can provide some extra “arm” for Bridgewater with his legs, if you catch my drift. Bridgewater’s ability to see the field makes it better for an offense to give him four adequate receivers, and Wright has shown that he’s at least that.

With further development from the three-year pro, Wright has the upside to become a go-to guy in that type of offense with his combination of playmaking ability and chain-moving ability. No receiver on the Vikings received 100 targets last season, and this team already seems to be leaning towards an approach that gives Bridgewater as many quality options as possible. It’s unclear what Wright’s ceiling is or if he’s for real, but the numbers show that he was the team’s most efficient receiver last year at 9.5 yards per target.

A look at some more analytics

Advanced Football Analytics has two statistics that are great starting points for evaluating a player’s value, as WPA and EPA measure win probability added and expected points added and weigh things based on their importance in the game (down and distance, time of game, yards gained, etc.).

Since Wright didn’t play often last season, it’s best to use WPA per game and EPA per play to illustrate just how much potential the Minnesota Vikings No. 3 or 4 receiver quietly showed last year. He was 13th in the league in WPA per game and ninth in EPA per play. It’s important to note that looking at a playmaker under these stats is misleading if it isn’t used as a very rough estimate, since the sample sizes are so small. Terrance Williams is one of the top players in EPA per play (and Kenny Stills is first), so there’s a clear skew to players who aren’t targeted often and have YPRs of at least 14.

Despite the flaws in using those stats to evaluate players who fit these descriptions, the point is to highlight just how efficient Jarius Wright was as a playmaker in the Vikings offense. He caught most of what was thrown at him, only Jennings had a higher percentage of “successful” plays based on down and distance factors, and he was one of the top 15 players in both catch rate and yards per target (he was seventh and tenth in these stats, respectively, before Week 17). PFF had him at a 70% catch rate (23rd in the NFL per their stats), and his YAC per reception was second to only the great DeSean Jackson.

What it means going into offseason

There are plenty of intriguing receivers heading into the 2015 season, but I’d have to say that Wright and Johnson are two of the wideouts I’ll be watching for the closest. It would be a crime if they don’t get more playing time, and with Jennings’s bloated contract likely preventing a top receiver from joining the team (he wouldn’t take a paycut to lose his job, after all), the playmaking duties could be hoarded by these two. Patterson could make sudden strides in his third season, but that remains to be seen.

Wright led the team in WPA, EPA, and yards per target, and that alone makes him a potential asset in this offense. He’s a sneaky playmaker with upside, and he caught the majority of what Bridgewater threw his way. He seems like a great fit in this offense with his YAC ability, and that alone makes him deserving of a close look next year.

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