Before the season started, CBS Sports rolled out its top-10 rankings for players at every position on both offense and defense. Some of those rankings look extremely prescient five weeks into the NFL season. That's just the way it goes.
Football is an unpredictable game, and even those of us who observe it most closely and get a lot right still get a lot wrong a lot of the time. We're not necessarily here to debate what we got right or wrong, but to revisit our lsit. Because so many wide receivers are off to such great starts this season and delivering jump-off-the-screen performances in big-time games, we wanted to see if there are any updates we can make just under a third of the way through the season.
So in the space below, we'll detail the updated top 10. Honorable mentions (in no particular order): Malik Nabers, Tetairoa McMillan, Davante Adams, George Pickens, Garrett Wilson, Parker Washington, DeVonta Smith, Mike Evans, Christian Watson, A.J. Brown Flowers is off to an insane start to the season.
He's only played two full games so far (he missed one, left one early and played only 33% of the snaps in another), and he's yet to play a full complement of snaps with Lamar Jackson under center. Yet, he already has 26 catches for 405 yards and a pair of scores. He leads the NFL with 4.45 yards per route run, per Tru Media, and that number was even higher before he had to play a game with his backup quarterback.
He's being used by Declan Doyle in a way that maximizes his skill set, and it's beautiful to watch. Olave is tied for the NFL lead in catches with 39, and he's already got 537 yards (second) as well. He is a target vacuum in the Saints' high-volume passing offense, seeing a look on 26.3% of his routes, according to Tru Media.
He's also generated an explosive play (gain of 15+ yards) on 20.4% of his targets, which is the highest mark of his career to date. He's worked more often on the perimeter this season than last (73.2% of his routes compared with 61.0%), but it hasn't stopped him from being a target hog. London is a completely different — and absurdly good — player whenever Michael Penix Jr. is on the field for the Falcons.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
