Darrius Heyward-Bey and Busting the Power of Perception

And in many people’s minds, I’m sure he’s still a bust. He missed two games and finished 28th in receiving fantasy points. He’s just reaching 25, when he could be entering his prime, and going in about the WR #36 range in drafts this year.

Most wide receivers drafted in the first round who don’t do anything in the first two years are, in fact, busts. They continue not to do anything, and are out of the league soon enough. What of those that are late bloomers in year three, though?

Only six other first round receivers had fewer than 700 yards combined in their first two seasons, and then finished with at least 600 yards in year three: Santana Moss, Eric Moulds, Johnnie Morton, O.J. McDuffie, Haywood Jeffires, and Tim McGee.

That’s not a group that includes any Hall of Famers by any means. Santana Moss had the best career. But the next season, as a group, they all did just as well. The six of them averaged 1011 yards and 7 touchdowns the following season after their breakout, exceeding the 885 yards they averaged the year before. Moss, in fact, had the worst year in season 4, still with 838 yards. You don’t have to believe that Heyward-Bey is a future all-pro to think that last season was more in line with what you are going to get in 2012.

I had him at #22 in my projections, and I come in lower than the group average of other third year first round breakouts. If I told you that a raw speed receiver who entered the league at age 22 and was highly drafted had a breakout season where he averaged 70 yards a game at age 24, you would probably expect better things at age 25. If I told you to believe in Darrius Heyward-Bey, though, well that’s a little harder to grasp. Maybe we just need to do the Folgers blind taste test here, because perception is difficult to overcome.

Once you are declared a bust, even before you ever take a snap, always a bust, I suppose.

[photo via US Presswire]