Romeo Doubs is just a fourth-round pick, but Aaron Rodgers has been talking him up. With Green Bay looking for new wide receivers, can Doubs be an unlikely factor in their offense?
It’s intriguing, and Doubs is certainly a guy to keep an eye on in the preseason, given the situation he’s in. Other lightly regarded rookie receivers have put up decent numbers in the past. Amon-Ra St. Brown and Darnell Mooney the last two years, for example; they were picked in the fourth and fifth round.
But at the same time, what Doubs is attempting to do is rare. In the last 20 years, only nine wide receivers who weren’t selected in the first three rounds of the draft were able to put up top-50 numbers (PPR scoring) in their first season. Happens about about once per year.
| LIGHTLY-REGARDED ROOKIE RECEIVERS (last 10 yrs) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Rd | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2016 | Tyreek Hill, K.C. | 5 | 61 | 593 | 10 | 12 | 219.0 | 18 |
| 2021 | Amon-Ra St. Brown, Det. | 4 | 90 | 912 | 10 | 6 | 227.3 | 22 |
| 2019 | Darius Slayton, NYG | 5 | 48 | 740 | 15 | 8 | 170.0 | 37 |
| 2015 | Stefon Diggs, Min. | 5 | 52 | 720 | 14 | 4 | 149.3 | 47 |
| 2017 | Keelan Cole, Jac. | FA | 42 | 748 | 18 | 3 | 134.8 | 48 |
| 2013 | Marlon Brown, Balt. | FA | 49 | 524 | 11 | 7 | 145.2 | 48 |
| 2014 | Allen Hurns, Jac. | FA | 51 | 677 | 13 | 6 | 154.7 | 49 |
| 2020 | Darnell Mooney, Chi. | 5 | 61 | 631 | 10 | 4 | 152.1 | 50 |
—Ian Allan