The folks over at Pro Football Focus put a lot of time and energy into their analytics. This gives them a great way to gauge how good or bad a player is in comparison to their peers. But as with any system, it is imperfect. And one of the guys they did miss on was Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster when he was in college at USC.
Here’s what PFF had to say about why they were so low on Smith-Schuster coming out of college.
After a breakout sophomore campaign in 2015, Smith-Schuster took a massive step back in 2016, racking up only 914 yards through the air. What we didn’t account for was a wholly uncreative route tree forced upon Smith-Schuster that wasn’t conducive to separation whatsoever. The 113th-ranked player on our 2017 board, Smith-Schuster has been easily the top wideout from that class.
Honestly, the idea of not accounting for the scheme Smith-Schuster played in is inexcusable. When you break down a prospect, especially a wide receiver, it is more about understanding what they are capable of doing rather than what they do most often. There’s no denying Smith-Schuster didn’t see a complex route tree at USC but when asked to branch out he was more than capable.
