Breaking Down the Boys: Why Dez Bryant will be better than Calvin Johnson
By Jonathan Bales
jonathan@thedctimes.com
4:15 pm on October 22, 2013 | Permalink
A couple months ago, I wrote an article detailing why I believe Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant has at least a decent chance to end up being better than Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson. With the Cowboys traveling to Detroit this week, I figured it would be fun to take a look back at that article and add a little extra analysis.
The Original Argument
I think Dez Bryant is going to end up being a better wide receiver than Calvin Johnson. That might sound ludicrous given that Megatron just broke the single-season receiving record, but we have to remember that Bryant is entering just his fourth season in the NFL. Wide receivers are notoriously slow to develop; unlike running backs who enter the league at near peak efficiency, wide receivers typically dont reach their career peak until age 26.
Bryant, who will begin the 2013 season at age 24, is coming off of a season in which he posted a line of 92/1,382/12 at an age when the average NFL wide receiver is playing at just 83 percent of his eventual peak efficiency. Thats a really, really scary thought for opposing cornerbacks.
And although it now seems like Johnson dominated the league from the moment he was drafted by the Lions, thats not the case. So lets compare Bryants first three seasons in the NFL to Megatrons initial three campaigns. First, lets look at yards per target.
Johnson received 382 targets in his first three NFL seasons, compared to just 313 for Bryant. Despite that, the two posted very comparable receiving totals. Thats because Bryant was more efficient, averaging a robust 9.17 yards per target, compared to just 8.04 for Johnson.
Second, Bryant is one of the games premiere scoring threats. The same is true for Megatron, but Id go as far as to say that Bryant is the NFLs best red zone receiver. His ball skills are simply out of this world and he seems to never lose in any jump ball situations. If forced to guess on who will score more touchdowns in 2013, my choice would be Bryant, and it wouldnt even be close.
And in terms of touchdown ratethe percentage of catches that each receiver turns into touchdownsBryant is far superior to Johnson.
Johnsons touchdown rate over his first three years in the NFL was 10.9 percent. Bryants has been 13.5 percent.
Finally, lets take a look at how their respective quarterbacks have performed when throwing to Johnson and Bryant. Below, I charted the passer rating generated on throws to each receiver. I couldnt find data on Johnsons rookie year, although based on his efficiency, I can assure you the number would be much lower than Bryants.
This is the most overwhelming evidence that Bryant is set to take over as the games elite receiver. In his three seasons, the lowest passer rating for quarterbacks throwing to Bryant was 104.3 in his rookie year. In 2012, it was 123.2.
Is Bryant a better receiver than Johnson right now? Probably not, but hes been superior to Megatron through three years. You could argue that Bryant has benefited from a better supporting cast, which is true, but when you consider Bryants age and the dramatic disparity in the efficiency stats above, its not outlandish to argue that the Cowboys No. 1 receiver could turn into the NFLs No. 1 receiver as soon as this year.
A Different Look
One of the rebuttals I heard regarding the original Bryant vs. Johnson debate is that Bryant had a superior quarterback during his first three years in the NFL. Thats certainly true. And while you might think theres no way to quantify that, we can look at market sharethe percentage of their teams total passing yards and touchdowns that each receiver generated.
When we look at it through that lens, Johnson comes out on top.
Although the numbers are relatively close, Johnson had a higher percentage of his teams yards (30.7 percent) and touchdowns (39.7 percent) through his first three seasons.
While this is certainly a positive for Johnson, there are a couple reasons I think it doesnt matter as much as the original numbers. First, Johnson had way more targets in his first three years (382 versus 313 for Bryant). If we account for those numbers, the market share stats look very comparable.
Second, the total market share numbers reward Johnson for playing on a poor team. For example, he had 21 touchdowns in his first three seasons, while Bryant totaled 27. But Johnsons market share of touchdowns was higher because the Lions as a team threw only 53 total touchdowns during that time, compared to 91 for the Cowboys.
Finally, theres value in having the same market share with higher bulk stats. Whats more difficult: posting 10 touchdowns on a team that throws for 20, or 20 touchdowns on a team that has 40? The latter, for sure, but market sure doesnt capture that.
We definitely need to examine quarterback quality when determining if Bryants first three seasons were indeed superior to Johnsons, and market share is part of that. It certainly gives us a glimpse into just how poor Johnsons team was, at least. But when you consider Bryants efficiency and bulk stats in combination with the market share numbers, theres at least a semi-convincing argument to be made that hes on the path to Johnson-esque greatness.
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