The Buffalo Bills succinctly explained why they paid so much for the chance to draft Clemson receiver Sammy Watkins two weeks ago.
"This game is about making plays and surrounding our quarterback with playmakers," general manager Doug Whaley said. "He's automatically going to make our quarterback better and us better."
The thinking sounds logical whether or not Buffalo paid too much to trade up five spots to select Watkins fourth overall. The Bills think EJ Manuel is going to be a franchise quarterback, and if they are right, they're going to win regardless. But if Manuel is just another QB, as some evaluators suspect, how much would a top-flight wide receiver elevate his play? Is a top-level receiver enough to help a team win with a midlevel QB? The answer has implications for all teams with elite wideouts and developing quarterbacks who have not reached an elite level consistently.
Cincinnati, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Detroit, Houston and the New York Jets come to mind as potential examples. We'll address each one of them separately. First, though, it's helpful to consider recent precedent and some thoughts from evaluators.
Five teams over the past 10 seasons used a top-five overall draft choice for a wide receiver. There is inconclusive evidence suggesting that those highly drafted offensive skill players helped young quarterbacks take significant steps forward in their development. A quick review:
• 2012: Jacksonville selected WR Justin Blackmon to help second-year QB Blaine Gabbert. Blackmon's off-field troubles complicate the analysis, but he had 64 receptions for 865 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie. Gabbert's Total QBR score climbed from 19.1 without Blackmon in 2011 to 39.7 in 10 starts with Blackmon the next season. Despite the jump, Gabbert still ranked only 31st out of 36 qualifying QBs in QBR for 2012.
• 2011: Cincinnati selected WR A.J. Green prior to selecting QB Andy Dalton in the same draft. Green ranks third in receiving yards and tied for fifth in receiving touchdowns among WRs since entering the NFL. Dalton ranks 23rd among 34 qualifying QBs in Total QBR over the same period.
• 2007: Detroit selected WR Calvin Johnson when veteran Jon Kitna was the QB. The Lions ranked 22nd in Total QBR (41.2) the year before Megatron arrived. They rank 20th since then (46.7), including ninth over the past three seasons (58.1) with Matthew Stafford at QB.
• 2005: Cleveland selected WR Braylon Edwards, then used a third-round choice in the same draft for QB Charlie Frye. They also claimed off waivers rookie QB Derek Anderson. Brady Quinn was a first-round pick in 2007. Frye, Anderson and veteran Trent Dilfer started at QB for the Browns through Edwards' first three seasons. Anderson went to the Pro Bowl in 2007. Edwards and 2004 first-round TE Kellen Winslow (sixth overall choice) had something to do with that, but the success was fleeting.
• 2004: Arizona, with a young Josh McCown at QB, selected WR Larry Fitzgerald. McCown and 2006 first-round QB Matt Leinart never gained much traction even though Fitzgerald and WR Anquan Boldin provided Arizona with a dominant receiving duo. The team floundered at QB until Kurt Warner's career revival gained momentum in 2007.
Like Watkins, those receivers were top-five picks. Expanding the parameters to include offensive skill players drafted sixth through 10th overall produced zero examples of the skill player helping a middling QB become a success story.
The assumption here, for the sake of discussion, is that Watkins will perform at a high level. The question remains how much that would affect Manuel if he were an average QB. I think Watkins would have to be special -- borderline Randy Moss special -- to make an average QB significantly better.
"The Bills are a very good case study," ESPN analyst Bill Polian said. "What they are saying is, 'We have this quarterback and we want to give him all the weapons we can give him so he can succeed.' On the surface, that makes sense, but essentially we are asking, 'Do those weapons mean anything if the quarterback intrinsically cannot succeed?'"
Some talent evaluators think a true No. 1 receiver makes a suspect quarterback better. They point to Andre Johnson in Houston and Fitzgerald in Arizona as examples over the past decade. However, the quarterback play on those teams has fluctuated wildly. Johnson caught 103 passes for 1,147 yards and five touchdowns in 2006, but with David Carr behind center, the Texans were 20th in QBR (41.8). Manuel's QBR score was 42.3 in 10 games as a rookie last season.
The case for a receiver significantly elevating the play of his quarterback should begin with Moss, who belongs in a different category. As Benjamin Morris detailed in 2010, all but one of the QBs associated with Moss for meaningful periods of time set career benchmarks in statistical categories such as completion percentage, touchdown percentage, yards per attempt, adjusted net yards per attempt and the "approximate value" metric developed by Pro Football Reference.
When Moss caught 98 passes for 1,493 yards and 23 touchdowns for New England in 2007, Pro Football Reference calculated his approximate value (AV) for the season to be 20. It was the third-highest single-season AV for a wide receiver in NFL history and the highest since Jerry Rice scored a 21 in 1994. The relationship between the best individual AV seasons by receivers and overall team quarterback performance (measured by Total QBR, which dates to 2006) sets a framework for the broader discussion about the impact someone such as Watkins might have in Buffalo.
Wide receivers have combined to produce 100 single-season AV scores higher than 10 over the past eight seasons. The teams with the highest single-season QBR scores naturally produced the largest number of these high-level individual receiver seasons. However, 19 of the 64 teams (30 percent) in the highest QBR quartile achieved that exalted level of quarterback performance in the absence of a single wide receiver with an AV above 10. Four of the 67 teams (6 percent) in the lowest QBR quartile featured a wide receiver with an AV in that 11-plus range. Josh Gordon (2013), Lee Evans (2006), Javon Walker (2006) and Percy Harvin (2011) were the exceptions.
When the Bills' GM says Watkins is "automatically" going to make Manuel better, he is probably right. But significantly better? That doesn't seem likely. While none of this is to argue that teams shouldn't try to acquire elite receivers, or that investing in one somehow hurts a team's chances to win, the point here is simply that, by all appearances, top-level receiver play hasn't been enough to elevate a team with midlevel QB play to championship status. If Manuel doesn't turn out to be "the guy" for Buffalo, it won't matter as much how good Watkins is. That serves as a word of caution for the fans of the following teams:
Cincinnati Bengals: A general manager I know who liked Dalton coming out of college and still does said he thinks Dalton has pretty much become what he'll always be -- good enough to win if he's getting enough help from the players around him. Dalton threw five picks when Green was off the field for extended periods during a two-game stretch in 2011. The QB has four touchdowns, one interception, a 107.8 passer rating and 72.9 QBR score with Green off the field over the past two seasons, but the sample size was small -- 43 QB action plays across that 32-game period.
Chicago Bears: Jay Cutler's metrics actually fell off significantly during his first two seasons with Brandon Marshall in Chicago. That makes it tough to say Marshall lifted his QB's performance, although there were other issues dragging down the Bears, to be sure. Cutler's QBR score climbed significantly in 2013 when a second elite receiver, Alshon Jeffery, became a bigger part of the offense. There are multiple plausible narratives to choose from in this case. Did new coach Marc Trestman make the difference? How about the Bears' improved offensive line? Was it Jeffery working in combination with Marshall? Did Cutler simply play better for no real reason? Cutler played only 10 full games during the season. Let's see if he continues on an upward trajectory. He's known to take chances, and that's easier to do when you've got a receiver or two with a massive catch radius.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Cutler wasn't the only quarterback to succeed with the Bears last season. McCown finished with 13 touchdown passes and one interception, helping him land a job with Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers used the seventh overall choice for receiver Mike Evans, who will team with Vincent Jackson to give Tampa Bay its version of the weaponry McCown utilized in Chicago. Has McCown suddenly become a good quarterback at age 34? He wasn't nearly this good when working with Fitzgerald and Boldin in Arizona a decade ago.
Detroit Lions: Calvin Johnson has been a force throughout his career, but he never posted a single-season AV higher than 10 until the last three seasons, when Stafford has been healthy enough to start every game. Was Megatron more reliant upon Stafford than the other way around, at least when it came to producing statistically superior seasons? That is a tough sell, but if Johnson has lifted his QB to respectability, it took a few years for that to happen.
Houston Texans: Andre Johnson caught 109 passes for 1,407 yards and five touchdowns last season. The Texans ranked 27th in QBR (35.6). The AV for Johnson was only eight, not high enough to make the 11-plus cutoff established above. But if Johnson was responsible for propping up Matt Schaub year after year, what changed in 2013? And what was the case with Carr?
New York Jets: Newly acquired receiver Eric Decker finished his final season in Denver with 87 receptions for 1,288 yards and 11 touchdowns. His AV was 13. Decker's production will presumably take a hit as he transitions from Peyton Manning to Geno Smith or Michael Vick as his QB. "How much money did Peyton Manning make that guy?" one GM asked. "These people think, 'If we only had a receiver.' Maybe it's not your receiver."