Denver Broncos: Predicting Jerry Jeudy’s sophomore season

EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY - OCTOBER 01: Jerry Jeudy #10 of the Denver Broncos celebrates a touchdown against the New York Jets during the second quarter at MetLife Stadium on October 01, 2020 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY - OCTOBER 01: Jerry Jeudy #10 of the Denver Broncos celebrates a touchdown against the New York Jets during the second quarter at MetLife Stadium on October 01, 2020 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Denver Broncos wide receiver Jerry Jeudy is one of the best young receivers in the NFL.  He’s received a bit of national media attention this offseason as he looks to have a monster second year.

Jerry Jeudy is an exciting player.  Even with the Denver Broncos’ poor quarterback play in 2020, Jeudy still put up 850 receiving yards and has a 92-yard touchdown reception to his name.

Many across the league considered his first season to be a disappointment, but see the potential coming into his second year.

With the return of Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy has a great chance to expose opposing teams’ backup and third-string defensive backs.

Using some simple averaging and percentage calculations, I will look at other prominent second-year seasons from wide receivers across the league to project Jerry Jeudy’s stat line for the 2021 season.

Let’s get started!

I’ll start with the Broncos’ own Courtland Sutton. In Sutton’s rookie year in 2018, he had 42 catches for 704 yards and 4 touchdowns.

In his second season, he had 72 catches for 1,112 yards and 6 touchdowns.  His totals from year 1 to year 2 jumped 71%, 58%, and 50%, respectively.  So, from year 1 to year 2, Sutton had 71% more catches, 58% more yards, and 50% more touchdowns.

I am going to do these calculations for a few other wide receivers who share similar qualities to Jerry Jeudy.

The other receivers I’ll be using for this exercise are Stefon Diggs and Santonio Holmes, who is Jerry Jeudy’s NFL comp, according to his nfl.com draft profile.

In Stefon Diggs‘ rookie season, he caught 52 passes for 720 yards and four touchdowns. In his second season, he caught 84 passes for 903 yards and three touchdowns.

His percentage jumps from year 1 to year 2 are 62% more catches and 25% more yards.  His touchdown total fell from 4 to 3 as well, so we’ll call that a wash.

Now for Santonio Holmes.  In Holmes’ rookie season, he caught 49 passes for 824 yards and 2 touchdowns, which is eerily similar to Jeudy’s rookie campaign.

In his second season, Holmes caught 52 passes for 924 yards and 8 touchdowns.  His percentage growth from year 1 to year 2 are 6% more catches, 14% more yards, and 300% more touchdowns.

Now that we have three separate receivers and their jumps from year 1 to year 2, we take these percentages, average them out, and apply them to Jeudy’s rookie numbers to project his second season stat line.

Let’s start with the receptions.  Sutton had 71% more catches from year 1 to 2, Stefon Diggs had 62% more catches from year 1 to 2, and Santonio Holes had 6% more catches from year 1 to 2.  Of these numbers, the average is 46.33%.

Now, for the yards.  Sutton had 58% more yards from his first to second season, Diggs had 25% more yards, and Holmes had 14% more yards.  These average out to 32.33% more yards.

Finally, for the touchdowns.  Sutton had 50% more touchdowns from year 1 to year 2, and Holmes had 300% more touchdowns.  These numbers average out to 175% more touchdowns.

So, between our three receivers, they had an average of 46.33% more catches, 32.33% more yards, and 175% more touchdowns.

If we apply these percentages to Jerry Jeudy’s rookie season, this is what my method would project him at for year 2:

76 receptions, 1,133 yards, and 8 touchdowns.  In this scenario, Jeudy would average 14.9 yards per reception.

This is by no means a perfect or groundbreaking scenario, but it is common for players, especially wide receivers, to breakout in year 2.

We obviously won’t know if Jerry Jeudy takes the next step until he hits the field, but all signs point to him being able to do it.

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