What this is: Our take on preseason all-Big Ten lists, except instead of throwing out counting stats-based lists to twiddle the confirmation biases of shallow thinkers, we compete to draft the best teams, going position-by-position this time because readers rejected our Settlers of Catan model.

Previously: Quarterbacks and Running Backs

How things stand:

Snake draft. We re-randomize the order each week; this time it goes BiSB, Brian, Ace, Seth.

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Seth: Since you already have Rutgers's leading receiver you're welcome to pass this round, @BiSB.

BiSB: Gee so many options here. Let me think for a

WR #1: Rondale Moore, Purdue (BiSB)

Whoooosh. [Derrick Webb/11Warriors]

Led the nation in receptions with 114. Led the Big Ten in receiving yards. Second in the Big Ten in total yards from scrimmage (behind Jonathan Taylor). Returned kicks and punts. Did this:

And that was all as a freshman. And now he gets a second year in a Jeff Brohm offense. Yeah, he's gonna be really good.

[After THE JUMP: What comes off the board first: Michigan's receivers room or Minnesota's?]

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WR #2: Tyler Johnson, Minnesota (Brian)

Row the boat, folks. Johnson put up 1169 yards last year on a whopping 78 catches and is projected as a second-round pick in the upcoming draft. Very possible someone from a team familiar to us blows up and passes Johnson--I feel like I'm picking from about four equal guys and when it comes back to me they'll all be gone. But Johnson is the one with a returning QB and fewer questions about who will be the leader of the pack.

Since I appear to be drafting all the Gophers I'll remind you that they split reps between two true freshman QBs last year. Minnesota YPA when throwing to Johnson: 9.4. When throwing to anyone else: 7.0. And he did it in just about every game. Maryland was the only team to hold him below 68 yards in Big Ten play; he put up 119 on eight catches against OSU and 107 on 6 against Iowa.

Seth:

In case even further confirmation on Tyler Johnson being ELITE was needed...

...top 5 WR grade since 2014 [@PFF_College]

Top 5 in the past 5 years is pretty good, in case you were wondering.#RTB‍♂️ #SkiUMah〽️ pic.twitter.com/A9JoaHP2re

— Sidelines - Minnesota (@SidelinesMinn) June 11, 2019

ALSO. ALSO. And ALSO turned Tanner Morgan into Shea Patterson deep.

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WR #3: Nico Collins, Michigan (Ace)

We’re splitting hairs when it comes to this tier of receivers. I’ll take Collins for having the hardest-to-find skill among the group: winning proverbial 50/50 balls a lot more than 50% of the time.

Nico Collins had an absurd 81.3 percent contested catch rate last season, easily leading returning B1G wide receivers. pic.twitter.com/4AkR6OdzFy

— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 11, 2019

He’s an enormous downfield threat with the route chops to work all areas of the field, he catches most everything that’s catchable, and he’s now in an offense that’s going to utilize those skills much more frequently. Among returning B1G receivers, he produced the highest passer rating when targeted last season. (Just edging out DPJ.) Now he’s going to be much more targeted. A breakout looms. In reality, it happened last year, we just didn’t get to see it enough.

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WR#4: Donovan Peoples-Jones, Michigan (Seth)

Tune in turn on switch off and explode. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

The outpouring of Collins hype from the wokest sectors of this offseason is all warranted, and I'm as hype on Sainristil and Black as this spring was. But all of that talk has begun to overshadow, you know, the guy who's been Michigan's #1 receiver since headlining the greatest wideout class of all time. Don't think that's changed:

While his per target numbers and contested balls rates aren't as bonkers as Nico's, that had a lot of uncatchable throws in it—DPJ was perfect on routine passes, and 2nd team all-B1G to PFF.

It also had a lot to do with role, as DPJ was the guy Michigan was most comfortable using as a three-level receiver and comeback chain-mover. Also he was the guy drawing the opponents' best coverage. Michigan State tried flipping their normal person (named Person) on Peoples-Jones for one play, and you remember the outcome.

DPJ also proved himself a dangerous punt returner. Michigan was unlucky not to get more than a few broken play DPJ highlights last year, and now they've replaced his lanifornicating former position coach with a bona fide receivers guru whose whole thing is "speed in space."

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WR#5: KJ Hill, Ohio State (Seth)

THIS VIDEO IS SAFE UNTIL 8:30:

I spoke too soon when I called JK Dobbins the most proven weapon on OSU's offense, but KJ Hill (81.1 grade to PFF) has been "Oh right AND THAT GUY" since busting out late his freshman year. Since then Hill has gone from siphoning snaps from Parris Campbell, to splitting them, to stealing Parris's spot on PFF's midseason All-America team.

That was a reflection of Ohio State's offensive strategy, which was to let their interchangeable 4.3 H-receivers run crossing routes all day. Since both were too fast for any mortal cornerback to keep up, and both are too smooth at catching without losing stride for said mortals to catch up, Dwayne Haskins was allowed to spend most of the season dinking it to these guys and riding the ensuing carnage to Heisman numbers.

They're not exactly clones; Campbell could play some running back, Hill's handoffs were all of the screen variety. Campbell rarely ventured downfield, Hill's reel shows the tracking, hands, zone awareness, advanced route chops and body control to play outside. Campbell was an indifferent blocker, Hill gets lauded for it:

Parris went in the 2nd round, the third receiver taken in the draft. Ohio State's second and third leading receivers have also moved on. While there's more where that came from, odds are Fields won't like the long ball any more than Haskins did. Hill's surprising decision to return puts him in line to inherit most of Campbell's 110 targets in Mesh-loving Ryan Day's offense, and KJ's already coming off an 865-yard season (5th Big Ten) as a backup.

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Ace: Speedy Eaglet.

Seth: If you get Hamler's mom to do this writeup in a rap you win Draftageddon.

WR #6: KJ “Speedy Eaglet” Hamler, Penn State (Ace)

The most explosive slot-type in the Big Ten until Moore came along and he’s still not far behind. Hamler is exceptionally quick, generates a lot of separation, and great in the open field. Like Jeremy Gallon, he’s undersized but can line up inside or outside, and also like Gallon he’s surprisingly good as an occasional jump-ball target—he tracks the ball very well.

As PFF highlighted, Hamler is much more than a screen-and-run speed demon. He averaged over 17 yards per catch last year and did a lot of his best work over the middle; he was one of the Big Ten’s most reliable chain-movers.

Yes, I remain upset Michigan didn’t go harder after this Orchard Lake St. Mary’s product.

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WR #7: JD Spielman, Nebraska (Brian)

Seth's probably going to snark on this pick since Bryan already has Rondale Moore, as if Rondale Moore is just a slot and not a superhuman wrecking ball. Spielman isn't him but he is also a heavily-used not-just-a-slot. Just check this single-game reel against Wisconsin in which he's the target on several deep and intermediate routes, including a one-handed spear on an errant corner route:

He gets a lot of short stuff, yeah, but he's not just that. He caught a whopping 75% of his targets, per Connelly, and averaged 9.3 YPT, outpacing teammate Stanley Morgan.

He popped up on two different PFF teams of the week and preseason was a top-ten WR per the same publication. With Morgan gone Spielman is going to get Rondale-level touches from a rapidly improving QB.

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WR #8: Cody White, Michigan State (BiSB)

White's still working on that first career catch vs. Michigan [Bryan Fuller]

Its tempting to point to Brian Lewerke's injury as the point when MSU's offense went off the rails, but if you look at the numbers, it was Cody White's broken hand that really set things alight. They averaged 5.7 yards per play and 8.4 yards per pass before they lost White for a month. After that point? 4.3 YPP and 4.9 (!) YPA. Before he got hurt, White was on pace for an 1,100 yard season. By the time he got back, things were... bleak.

At 6'3", ~220 lbs, White is a big, rangy receiver with good speed and excellent body control. He can beat a defense over the top, but also does work on underneath stuff and in-breaking routes. With Felton Davis gone and presumed #2 WR Darrell Steward averaging 8.6 yards per CATCH last year, White may have to be the "move the chains" guy AND the "open things up" guy for Sparty. He may also have to play tight end. And running back. And quarterback. And possibly left tackle.

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WR #9: Nick Westbrook, Indiana (BiSB)

Still working on explaining how that moon ball in the snowglobe game was a catch [Fuller]

Does Cody White's skill set sound useful? Well I have good news: there is another. At 6'3", ~220 lbs, Nick Westbrook is a big, rangy receiver with good speed and excellent body control. Westbrook, however, is very much a Run To The Mailbox weapon. He can get on top of a defense seemingly at will. Indiana attempts to use him significantly in the underneath passing game, but every time they do so, they are running the Don't Send Nick Westbrook To The Mailbox play. Which is a mistake.

Indiana's Nick Westbrook produced on deep targets last season with a 123.1 passer rating on 20+ yard targets. pic.twitter.com/oQvNBN9LX5

— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 4, 2019

Westbrook was the second receiver off the board in the 2017 Edition of Draftageddon. And before Seth jinxed him to a torn ACL on kick coverage (seriously, Indiana... get better at resource utilization) on the OPENING KICKOFF OF THE SEASON, he noted that Westbrook had some of his best games against big teams in 2016. He continued that in 2018. going for 109 yards and a TD against Ohio State and 84 yards against Michigan including a bomb to set up that late first half score.

Seth: Don't forget to thank Brian for not noticing you already had your slot.

BiSB: On the slot/outside receiver point, in the Year of Our Gattis 2019 you don't need two 6'3", ~220 lb big, rangy receivers with good speed and excellent body control on the outside. I would be surprised if defensive coordinators would feel comforted by Rondale Moore being lined up alone out wide. Heck, Jeremy Gallon had a 1373 yard season on the outside in a much less, shall we say, progressive offense than might be deployed today.

(But yeah I probably wouldn't have taken Spielman because I already had Moore)

Seth: At least it does give us a more accurate ranking, since I think we've hit the next significant drop point. It's also a good point to note this is a much deeper receiver year than most years, when Spielman-White-Westbrook would have made a solid first team.

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WR #10 Chris Olave, Ohio State (Brian)

[Patrick Barron]

I don't want to talk about it.

BiSB: It's worth pointing out that Olave had 7 catches for 118 yards during the entire regular season. It's just that

/stops talking, walks into the ocean

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WR #11: Rashod Bateman, Minnesota (Ace)

It, uh, certainly dropped off quick around here. Bateman didn’t match teammate Tyler Johnson’s efficiency last year but he got a boatload of targets (95) and managed to turn them into a solid freshman season (51 catches, 704 yards, 6 TDs). Considering he was working with a pair of freshman quarterbacks, his per-target mark should improve. He’s big (6'2", 200) and his athleticism stands out in his highlights (above). Minnesota might have a decent passing attack?

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Seth: Eh, Austin Mack is really the starting Z receiver at OSU, after starting at X until an injury at Purdue. In his OSU HTTV preview, Kyle Jones of ElevenWarriors said Mack was their best route-runner last year after KJ Hill. He also said Mack was moved because Binjimin Victor won the X job over Olave. PFF gave Mack a 72.4 grade on the season versus Olave's 70.9.

Anyway I'm not taking Mack either, not so much because he's coming off that injury, but because I took Donovan Peoples-Jones earlier, and you can't have one without the other.

WR #12: Tarik Black, Michigan (Seth)

We go together like ski-bop-a-loombop-ba-Y-cross dig! Together forever like smashsailquickhitcha mesh-mesh hitch mills [Fuller]

At the start of their true freshman season, Tarik Black looked like the class's five-star. Then he broke a foot. Going into their second season, once again we thought Black was going to be the #1. Then he broke the other foot. Here was Brian after Break Number 2:

The amount of suck this contains is lots. Black's 11 catches in his two-and-change games project out to a palpable freshman hit; 8.8 yards per target was nearly two yards better than Michigan's #2 WR in that department. That's a little data we are making big, but also Black just felt like he had The Proverbial It. Every other word in his above recruiting profile was "smooth," thus the prospecting name, and that translated. His touchdown against Florida was a post on which his drift outside seemed to dupe the UF safety into passing him off...

...and when he set up for shorter stuff it was just... smooth, man.

Blocking is a plus—in fact the play right before the Florida TD above was a teach tape example.

If he's behind DPJ and Nico it's only technically, because Michigan's going to rotate all three. Before the second injury we had Black the consensus 2nd (Brian, Ace, myself) or 3rd (BiSB, Alex) team, and first among his classmates. He's out of feet to break. He was the only one of the trio available this spring and looked, well, smooth.

Ace: Yeah, I took Bateman in part to avoid trying to guess who’d emerge between Black, Mack, and Binjimen Victor.

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Seth: So...honorable mentions? We mentioned Austin Mack, who's coming off a foot injury but is pretty proven, and Binjimin Victor, whom they're still trying to make happen even though he's skinny and drops too many passes. I wanted to add that Maryland's Jeshaun Jones sucked as freshmen do but impressed on tape last year, and might be in for a breakout. Also nobody took Whop.

BiSB: WHOP only had one game with more than 27 yards receiving. It just happened to be a monster 13/148/1 outing against MSU. If we're missing anyone from Indiana, it'd probably be Donavan (sic) Hale, who caught 42 balls and 6 TDs.

We left Wisconsin's leading receiver (AJ Taylor) on the board, though that was probably as much about QB uncertainty as anything.

Seth: Counterpoint: Whop. Philyor. Hale is a guy I got turned off from scouting them. I thought he was in the process of getting passed by Ty Fryfogle, who somehow escaped from Mississippi to join the forest of 6'4" IU receivers yore.

Ace: With both Taylor and Danny Davis, my thing with Wisconsin receivers is they never seemed to get separation. Pedestrian numbers, too.

BiSB: Yeah, I wouldn't take any of those guys over the guys who were picked. At least one of the Ohio State guys will be a "should have taken him instead of," but there's no way to know which one.

Seth: Where do Michigan's slot receivers rank among the mighty mites of the Midwest this year?

BiSB: Outlook Freshman. Ask Again Later.

Ace: Bennett Skowronek is gonna be the Northwestern slot with enough production to make at least a couple of these picks look bad. He was solid last year and they lost a lot from that offense.

Seth: Of the 6'4" Skowroneks?

Ace: I may have just assumed he was a slot.

Regardless, he’s due for a bump in production.

BiSB: And with a five-star quarterback transfer coming in. If that doesn't get people to spend an entire day and a few hundred bucks on Northwestern football, Pat Fitzgerald is out of ideas.

Seth: There was a third Gopher on my draft board. Chris Autman-Bell is another outside-sized freshman who was a plus in all categories: 64% catch rate, 10.2 YPT. Past Year Zero, Fleck teams can pass. It is very Minnesota to be constantly rotating through coaches who are good at one specific thing.

Final receiver question: Michigan receiver this year with the fewest yards who still outgains the top Rutgers non-running back.

BiSB: (for comparison purposes, the leading wide receivers since Chris Ash arrived have totaled 481, 167, and 245 receiving yards)

I'm gonna say Ronnie Bell hits 350 yards, which is good enough to pass Bo Melton.

Seth: Alright put me down for Nick Eubanks.

Ace: Mike Sainristil, much of which is racked up against Rutgers.

Brian: Oliver Martin?

Seth: Tight ends!

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TE #1: Jake Ferguson, Wisconsin (Seth)

I went into this thinking I would have a tough time deciding between Barry Alvarez's grandson and Pat "Baby Gronk" Freiermuth of Penn State, but then I kept watching that.

Virtually everything Ferguson caught was a first down or touchdown, and nothing in there was made easy by scheme. That's because Wisconsin's offense is designed around the fact that you have to double Ferguson or else. Football Study Hall's Ian Boyd:

They tended to move Ferguson around quite a bit, regularly playing trips formations with Ferguson as the innermost slot. At 6-5, 240 pounds with real skill as a route runner he presents major matchup problems for opponents and typically needed to be doubled...Opponents’ middle linebackers can’t cover Ferguson 1-on-1 in the seam, he HAS to be doubled with a safety...So then every snap in this package the QB is just checking to see how the defense is playing Ferguson and then either throwing him the ball or going elsewhere when the double comes.

That article also has a few nice examples of Ferguson as a blocker, a weakness (along with drops) in Freiermuth's game. Don't get me wrong: both Honorable Mention all-B1G freshmen are equally imposing, and PFF's 64.8 grade for Freiermuth was, as of late November, right up there wtih KJ Hamler (73.1), Jahan Dotson (71.1) and Ricky Slade (48.0) among PSU's top four freshman targets.

As for Ferguson, PFF thought he was just the 2nd best returning TE in the country this year, and merely 2nd team all-conference last year behind Iowa's TJ Hockenson, meaning Ferguson graded out worse than a Detroit Lions 1st rounder (but ahead of Noah Fant). But since all the draft and fantasy sites like Ferguson better, I guess that's my pick.

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TE#2: Pat Freiermuth, Penn State (Ace)

Seth did a lot of the legwork for me in the previous writeup, though I did consider Purdue’s Brycen Hopkins. Freiermuth has more upside as a blocker; he’s got great size (6'5", 256) and PFF called him “capable” as a freshman as both a run- and pass-blocker. Meanwhile, he moves really well for a big guy, and he can make difficult catches — just watch the first play in the video above to see him score on a one-handed grab with a defender in his shirt.

Freiermuth is already a major weapon in the red zone and he’s got the potential to make a greater impact in the middle of the field. He may also get targeted more frequently as PSU breaks in a less gunsling-y quarterback.

Seth: We forgot to mention 8 touchdowns and freshman all-American in our joint Freiermuth writeup, for a kid who was playing Massachusetts high school ball a year earlier and playing quarterback a year before that. Upside for days, though I didn't like that he's splitting snaps with blocky type Nick Bowers. Anyway let's recruit New England better from now on.

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TE#3: Brycen Hopkins, Purdue (Brian)

I was exhorted to just get on with it and make the blindingly obvious pick so here's the blindingly obvious pick. Hopkins is the returning B10 TE with the most receiving yards to his name; what's more than that he ranked third amongst the top 50 receivers (by yardage) in the league in YPC. Per PFF he leads returning B10 TEs in yards per route run. He's Matt Miller's top draft-eligible B10 tight end; he's Gil Brandt's top tight end, period, and he led all FBS tight ends in yards per target at 11.2(!).

Why is he on the board again?

Seth: Because all of Hopkins's big plays were wide-open scheme things, chunks against prevents, or That One Spooky Night in Minnesota-level silly:

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TE#4: Jack Stoll, Nebraska (BiSB)

Business in the front. [Hail Varsity]

Alas, my reverse psychology didn't work. I tried to double-whammy Brian into taking someone other than Hopkins, because he may have been at the top of my board. So, instead, I'm taking kind of Hopkins's opposite in Jack Stoll. Where Hopkins is a receiver who is working his way into a blocker, Stoll is a traditional TE who is working his way into a split/hybrid receiving threat. The best comparison I have is Senior AJ Williams. He looks like a natural in-line blocker, but spends a lot of his time split out in the slot or as an H-back. He also looks surprisingly natural for a guy his size as a route-runner. You can get a pretty good idea of his skill set in this every-snap video vs. Wisconsin:

(Note the contested catch at 5:00)

Stoll had the third-most receiving yards for the Huskers last year, and with #1 (Stanley Morgan) and #5 (Devine Ozigbo) gone and #4 (Maurice Washington) possibly suspended, Stoll is going to get a lot of looks. And speaking of looks:

My god, it's beautiful. That mullet is everything you could hope for a mullet to be, and then some.

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Seth: So nobody drafted Sean McKeon.

Brian: Yeah I think he's going to have a bit of a breakout season but how many targets is a TE in an offense with DPJ/Black/Collins/Sainristil going to get? I do think he's probably the best blocker amongst reasonably downfield guys in the league, once you adjust for "here's a whole new offense midseason."

Seth: His trajectory before suddenly being asked to play H-back in a split zone/arc zone offense outta nowhere was maybe not in line Freiermuth/Ferguson, but it was in that ballpark. They're still going to have a tight end on the field, and Gentry's cleared out.

Speaking of cleared out, Iowa's Nate Wieting, a fifth-year senior with 3 receptions in 29 games over his career, made the Mackey Watch List by virtue of being named Iowa's starting TE.

He's a pure blocker, but given a) Iowa, and b) Iowa, he'll probably be a PFF fave by December.

Ace: Honestly kinda impressed by the… watch… committee? Iowa’s Starting TE is generally a good bet. I was also literally just checking to see who Iowa’s third TE was last year.

Seth: The other guy--because they start two--is Shaun Beyer, a former receiver who's been bulking up. Don't ask me why I know so much about Iowa. I belong to some weird twitter communities.

Ace: Luke Farrell is probably one of the three or four most talented TEs in the conference but he’ll probably top out at 20 catches again because of Ohio State’s offense.

Seth: Ditto Rashod Berry, whom Farrell has to share snaps with. So hey brian do you want talk abo-

Brian: NO

Where things are now: