Football Outsiders ranks the best playmaking WRs in the 2016 NFL Draft

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1. Corey Coleman, Baylor
Playmaker Projection: 820 Yards
Playmaker Rating: 99.8%

Corey Coleman has a monster projection. As a junior, Coleman gained 1,363 receiving yards and caught an eye-popping 20 touchdowns. Because Baylor only passed the ball 389 times in 2016, Coleman scored a touchdown on 5.1 percent of Baylor's passes. That's an incredible ratio, which has only been topped by four elite college players: Randy Moss, Demaryius Thomas, Dez Bryant, and Larry Fitzgerald. Coleman also tested out well physically, posting a position-best 40.5-inch vertical jump at the NFL combine.

2. Will Fuller, Notre Dame
Playmaker Projection: 514 Yards
Playmaker Rating: 94.5%

Will Fuller may have made headlines for his blazing 4.32-second 40-yard dash, but Playmaker Score is more interested in his strong receiving numbers in the relatively low-volume Notre Dame passing offense. Fuller scored 29 receiving touchdowns in his last two seasons at Notre Dame and recorded an impressive 17.4 yards per catch. Scouts may be concerned that Fuller has a relatively slight build, but size is highly overrated at the wide receiver position. Great wide receivers have come in all shapes and sizes; what matters is production.

3. Pharoh Cooper, South Carolina
Playmaker Projection: 493 Yards
Playmaker Rating: 89.5%

Historically, wide receivers with a high number of rushing attempts in college tend to also have low yards per reception numbers, because these receivers are likely to be involved in the short passing game as well. Although high numbers of rushing attempts and high yards per reception numbers correlate to NFL success, few wide receivers have both. Pharoh Cooper bucks this trend. Cooper posted an impressive 15.7 yards per catch, even while rushing the football more than 60 times for the Gamecocks in his final season.

4. Tyler Boyd, Pittsburgh
Playmaker Projection: 486 Yards
Playmaker Rating: 89.9%
Tyler Boyd has the highest receiving yards per team attempt of this class. However, his touchdown numbers, which are more predictive of future success, were good but not great, and he had a slight drop-off in his touchdowns per team attempt from his sophomore to his junior year. Boyd also has a relatively pedestrian 13.2 yards per catch career average, though that is offset by his high number of rushing attempts.

5. Laquon Treadwell, Ole Miss
Playmaker Projection: 479 Yards
Playmaker Rating: 69.5%

Laquon Treadwell is the consensus No. 1 wide receiver in this draft amongst draftniks. Playmaker Score, however, disagrees. Even factoring his status as sure first-round pick, Playmaker Score ranks him as only the fifth best receiver available. So why is Treadwell's Playmaker so low?

First, Treadwell's rate statistics are not particularly impressive. Treadwell's best season was his junior year, when he recorded 1,153 yards and 11 touchdowns. Those are certainly fine numbers for a college wide receiver, but fall short of the numbers most highly drafted NFL wide receivers produce. For example, Amari Cooper produced 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns in his final season, even though his team passed less than Treadwell's team did. As another example, Nelson Agholor, who was considered only a fringe first-round prospect, put up 1,313 yards and 12 touchdowns in his final season on a team that also passed less than Treadwell's.

Treadwell's career yards per reception is also a below-average 11.8 yards per catch, although that number did improve as his college career progressed. Possession receivers in college rarely pan out in the NFL, and Treadwell did not have the rushing attempts that would mark him as the kind of "jack of all trades" wide receiver that sometimes succeeds in the NFL despite low yards per reception numbers.

Playmaker Score likes that Treadwell is coming out as a junior, but he is poised to have one of the worst projections ever for a first-round underclassman. Assuming that Treadwell is drafted in the first round, the list of first-round underclassmen wide receivers with the worst projections would be Jon Baldwin, Cordarrelle Patterson, Treadwell, Anthony Gonzalez, and Yatil Green.

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