QUIX (speed + quickness) and success at wide receiver in the NFL

Montrell Washington, KJ Hamler and Jalen Virgil are all fast.

Since none of them ran the 40 at the combine we can’t talk about their actual 40 times, but we can talk about how they were clocked at 4.3ish at various other times during their careers. In a straight line, without pads or helmets, they are all among the fastest people on the planet. The catch is that for many wide receivers, straight-line speed does not equal success. I did a study back in 2014 looking at speed score and why it doesn’t correlate with NFL success for WRs. This will look at QUIX score (40 time + 3-cone + 20-yd short shuttle).

QUIX score measure not only how fast a player is in a straight-line with no pads on, but it also attempts to measure how quickly a player can stop, change direction and restart. The ability to accelerate (both negatively and positively) is critical for WRs. The ability to change direction while running quickly is also probed in QUIX score - there is no change of direction involved in running the 40. There is in the 3-cone.

This study will use combine data. Any WR who did not do any of the three drills at the combine is excluded. This will look at WRs who attended the combine from 2014 to 2021 inclusive. There were 490 who did all three drills. The lower the QUIX score the better. The top 50 are shown below.

It should surprise no one that Tyreek Hill has the best QUIX score in the study. As he demonstrated many times to the chagrin on Bronco Country, he is both fast AND quick. Other relatively successful NFL WRs who are in the top 50 are Brandin Cooks, Odell Beckham, Amari Cooper, Courtland Sutton, Ja’Marr Chase, Mecole Hardman, Tyler Lockett and John Brown. This, however, means that roughly 40 of the top 50, for whatever reason, were not successful (yet) in the NFL. Guys like Rondale Moore, Elijah Moore (no relation), and Jaelon Darden were all rookies in 2021 and were fairly successful. Their NFL stories is still very much being written while guys like Phillip Dorsett and Jeff Janis are failures. Their NFL stories are finished.

If we look at the top 10 WRs in 2021 in terms of receiving yards:

1. Cooper Kupp
2. Justin Jefferson
3. Davante Adams
4. Ja’Marr Chase
5. Deebo Samuel
6. Tyreek Hill
7. Stefon Diggs
8. Tyler Lockett
9. Diontae Johnson
10. D.J. Moore

We find that three of them are in the top 50 in QUIX score. Here the rankings for the others:

• Moore - 74 (15.44)
• Kupp - 78 (15.45)
• Samuel - 164 (15.65)
• Adams - 173 (15.68)
• Diggs - 258 (15.81)
• Johnson - 369 (16.07)

I find it interesting that while Courtland Sutton’s 4.54s 40 yard dash puts him in the “slow” category for WRs, his quickness tests rank him in the top 25 for QUIX score. I also find it interesting that former Bronco draftee, Isaiah McKenzie is in the top 20. He has been relatively successful with the Bills after he was jettisoned by the Broncos.

Now let’s flip the script and look at the guys with really poor QUIX scores.

The only “successes” I see in the bottom 50 are Brandon Coleman, Ricky Seals-Jones, Juju Smith-Schuster and Jarvis Landry. They all have different degrees of success. Coleman was an undrafted tall WR out of Rutgers who played three seasons with the Saints and caught 79 passes in the NFL. Seals-Jones is still in the league as a TE with Giants - now on his fifth team in six NFL seasons. He has 90 catches and 10 TDs in his career. Smith-Schuster was (and could still be) the #1 WR for the Steelers. He has 323 career catches and 26 touchdowns. Landry has quietly been one of the better slot WRs in the NFL for close to a decade. He has 688 catches and 37 career touchdowns.

So while you can be a successful NFL WR without speed or quickness (as measured at the combine), the odds of being successful are much better if you have both than if you have neither.

I should also note that many recently highly drafted NFL WRs chose to forego one or all of these tests at the combine either because of injury or choice. Jerry Jeudy didn’t do the 3-cone. Chase Claypool only ran the 40. Henry Ruggs, D.J. Chark, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Justin Jefferson, Tyrie Cleveland, Laviska Shenault, Cody Latimer, Brandon Aiyuk only ran the 40. Of course there are many guys who didn’t or couldn’t even run the 40 at the combine like KJ Hamler, DeVonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle and Dante Pettis.