As I noted on Wednesday, the 2018 NFL Draft was a very weak one for wide receivers. The first common NFL Draft between the AFL and NFL was in 1967, which means the 2018 Draft marked the 52nd draft in the common era. In 47 of the first 51 drafts, at least one wide receiver went in the top 23, but it wasn’t until the 24th pick in the ’18 Draft that a wide receiver — Maryland’s D.J. Moore to Carolina — was selected. The graph below shows where the first wide receiver was taken in each draft:

Just because it’s a weak wide receiver class, though, doesn’t mean this will be a bad class. And the fact that Moore lasted so long isn’t a bad sign, either. There have been 7 other times that the first wide receiver went with the 7th pick or later, and those wide receivers were Haywood Jeffires, Lynn Swann, Demaryius Thomas, Stanley Morgan, Santonio Holmes, Alexander Wright, and Donnie Avery.

The graph below shows the draft value, The graph shows the amount of draft value spent on wide receivers in each draft from 1967 to 2018.  As you can see, with 2018 excepted, the amount of draft capital being spent on wide receivers is up significantly over the last five decades, in stark contrast to the situation at running back:

In fact, let’s compare running backs (in red) and wide receivers (in blue) in the same graph.  The red line shows the draft capital spent on running backs in each draft from ’67 to ’18, with the dotted red line being the trend line (down).   The blue line shows the same for wide receivers, with the dotted blue line showing the trend line.  Side by side, it’s a pretty interesting graph:

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.