Following Courtland Sutton’s 2019 breakout season, he seemed primed to rise to the status of ‘superstar wide receiver’ in 2020, but a torn ACL robbed him of the opportunity.
Fortunately though, the writers at Pro Football Focus haven’t forgotten about the exciting promise Sutton showed while catching passes from Joe Flacco, Brandon Allen, and the rookie version of Drew Lock coming off an injury to his throwing hand.
Not exactly the ideal situation for most receivers, but Sutton made the most of it.
Now, he’s ready to do it again with a — hopefully — more polished version of Lock and Teddy Bridgewater.
“Sutton ran only 20 routes in 2020 before getting shut down for the year due to injury. He broke out in a big way in his 2019 sophomore campaign, though,” PFF’s Anthony Treash wrote to justify ranking Sutton 28th among the NFL’s receivers. “Sutton improved his PFF grade by nearly 20 grading points from his 2018 rookie season to 83.1, which ranked 11th among all qualifying receivers for that season.”
It makes sense to hedge one’s bets considering the injury that Sutton came back from, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Sutton far exceeded expectations. As PFF grades show — though they are far from being the best tool to measure a player’s performance — Sutton was improving at a remarkable rate and was already a borderline top 10 wide receiver.
He could recapture that form this season, especially down the stretch when he’s even further removed from the injury.
“[Sutton] often went toe to toe against press coverage, and he consistently came out on top,” Treash continued. “Sutton’s 2.50 yards per route run against press on the outside in 2019 was among the five best marks in the NFL. With a clean bill of health, Sutton is bound to climb up this list. Now he just needs an accurate quarterback (ranks 83rd of 107 qualifiers in career catchable target rate).”
Here’s hoping Lock or Bridgewater can become said accurate quarterback in 2021.
