DeVante Parker broke out with 246 points in 2019. The No. 14 overall pick from 2015 crested the 200-point threshold for the first time in his fifth season. Parker followed an unusual path.
Over the last 20 years, this was the first time a former first-round pick had broken out in Year 5. It was also the first time in several years that a fifth-round breakout had accomplished the feat after scoring fewer than 100 points the previous season. Of course, the last previous instance was Julian Edelman in 2013, and he hasn’t finished worse than WR17 on a per-game basis in any season since.
In the first 2020 edition of my annual breakout series, we’ll look at what makes fifth-year breakouts different from their peers who emerge earlier and explain why this provides an exploitable opportunity for drafters.
