The Sean McVay style of offense branches directly off of the wide zone offense from Kyle Shanahan’s version of the wide zone offense. The main difference between the two is that Shanahan likes to use a lot of 12 personnel and boot-action while McVay likes to run his offense out of 11 personnel.
Due to running a lot of 11 personnel, the offense asks more from the wide receivers from a blocking perspective. They are asked to get down and dirty when it comes to blocking while also being explosive down the field.
For this exercise, I look at all the additions made by teams where McVay and the two coaches from his tree that run a similar system in Kevin O’Connell and Zac Taylor prefer in their wide receiver. I chose not to include Matt LaFleur because his offense is much more reminiscent of Shanahan, someone he spent more time with before his one year with McVay.
The one interesting element with the position is trying to figure out what they prefer and if there were any trends in how they look at receivers. In doing so, they came out in four clusters.
- Speed receivers
- Possession receivers
- Outside receivers
- Outliers
Is there anything we can gather from these clusters? Let’s take a look by using testing metrics and Relative Athletic Score.
Speed receivers
| Year | Player | RAS |
| 2014 | DeSean Jackson | 7.32 |
| 2018 | Brandin Cooks | 9.13 |
| 2021 | Tutu Atwell | 6.35 |
| 2021 | Odell Beckham Jr. | 8.76 |
Of the players on this list, the only one that was drafted was Atwell whom McVay and the Rams selected in the second round of the 2021 NFL draft. When you look at these players, they all were added to the roster to, in theory, stretch the field and be a deep play threat.
The two metrics that stand out here are the 40-yard dash and the three cone drill.
40-yard dash
- Cooks-99th percentile
- Jackson-97.7th percentile
- Atwell-95th percentile
- Beckham Jr.-89.9th percentile
Shockingly, there aren’t any correlations with both the 10-yard and 20-yard splits, but with the concepts that the scheme likes to use, once you get to top speed, you can do some damage. One thing that might differ with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is the 10-yard split will likely be a priority moving forward, as it was throughout the draft class, specifically with Jalen Nailor, who we will talk about later.
Three-cone
- Beckham Jr.-94.9th percentile
- Cooks-90.1th percentine
- Jackson-84.2nd percentile
- Atwell-78.8th percentile
The concepts used in this scheme definitely need good change of direction. This offense has a lot of choice and dig routes that require a good change of direction. All of these players can change direction well and it shows in their route running (sub Atwell).
Possession receivers
| Year | Player | RAS |
| 2014 | Ryan Grant | 5.3 |
| 2015 | Jamison Crowder | 1.69 |
| 2017 | Cooper Kupp | 5.32 |
| 2017 | Robert Woods | 3.78 |
| 2019 | Kelvin Harmon | 5.05 |
This group of receivers seems to prioritize one thing more than anything: production.
There really isn’t anything that stands out athletically. Kupp and Grant both had very explosive short shuttle and three-cone drills with those drills being above the 86th percentile.
All of these players were taken in the third round or later with the ones drafted and only Woods was signed in free agency. His value was more so with his ability to be such a well-rounded wide receiver, especially with how much McVay likes to have good blocking receivers. It’s one of the reasons he and Kupp became such great duo. They were both balanced and complemented each other well.
Something that is interesting with Kupp is also why they drafted Van Jefferson in 2020: they used GPS data instead of testing and that showed them more about their speed than a single track-based test.
Number one/X receivers
| 2015 | Evan Spencer | 8.88 |
| 2016 | Josh Doctson | 9.53 |
| 2017 | Sammy Watkins | 8.45 |
| 2017 | Josh Reynolds | 9.26 |
| 2019 | Terry McLaurin | 9.57 |
| 2021 | Ja’Marr Chase | 9.82 |
| 2022 | Jalen Nailor | 8.09 |
| 2022 | Allen Robinson | 9.1 |
The one thing that stands out with this cluster: the lowest Relative Athletic Score is Jalen Nailor at 8.09 and he’s an 81st percentile athlete. I don’t think that Nailor necessarily fits into this archetype, but he does athletically.
Two metrics seem to be valued highly with this cluster are the vertical jump and broad jump. In this group, there are two outliers with the vertical jump as Watson (47.4th percentile) and Spencer (61st percentile) are the only two under the 80th percentile.
- Chase-97.9th percentile
- Doctson-97.9th percentile
- Robinson-92.5th percentile
- Nailor-87.9th percentile
- McLaurin-84.9th percentile
- Reynolds-81.6th percentile
The broad jump, like the vertical jump, is viewed by some to be a better judge of speed than the 40-yard dash. All eight receivers in this cluster are above the 80th percentile.
- Chase-98.1st percentile
- Doctson-97th percentile
- Nailor-92.7th percentile
- Robinson-90.3rd percentile
- Watkins-89.5th percentile
- McLaurin-84.3rd percentile
- Reynolds-80.2nd percentile
- Spencer-80.2nd percentile
These traits help with explosiveness to help in and out of breaks and to accelerate past defenders. It fits well with what this offense offers.
Outliers
| 2020 | Ben Skowronek | NA |
| 2020 | Tee Higgins | 4.08 |
| 2020 | Van Jefferson | NA |
Due to injuries, we didn’t get a chance to get testing from either Skowronek or Jefferson but Jefferson specifically had a great Senior Bowl and the GPS testing on him were excellent. Like his father Shaun, Jefferson was viewed as a well-rounded receiver.
The really intriguing one is Higgins. Coming out of Clemson, nobody knew what to do with him. His explosiveness scores were wonky with a 16.3rd percentile 10-yard split but a 76th percentile broad jump. He produced really well as a traditional X receiver for the Clemson Tigers, but weird explosiveness scores and a 31″ vertical jump had analysts confused on what to do.
Once he went to the Bengals, Higgins thrived by giving Burrow a large target on the outside both in the deep and intermediate levels. He is an outsider, but it just worked for what Taylor wanted to do with Burrow for his development.
Will the Vikings follow suit?
This will be an interesting one. While none of the clusters showed that the 10-yard split was much of a focus, it is something that general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has prioritized, as all of his 10 draft picks from his first draft class of 2022 had a 10-yard split in the 84th percentile or higher.
It also depends on what type of receiver both he and O’Connell will prioritize to pair with Justin Jefferson. Will it be more of possession type like Jordan Addison or a field-stretching X-receiver like Quentin Johnston? We will know more about the thought process of both Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell when they make that decision, but we have some parameters to look at when athletic testing comes out.
Projection: Look for the Vikings to prioritize the 40-yard dash, 10-yard split and three-cone drill
