JJ Arcega-Whiteside was the Philadelphia Eagles’ least valuable starter
There’s nowhere to go but up for Philadelphia Eagles’ receiver JJAW in 2019.
Jason Kelce was the Philadelphia Eagles‘ most valuable player, at least according to Pro Football Reference (more on that here).
But, as these things so often go, when any team has a most valuable player they also have one who maybe isn’t quite so much – or is downright bad.
Unfortunately, in 2019, that player was JJ Arcega-Whiteside.
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Now first and foremost, let’s preface what exactly qualifies a player as being the ‘least valuable’. JJAW actually caught 10 passes, converted seven first downs, recorded a touchdown, and was a decent enough contributor in the run game. He obviously didn’t turn in a season like fellow rookies Terry McLaurin, A.J. Brown, or his eternal draft day comparee, D.K. Metcalf, but saying Arcega-Whiteside was less valuable for the Eagles than Jordan Matthews, Robert Davis, or Ryan Lewis in 2019 just isn’t true.
So, for argument’s sake, let’s say to qualify for being the team’s least valuable player, you have to have started four or more games – one fewer than JJAW in 2019.
With this stipulation in mind, Arcega-Whiteside’s Pro Football Reference AV score of 1 is bad. How bad? Well, it’s three times worse than the team’s next qualifying player, which is a tie between a number of players including Hassan Ridgeway, T.J. Edwards, and Sidney Jones.
Per PFR’s own admission, Approximate Value is not a sure-fire statistic. Just because Arcega-Whiteside was graded out as a 1 – which technically isn’t the lowest grade a player can earn, as 0 is an option – he isn’t necessarily three times less valuable than Ridgeway, Edwards, or Jones. It does, however, mean that players who graded out with an AV of 3 as a whole are statistically better than players with an AV of 1 if you average them all out (read more about the process here).
Who knows, maybe JJAW is the exception, not the rule, but do we really want to hang our collective ball caps on a statistical anomaly?
But hey, just because JJAW was only marginally more than a non-factor as a rookie doesn’t mean he can’t improve considerably this fall – if anything, it may actually make things easier. As crazy as it may sound, I’m actually rather high on Arcega-Whiteside going into his sophomore season. He’s still the player Eagles scouts coveted over McLaurin, Metcalf, and quite possibly Brown, still an intriguing option in the red zone, and a legitimate candidate to replace Alshon Jeffery on the outside at some point down the line.
I’m not guaranteeing it will happen, but why not be optimistic? 39 percent of Carson Wentz’s passing yards in 2019 were recorded by either Zach Ertz, Dallas Goedert, or Josh Perkins, and none of those players are exactly known for their athletic ability as a downfield, vertical threat. JJAW ideally projects as a prototypical, big-bodied ‘X’ receiver build for the 50/50 ball game but maybe Doug Pederson could scheme up some easy yards in the middle of the field to help bolster his confidence and put his ‘power forward’ frame to work.
Jason Kelce was the Philadelphia Eagles’ most valuable starter in 2019. dark. Next
A lot has been written about JJ Arcega-Whiteside’s rookie season – some of it good but most of it really, really bad. If you’ve completely given up on his development and truly believe that he will never live up to his draft position, who am I to argue? But with by far the worst PFR AV score of any player on the Philadelphia Eagles’ roster in 2019, there’s nowhere to go but up in 2020 and beyond.