A receiver possessing Percy Harvin’s tools — speed, elusiveness, hands — should be able to gain yards in the NFL, at the very least. That’s what’s so confounding about his play with the Seahawks . . . and was one of the main reasons they unloaded him to the Jets last week for a late-round draft pick. Forget touchdowns; he wasn’t even getting first downs.
In fact, his per-catch average through five games was ridiculously low: 6.05 yards. Only one wide receiver in league history has finished with a lower one (on 20 or more receptions). The data:
LOWEST PER-CATCH AVERAGES BY WRS IN NFL HISTORY (20+ RECEPTIONS)
| Year | Wideout, Team | Rec | Yds | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Justin Griffith, Falcons | 21 | 122 | 5.81 |
| 2014 | Percy Harvin*, Seahawks/Jets | 22 | 133 | 6.05 |
| 2009 | Josh Cribbs, Browns | 20 | 135 | 6.75 |
| 2012 | Early Doucet, Saints | 28 | 207 | 7.39 |
| 2009 | Mike Furrey, Browns | 23 | 170 | 7.39 |
| 1997 | David Palmer, Vikings | 26 | 193 | 7.42 |
| 1993 | Kevin Williams, Cowboys | 20 | 151 | 7.55 |
| 2009 | Danny Amendola, Rams | 43 | 326 | 7.58 |
| 2013 | Earl Bennett, Bears | 32 | 243 | 7.59 |
| 2001 | Tywan Mitchell, Cardinals | 25 | 196 | 7.84 |
| 2006 | Dante Hall, Chiefs | 26 | 204 | 7.85 |
*season incomplete
Not exactly a prestigious group, is it? It’s certainly not the kind of group a player with Harvin’s contract (6 years, $64.25 million) and expectations should be associating with. But when you get right down to it, Percy — as a wideout, anyway — isn’t all that fearsome a force. He’s more of a horizontal threat with his Jet sweeps, pitch plays out of the backfield, bubble screens and shallow underneath routes.
If Harvin were a truly great receiver, he’d just line up wide, beat his man (or the zone confronting him) and make big plays. But his teams – first the Vikings, then the Seahawks – haven’t used him that way, which suggests it’s Not His Thing. To me, he’s a bell, a whistle, a trinket, an additional ornament for an offense, but not somebody who should be making $11 million a year.
Maybe that will change with the Jets. Maybe he’ll show the world he’s capable of being the focal point of an attack. But we’re talking about a guy who’s had injury issues and, reportedly, personality issues, a guy who only once has gained as many as 1,000 yards from scrimmage in a season (1,312 in 2011). A few times a game he’ll get his hands on the ball, step on the gas and give the crowd a thrill, but how often does he ever tip the balance?
He’s a receiver who specializes in catching passes that aren’t really passes, throws behind the line or close to the line where there’s no defender to worry about. This is a star? An old-time quarterback once told me, “We used to call those pee passes. You threw ’em about as far as you could pee.” That, to me, is Percy Harvin: The Prince of Pee Passes.
Source: pro-football-reference.com
