Photo: Imagn Images

I'll be the first to admit it.

I had no idea a football player named Duron Carter existed until a few months ago when I spotted this exchange on my Twitter timeline:

@evansilva ive been adding delone carter as a placeholder. was going to do it in our dynasty before end of season sigh

— Sigmund Bloom (@SigmundBloom) November 16, 2014

The two guys involved in that conversation are both pretty good at fantasy football, so I quickly fired up the Google machine to see what all the fuss was about. Within a few clicks, I learned Duron Carter is a soon to be 24 year old wide receiver for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. He also happens to be the son of Hall of Fame Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter, and was once one of the top high school recruits in the nation.

I had so many questions.

What was he doing in the CFL?

Duron Carter's excursion to the great white north is best summed up by this quote from his father (as told to USA Today Sports):

"He. Just. Hates. (Bleeping). School."

Academics derailed Carter's FBS career after only 12 games at Ohio State, where he finished with 13 receptions for 178 yards in 2009, before being declared academically ineligible for the 2010 Rose Bowl game.

Carter would leave the Buckeyes in June of 2010 after his issues in the classroom also kept him out of spring practices. He played as a sophomore at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas, where he made plenty of plays (10 TDs), but apparently not many friends. Here's Carter's JUCO quarterback's fond remembrance of their time together as teammates:

Duron transferred to Alabama in April of 2011, but would never see the field for the Crimson Tide, as eligibility issues involving academics once again got in the way. He was forced to take a redshirt year in 2011, was suspended for spring practices in 2012, and would end up transferring to Florida Atlantic for his senior season. When his petition to play immediately was turned down, Carter left FAU.

And thus concludes the tale of how one of the top wide receiver prospects in the nation came to start eating poutine and saying 'a-boot'.

Exactly how excited should we be about him as an NFL prospect?

Like any other prospect coming into the NFL, an informed opinion on Carter's potential as a pro can be gleaned from some combination of his athleticism, statistical performance, and game film.

Carter goes about 6'4'', 205 lbs., which should immediately endear him to #TeamTallWR. No matter which side of the 'WR Size Matters' debate you fall on, it's tough to ignore 37 of the 50 double-digit touchdown receiving seasons the last 5 years have come from players 6’2'' or taller.

Below are the results of Carter's Pro Day workout, conducted in March of 2013:

If you compare his metrics to the wide receivers who attended the 2014 NFL Draft Combine (accounting for height and weight), Carter's closest physical comparable is Marcus Lucas – a 6'4'', 218 lbs. undrafted free agent out of Missouri, who landed on the Panthers' practice squad:

Not exactly encouraging, but if one were inclined to paint Carter's measureables in a more favorable light, you could argue he's not terribly far removed from A.J. Green, who has a practically identical height (6'4''), weight (207 lbs.), and wingspan (both are pterodactyls – Green's measures 78” while Carter's is 80”). It should also be noted Pro Day results aren't technically official, and some scouts clocked Carter's 40 time as low as 4.5. Here's Green's 2011 combine numbers for comparison:

So Carter's athletic profile places him somewhere between a street free agent and a poor man's version of a fantasy superstar - not very helpful. However, it's encouraging his cumulative stats stack up well in comparison to his teammates and the rest of the CFL's wide receivers.

Carter didn't debut for Montreal until their seventh game in 2013, and still managed to finish second on the team in both receiving yards (909) and TDs (5) as a rookie. In fact, he finished 11^th in the entire league in receiving despite the six game handicap.

Last year in 15 games played, Carter finished third in the CFL in receptions (75) and receiving yards (1,030), while tying for second in TD catches (7). He notched the league's second best reception market share (24.92%), and third best yardage market share (27.22%). Perhaps most importantly for fantasy purposes, Carter finished with 43.75% of his team's receiving TDs - a rate that led the CFL by a significant margin.

Since Montreal Alouettes GM Jim Popp claims Carter has first round skills, here's how those usage rates compare to the final college seasons of last year's first round receivers:

The nerd stats smile on Carter for sure, but one troubling trend does emerge as you peruse Montreal's game logs. Despite his impressive cumulative totals, Carter was held to less than 50 receiving yards in seven of 15 games played. 51% of his total yardage was accumulated in just four starts.

You should take this with a gigantic grain of salt considering I have never watched a Montreal Alouettes game (and don't ever plan to if we're being honest), but there could be a logical explanation for Carter's frequent disappearing acts.

For starters, Montreal ran a conservative offense. They finished with the second fewest passing yards in the league last season, leaving only so much receiving production to go around. Another likely culprit was the way Carter was utilized. According to at least one scouting report, he was deployed primarily as a deep threat for the Alouettes. It's asking a lot of any receiver to achieve consistency while being fed a steady diet of low percentage targets.

Of course, the statistical spottiness can just as easily be a result of the holes in Carter's game. Duron reportedly needs to learn how to beat jams, work through physical cornerbacks, and start winning on more 50-50 balls. That last one is surprising considering his size, but incidentally it was also a knock on A.J. Green coming out of Georgia.

The extent of my own “film study” on Carter is limited to his Youtube highlights (impressive, I know). While I'm probably the last Footballguy you should trust to interpret game film, Carter's definitely got some traits that jump off the screen.

For one thing, he's got 10 foot fishing nets attached to his wrists where most folks only have hands. I couldn't find an official hand size, but after watching those clips, I'll take Carter at his word when he says “I don't drop anything”.

It also doesn't take a scout to see he's blessed with some nasty YAC ability. He looks explosive off the line, has nice open field moves, and can definitely turn on the jets - all of which spells trouble for opposing defenses on quick slants. The deep ball skills also appear to be as advertised.

Feel free to have a look for yourself.

Do wide receivers who begin in the CFL ever make it in the NFL?

The short answer? No.

Aside from the talent gap between CFL and NFL defenders, making the leap from Canada is tough for wide receivers because CFL teams don't run pro style offenses. There's 12 players on the field instead of 11 (typical formations feature two slot backs in place of the traditional tight end), most plays come out of the shotgun, and with only three downs to pick up a first, offensive game plans tend to be much more imbalanced than in the NFL.

The list of recent wide receivers to have productive NFL seasons after starting their careers in the CFL is discouragingly short.

BC Lions standout “Swervin” Mervyn Fernandez had a nice three year stretch for the Raiders from 1989-1991, highlighted by a 57-1,069-9 stat line in his third season as a pro.

Rocket Ismail was projected as a first round pick in the 1991 NFL Draft, but instead got the largest contract in North American football history (at the time) to play for the Toronto Argonauts. He joined the NFL prior to the 1993 season, and went on to become a respectable pro, but didn't top 1,000 receiving yards until his sixth year in the league.

Like Duron Carter, Joe Horn came to the CFL without significant FBS experience. Horn played two years at community college, then sat out entirely for two years before joining the now defunct Memphis Mad Dogs. While Horn ranks third on the New Orleans Saints' all time receiving leader board, he didn't clear 1,000 receiving yards until his fifth pro season.

It's entirely possible Carter's blend of Hall of Fame pedigree, size, and raw talent can help him become the next CFL outlier. Just be aware CFL to NFL wide receiver success stories are few and far between.

Should I care at all about Duron Carter in 2015?

No again.

Carter's been one of the most blurbed about players in the industry since he became eligible to sign an NFL futures deal. The hype train should only continue to pick up steam when he signs with an NFL team (he's reportedly choosing between the Vikings, Colts, Panthers, and Browns as of this writing). While some of those landing spots (any of them except Cleveland to be precise) leave the door open for immediate production, it's extremely unlikely Carter is relevant in twelve team redraft leagues next season.

If the initial NFL struggles of Ismail and Horn were too small a sample to scare you off, maybe the track record of 24 year old rookie wide receivers since 2000 will convince you. In short, there hasn't been a 24 year old to top 741 receiving yards in their rookie season in the past 15 years.

The list of wide receivers who played their first NFL season at the age of 24 also serves as an indictment of Carter's long term statistical ceiling. Out of the 156 players in the sample, only Roddy White, Javon Walker, and Victor Cruz stand out as number one fantasy wide receivers.

Final thoughts

If I had to choose one word to sum up my thoughts on Duron Carter as it relates to fantasy football (dynasty leagues in particular), I'd have a tough time deciding between 'intriguing', 'fun', and 'dangerous'.

The intrigue is obvious. He's a former four star recruit, who learned from an all-time great, and has proven himself as a playmaker in a professional football league.

Players like Carter make fantasy football fun. If your dynasty league rules allowed you to snag him for the cost of a waiver pick, congrats on the satisfaction that can only come from a zero risk-huge reward roster transaction. If he makes good on his potential within a year or two, it's like finding a briefcase full of money on the side of the road. And if he flops, no sweat - you can find another player for the bottom of your bench.

However, there's a clear element of danger you can't ignore if you have to give up anything of value to acquire him (which you probably will shortly when he lands in a favorable spot). Paying the shiny new toy tax to get Carter is reckless when the histories of CFL imports and 24 year old rookies tell us his chances of becoming a top shelf fantasy receiver in the NFL are slim.  

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