Is Courtland Sutton an underappreciated player in the NFL?

The Denver Broncos missed wide receiver Courtland Sutton badly in 2020 after his season-ending ACL injury, but no one should forget how elite Sutton can be.

NFL Network’s Cynthia Frelund scoured every NFL roster and identified the most underappreciated player on each team using her context-based models.

While Sutton missed 2020, his metrics lead Frelund to believe he is underappreciated based on many factors like his contribution and salary.

“First, I calculated and then ranked each player’s season-long contribution metric by team. To sum it up without getting overly technical, contribution metric measures each player’s production during the 2020 season,” Frelund wrote. “The metric encompasses a value for every snap by each player and reveals each player’s contribution to the team’s overall win total. After making those calculations, I ranked each player’s salary by position (contract data via the Over The Cap) to add some context around who was being “underappreciated.” I gave priority to players who did not switch teams this offseason.

“Then I weighted players drafted in Round 2 or later who have been to no more than two Pro Bowls. That said, the most critical component to this method is contribution metric.”

Sutton was very effective in his 2019 campaign. He earned a Pro Bowl nod after catching 72 passes for 1,112 yards and six touchdowns.

So how could that make him underappreciated?

“Yes, Sutton missed nearly the entire 2020 season with a torn ACL, so that factors into his placement here. But considering how effective he was in his last full season of action, Sutton still feels underappreciated,” Frelund wrote. “In 2019, Next Gen Stats show that the Broncos wideout earned the third-most yards on deep targets (20-plus yards) with 427, and his +17.1 catch rate above expected on deep targets was fourth-best. He also forced 16 missed tackles on receptions, which was tied for fourth-most among WRs, per Pro Football Focus. I believe Sutton deserves to be on this list because his forecasted win share for 2021 ranks ninth-best among receivers (remember it’s a combined on- and off-ball rate).”

In a press conference last week Sutton emphasized that his mindset is to come back better than ever during the 2021 season.

“I’ve been working my butt off in rehab and really attacking it so I can come back and not just be at the standard that I was before I got hurt,” Sutton said. “I’m trying to exceed that even more so. I don’t see myself coming back and losing any of those things that I was able to do. If anything, we’re going to be adding to that.”