The Sophomore Leap Is Not A Thing. Rookie Usage Is.
Thirteen second-year players sit inside the top 100, and their rookie seasons ranged from TE4 to WR88. What separates them is not talent or draft pedigree — it is how much work they already had.
The phrase does more work than the evidence supports
Every August the second-year breakout becomes a draft-room article of faith, and it is applied indiscriminately to anyone who was a rookie last season. The 13 second-year players inside the current top 100 make the problem obvious: as a group they have nothing in common.
Tyler Warren finished fourth among tight ends as a rookie with 188.5 points across 17 games. Matthew Golden finished 88th among receivers with 70 points across 14. Both are entering their second season. Treating "sophomore" as a shared property of those two players explains nothing.
What actually carries into year two
Usage. A rookie who commanded a large share of his team's touches or targets is very likely to command it again, because the coaching staff has already demonstrated it wants him on the field. That is a decision that has been made, not a projection.
Efficiency is the part that moves, and it moves in both directions. Ashton Jeanty is the cleanest example on the board: he was seventh among all running backs in both carries and targets as a rookie, handling 72% of his team's rush attempts, and finished as the 11th back because he averaged 3.7 yards per carry. The volume is established fact. The efficiency is the open question, and it is the entire investment case.
The inverse profile is more dangerous. A rookie who produced on a small workload — good rate, little volume — is the one whose year-two case depends on the coaching staff changing its mind about him, which is a much weaker thing to bet on.
The three shapes in this group
First, established volume with fixable efficiency. These are the drafts worth making: the touches are already there and the improvement does not require anyone to change their plans.