What You Need to Know About Zaire Barnes
Zaire Barnes is a wide receiver who entered the NFL after playing at Western Michigan. He was selected by the Tennessee Titans in the sixth round of the 2024 NFL Draft, picking number 213 overall. The information surrounding him isn't exactly hard to find, but the stats you actually need are scattered across different sites that don't always agree on the details. Here are the basic physical measurements and career numbers: Height: 6 feet 3 inches
Weight: 210 pounds
Birthday: August 5, 2001
College: Western Michigan University
Draft: 2024, Round 6, Pick 213 by the Tennessee Titans
Position: Wide Receiver
His college career at Western Michigan spanned from 2019 through 2023, though he missed the 2020 season due to injury. In his final three seasons combined, he recorded roughly 120 receptions for around 1,500 yards and ten touchdowns. Those aren't eye-popping numbers, but they're solid for a mid-major program and they got him drafted. The tricky part here is finding consistent stats. Pro Football Reference, ESPN, NFL.com, and even the Titans' own site sometimes list slightly different numbers. I ran into this specifically when I was trying to track Barnes' route-running tendency data across seasons. ESPN had his 2022 stats listed at 52 receptions while PFR showed 49. The difference came down to whether a play where he caught a screen and fumbled later was counted as a reception if the recovery happened elsewhere. For most people this doesn't matter. If you're building a database or doing deep film work, you need to pick one source and stick with it, or you'll spend three hours reconciling discrepancies that don't actually exist on the field. Another thing most people miss when looking at Barnes' profile is how much his combine numbers tell you about what to expect in the league. At 6'3" and 210, he's built like a true outside receiver. His athletic testing wasn't spectacular—he ran a 4.60 forty, which is adequate but not elite—and that explains why he went undrafted out of high school and had to work his way through junior college and a mid-major FBS program before getting noticed. The Titans took him knowing exactly what he was: a physical possession receiver who can win at the line of scrimmage and after the catch.
If you want a straightforward download or compilation of all his verified stats in one place, the most reliable single source is the NFL's official stats page. They maintain play-by-play level data that's updated daily and generally more accurate than third-party aggregators. The Titans' team site also publishes game logs for their roster players, which are useful for checking specific matchups. The main limitation you'll hit with any of these sources is that rookie season stats for a sixth-round pick are going to be sparse. Barnes spent most of 2024 on special teams and in a backup receiver role. His snap counts were low and his target share was minimal. If you're looking for advanced metrics like route runs, separation numbers, or YAC breakdowns, those are available through NFL Next Gen Stats and PFF, but they require paid subscriptions and even then the sample sizes for a player with under 100 snaps are unreliable. Don't read too much into any single stat from his first season. The sample is just too small. For tracking his development over the next couple years, I'd recommend setting up a simple spreadsheet with his games played, snaps, targets, catches, yards, and touchdowns, then pulling data from NFL.com and PFR once per week during the season. It takes maybe ten minutes and gives you a cleaner picture than chasing individual articles or tweet threads that highlight one good play or one bad one and pretend it means something.
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