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Who do Rookie Quarterbacks target more? Do Tight Ends see an increased production? Or are they more prone to forcing the ball to their #1 Wide Receiver?
Do Rookie QBs Lead to Increased Tight End Production?
The entrance of a new rookie QB to a team tends to start a flurry of wild projections. A common fantasy myth that's gone around every year is that young QB's will spend more time playing scared and conservatively, therefore increasing the volume of checkdowns given to tight ends. However, most rookie QBs come into the league with the exact opposite mindset- trying to fit the ball where it doesn't belong and not understanding the value of small plays towards the big picture. So it's time to test this theory of rookie QBs resulting in increased TE production by looking at the last 15 years worth of rookie QBs. I've filtered the data to only include players who started from Week 1.
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So that's the raw data we're working with.
Actual Rookie QB Usage of Tight Ends
Let's look at each of these QBs usage of their TE's and what percentage of their targets, completions, yardage and touchdowns all came from the Tight End position.
The data speaks for itself doesn't it? Outside of Matthew Stafford and Cam Newton's rookie year, Tight Ends as a group took less than 25% of the total targets for every QB. Even players like Ryan Tannehill and Geno Smith, who played with incredibly weak wide receivers in their first year, still chose to ignore their Tight Ends. Even Derek Carr, who averaged the the lowest YPA of any starting QB last year, did that without using his TE 82% of his targets.
So what's the average production out of a rookie's supposed safety blanket?
88 Targets, 56 Receptions, 599 Yards and 5 touchdowns- but wait, that's for the entire group of TEs. Split amongst two TE's as a 70/30 ratio, which is actually a very generous split, the starting TE only sees 62 Targets, 39 Receptions, 419 Yards and three touchdowns. That's just around 60 fantasy points for a season which equals to the 23rd highest scoring TE in standard for 2014.
This checkdown heavy myth doesn't have any legs to stand on. Surprisingly though, the best season a TE has had with a rookie comes from Jermaine Gresham, who put together 96 fantasy points, good enough for 10th place last year.
If not Tight Ends, Where Do a Rookie QB's Targets Go?
So who does get the majority of the targets from young Quarterbacks? The answer shouldn't surprise you.
In nearly all cases the starting WRs take up just around 50% of targets with the #1 Wide Receiver (if there is one) getting far more targets and production than the entire TE core. In general, the #1 WR's average production is: 106 Targets, 63 Receptions, 885 Yards, and 5 Touchdowns. Equal to 118.5 points, making it the 30th highest scoring WR for 2014 in standard.
Let's take one more closer look at teams that had an established WR1 to work with. I'm excluding Calvin Johnson and Steve Johnson since neither QB managed to play the entire season.
In these four cases (Reggie Wayne, Steve Smith, Roddy White and Derrick Mason) the average production becomes: 147 targets, 88 receptions, 1292 yards and 6 touchdowns. That's 159 points in standard scoring, making them the 13th highest scoring WR in 2014. Numbers like that bode well for one of the two starting WRs in Tampa Bay, at least one of whom will fall into this established WR category.
The Bottom Line
There's no TE benefit to playing with a rookie QB, but when an established WR1 has a rookie QB, that's a value you can trust.
In the next phase of this study, I'll be using this data to project what can be expected out of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tennessee Titans offenses, so stay tuned.
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