How Much Attention Should We Give WR/CB Matchups?

Depending on who you ask, you will get widely varying answers. Some fantasy GMs pay attention to opposing defenses as a whole, while others try to get a step further but looking at individual cornerback matchups. After a time in which I had not paid much attention to those individual battles, I just wanted to explore the world of WR/CB matchups and try to once for all come up with a sound conclusion about how much it matters to face a good or bad cornerback when it comes to wide receivers.

Should we care that much about those weekly matchups? Should we fear this or that cornerback, or pursue this or that CB depending on how they have feared over the year?

With so many questions to solve, I went and put on some work. Let me walk you through it!

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Coming Up With a Method For Cornerback Fantasy Analysis

Outside of statistics geared toward IDP leagues, it isn't easy to find organized and comprehensive statistics for cornerbacks game-to-game performances. IDP leagues focus on numbers that aren't very important when trying to come up with WR/CB analysis, so those statistics are mostly irrelevant for the purposes of this study.

Instead of those, I wanted to have information about the number of times any given CB was targeted in a game, how many of those passes turned into completions, and finally the receiving yards and touchdowns allowed by that cornerback. With those numbers, it's easy to calculate the PPR points a CB gave up on a game.

It is also interesting to have information available about the actual wide receiver each cornerback covered mostly through each game. I don't have that information, but I'm relying on "projected" WR/CB matchups given by PFF's charts, which are reliable in that they pit receivers and corners against one another based on their most-used alignments (Left, Right, Slot) unless there is a shadow-coverage in place.

With all of that in place, I have all of this information at hand:

• WR vs. CB matchup - Keep in mind a corner usually doesn't cover a single receiver for the whole game, so even having the "prime" matchup the WR and CB PPR points would most probably be racked up against different players. Not perfect, I know, but I couldn't get anything better.
• WR PPR points per target scored - The total PPR points scored by a wide receiver, divided by the number of targets he saw in the game.
• CB PPR points per target allowed -  The total PPR points surrendered by a cornerback, divided by the number of targets he saw in the game.
• WR PPR/Tgt season average - To know if a WR over/under-performed in a single game
• CB PPR/Tgt season average - To know if a CB over/under-performed in a single game
• PPF Player Grades - Just to get a sample of the best and worst cornerbacks of the year, in order to come up with takeaways about the impact of facing different talent-level players in WR/CB matchups.

Finding the Best/Worst Cornerbacks of 2020

In order to come up with two groups, one with the best cornerbacks and the other one with the worst corners, I relied on PFF grades through Week 6.

This is what I obtained (top-10 and bottom-10 CBs), based on Coverage Grades:

The ranks coming from the PFF Grading system align reasonably well with the PPR allowed by the highlighted cornerbacks. All of the Top-10 corners in Grade are surrendering fewer than 10.5 PPG and less than 1.75 PPR/Tgt. On the other hand, all but two of the bottom-10 CBs are giving up 1.85+ PPR/Tgt, and also all except two are allowing 8.5+ PPG.

Best/Worst CB Matchup Breakdowns

Instead of focusing on the matchups with those cornerbacks from their point of view, I filtered the matchups from the wide receivers' angle. That means that I'm going to just work with the highest-PPG averager at the WR position, so we can really assess how the best/worst cornerbacks impact top-tier wide receiver production.

I have set the threshold at 15+ PPR points per game over the year, through Week 6. That yields 25 WRs. Of those 25, eight have faced one of the top-CBs in the chart above. Here are the outcomes of their performances:

Let me go through the table:

• Only one WR clearly overperformed his PPR/Tgt (Allen Robinson II, W4), getting a positive +0.81 points per target against Xavier Rhodes compared to the season mark.
• Only two players overperformed (Robinson, and Stefon Diggs in W2), getting marks above their season averages.
• The six other receivers underperformed, ranging from marks at -0.12 PPR/Tgt points below their season averages to an incredible -2.12.
• On average, top-tier receivers put up -0.39 fewer PPR/Tgt points against top-tier cornerbacks.

I have lowered the PPR points per game to 10+ through Week 6, and I have gotten 9 performances. Here are the outcomes:

The results aren't quite different from those explored above:

• Three WRs clearly overperformed their PPR/Tgt (Adams, Edelman, and Cooks), getting a positive +0.5 points per target on average over their season marks.
• Only more player overperformed (Jamison Crowder), getting +0.16 points over his average.
• The five other receivers underperformed, ranging from marks at -0.11 PPR/Tgt points below their season averages to a rather high -1.77.
• On average, great receivers put up -0.25 fewer PPR/Tgt points against low-tier cornerbacks.

These two samples are super small, and although they favor worst-CB matchups, the difference isn't staggering and both outcomes are negative. That works against the idea that worst cornerbacks are better matchups always, no matter what, against good-to-great wideouts.

I needed to explore more to try to get to a sound conclusion, though.

Top-Wide Receivers +/- PPR/Tgt Over Through Week 6

In order to get a bigger sample, I have looked for games from wideouts averaging more than 15 PPG, in which we knew the "projected" WR/CB matchup beforehand.

I have then split all of those games (98) by the PPR/Tgt differential in those individual performances compared to the WR season averages. There are 51 positive outcomes (the wide receiver scored more PPR/Tgt in those games than he's done on average through W6), and 47 negative outcomes. The main takeaways:

• In the games WRs overperformed their season averages, they did against CBs giving up an average of 1.76 PPR/Tgt through W6.
• In the games WRs underperformed their season averages, they did against CBs giving up an average of 1.64 PPR/Tgt through W6.
• The difference sits at just 0.12 PPR/Tgt points in favor of the first group, which comes to say that although small, there is an edge WR-favorable when facing worse cornerbacks.

• In the games WRs overperformed their season averages, they did against CBs giving up an average of 8.7 PPR per game through W6.
• In the games WRs underperformed their season averages, they did against CBs giving up an average of 9.5 PPR per game through W6.
• The difference sits at 0.8 PPR per game points in favor of the first group, which comes to say that again, the worse the cornerback, the higher the options of the receiver to get a better score.

Some Individual Nuggets From WR/CB Matchups Through Week 6

To close this fun exercise, I just wanted to get a curious look into some individual performances and scores, to try and come up with some individual nuggets of those WR/CB matchups and how they turned out to end:

• 62 WRs have scored 3.0+ PPR/Tgt in a game this season. They did against CBs giving up an average of 1.75 PPR/Tgt on the season.
• 170 WRs failed to reach 1.0 PPR/Tgt in a single game this season. They did against CBs giving up an average of 1.68 PPR/Tgt on the season.

• 18 times has a WR posted a differential of +2.0 or more over his PPR/Tgt season average. Those came against CBs giving up an average of 1.79 PPR/Tgt on the season.
• 47 times has a WR posted a differential of -2.0 or less under his PPR/Tgt season average. Those came against CBs giving up an average of 1.66 PPR/Tgt on the season.

• 23 times has a top-tier WR (15+ PPG) posted a differential of +0.5 or more over his PPR/Tgt season average. Those came against CBs giving up an average of 1.8 PPR/Tgt on the season.
• 19 times has a top-tier WR (15+ PPG) posted a differential of -0.5 or less under his PPR/Tgt season average. Those came against CBs giving up an average of 1.72 PPR/Tgt on the season.

Fantasy Relevance

As we have seen, the difference between facing a bad or good cornerback more or less fall in the -0.12-to-0.12 PPR/Tgt points range. That shouldn't be fantasy-relevant in most cases, as a WR would need almost eight targets to score (or not) a full PPR point depending on the matchup on average.

The individual cases on single-game performances are always going to vary wildly, of course, but from a full-season point of view, the difference is clearly flattened.

That being said, though, once the season is over, a difference of, say, 40 targets between two top-tier WRs could amount to around five PPR points over the year. Nothing otherworldly, but still a nice distance.

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