NextGen Stats - Wide Receiver/Tight End Breakdowns and Takeaways

Okay, folks, I'm about to bring you bad news. If you're reading this it is because you're trying to get an edge over your league mates to beat them this weekend. That means you're here to get informed on what to do and how to tackle your week's most pressing decisions. The bad news: these will be your final guesses of the first half of the season. It's time to panic because in just mere days we'll be counting down the days to season's end instead of looking forward to another week of football. But hey, today is not the time to get depressed. Why? Because in this article we have new insights from everyone's favorite source, NFL NextGen Stats!

To gain the biggest edge in your fantasy football league, it's necessary to understand how to apply the advanced statistics being used in sports nowadays. Back in the day, it was all about wins and losses, passing yards, and touchdowns scored. It's not that those stats are now worthless, they just don't offer enough information to savvy analysts. While football is still in its infancy compared to baseball in terms of analytics, the evolution the sport has seen lately in those terms is notable.

Each week, I'll be tackling NFL's Next Gen Stats, bringing you data from the previous week's games with notable takeaways you should consider when assessing fantasy players for the upcoming week. In case you're new to the series, or Next Gen Stats altogether, I recommend you read our NGS-primer. Now, let's get to the data!

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Week 7 - TE/WR Air Yards Breakdown - NextGenStats

If you remember the introductory post to the series, you already know Air Yards tells us the vertical yards on a pass attempt from the line of scrimmage to the point where the ball was caught by the receiver (or the catch failed to be completed.) I will be using mainly two metrics here: Average Targeted Air Yards (TAY), and %Share of Team's Air Yards (TAY%). TAY tells us how many air yards a receiver is thrown per target. TAY% measures the percentage of Air Yards a receiver was thrown at over the sum of his team's total Air Yards.

At this point into the season, we have enough data to assess what and what not is going on at the wide receiver and tight end positions. This means Air Yard values are already stabilized, with high chances of staying on similar levels for the rest of the season.

Today, I'll present each of the stats from the NFL's advanced metrics site, its correlation with receiver fantasy points, and a list of leaders and trailers in each category along with some notes and takeaways on both the players' and the metrics' impact on fantasy football as a whole.

So let's dive in. Note: The cutoff is set at 18 targets for both WR and TE.

 

Cushion / Separation

Correlation with Fantasy Points: negative-4% / negative-10%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• It took some time, but we're back to last season trends in both SEP and CUSH in terms of how they correlate with FP/G. While the last time we looked at it both metrics were positively correlating to fantasy points per game, the two of them are back to last year's negative relationships.
• Even with that, though, don't get too high on those two relationships. Neither of them is above 10%, so it is not that SEP or CUSH explain a lot about how good a wideout/tight end performs, much less predict future performance.

• For the third time in a row, Demarcus Robinson sits on top of the SEP leaderboard. Deebo Samuel has jumped TE Robert Tonyan for the second place, though, but things are getting tighter up there.
• While Robinson held a full yard of advantage over Tonyan a week ago, that distance is down to 0.5 through Week 7, and to just 0.3 with second-place Samuel. Good for D-Rob, Samuel is expected to miss some playing time.
• Those three, though, have a massive 0.9 yards of distance with no. 4 Gabriel Davis, and no. 1 Robinson's gap to Davis is of a monster 1.4 yards of SEP. The next player down the board that is at a 1.4-yard distance of Davis is no.93 Travis Fulgham (2.6)!
• Once more, a lot of tight ends find themselves on the top part of the SEP leaderboard given their usage patterns: only sought in open routes as they don't tend to separate well (because of their size) from defenders.
• Don't misunderstand that as tight ends being "bad" pass catchers. While George Kittle leads all TEs in FP/G and SEP (3.9), Travis Kelce, Darren Waller, and Jonnu Smith are the next-best scorers while all have SEP marks at-or-under 3.5 yards.

• There are 129 qualified WR/TEs in this week's rundown (min. 18 targets). Grouped by team, Kansas City is the squad with the highest SEP on average (3.8) yards, followed by San Francisco (3.75) and Green Bay (3.57). The latter two replace Arizona and Seattle, which made the cut the last time we checked.
• On the other end of the SEP leaderboard, the Dolphins trail every other squad on average SEP among their receivers (2.03), with Minnesota at 2.35 and the Chargers/Chicago at 2.5. The gap between Miami and the next-worst team at separating is way high and although it shouldn't worry fantasy GMs (remember the correlation with fpg is virtually nonexistent), it might be a reason for concern in real life.
• It is easy to find the lack of correlation with fantasy points for SEP marks: Minnesota's two qualified players are averaging a league-best 18.4 fpg... with a 2.35 SEP on average. Meanwhile, Green Bay sits third in both fpg and SEP. As random as it gets.

• While receivers can control their separation averages, they can't directly affect the cushion defenders give them. Although virtually not related to fantasy points in any meaningful way, the relationship is positive: more cushion, more PPG.
• You might think top-receivers are given higher cushion-yardage. That's not entirely true, as only Amari Cooper is averaging more than 15+ fpg among WRs given 7.0+ CUSH yards.
• In fact, the highest CUSH marks appear next to your typical deep-threat receivers, such as DeSean Jackson, Marquise Brown, or Braxton Berrios (all of them have aDOT averages of 10+ yards on the season).
• At the other end of the CUSH leaderboard, there are 13 pass-catchers with marks below 5.0 yards. Of them, three are averaging 15+ fpg (Davante Adams, DK Metcalf, and Will Fuller V) while eight are below 10 fpg through Week 7.

• Looking at CUSH from a fantasy perspective, there are currently 10 players averaging 18+ fpg. Of those, four are at 6.8+ CUSH, four more at-or-under 5.6, and the rest in between. Their marks vary from a group-low 4.4 yards (Davante Adams) to a group-high 6.9 (DeAndre Hopkins).
• Something similar happens at the other end. Of the 14 pass-catchers averaging 6.0 or fewer fpg, four have CUSH marks of 6.6+, four more are at-or-under 5.5 yards, and the rest fall in between those two marks. The lowest belongs to James O'Shaughnessy (4.2), and the highest to Olamide Zaccheaus/Chris Herndon (7.0).

• Breakdown by teams: the Giants (6.7), Baltimore (6.6), and Carolina (6.5) pass-catchers are given the largest CUSH on the league; Green Bay (5.0), Indianapolis (5.1), and Miami (5.4) the smallest.

• Preston Williams has surpassed A.J. Green with the worst combined CUSH+SEP mark at just 6.2 yards through Week 7. Green is still second, though, at 6.4 himself. Michael Gallup and Chris Conley are the only other two pass-catchers below 7.0 CUSH+SEP.
• At the other end, Deebo Samuel leads in CUSH+SEP at 11.8 combined yards, with only Demarcus Robinson (11.6) and Sterling Shepard (11.3) having 11.0+ yard marks.

 

Targeted Air Yards / % Share of Team's Air Yards

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 2% / 53%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• Opportunity trumps everything in fantasy football, and it can be seen in the highly related link between the percentage of yards a team/QB throws toward a player and the fantasy point he scores.
• This is made clear by the table above, which I have sorted by Targeted Air Yards% (among teammates). Every player with a TAY% above 34% is averaging 11.6+ fpg through Week 7, and all except two (Marquise Brown and Darius Slayton) are at 15.1+ fpg. Talk about a sweet relationship.
• At the opposite end, only seven of 17 players are averaging 10.0+ fpg while having a share of air yards below 10 percent among teammates.

• There are fewer metrics that highlight one-man offenses as TAY% does. Baltimore? All about Brown. Washington? Terry McLaurin, then the rest. Minnesota? Yes, it's all about Thielen even with Justin Jefferson's breakout.
• It's rather impressive that both Panthers' top-receivers (Robby Anderson and D.J. Moore) are getting almost 80 percent of the team's targeted air yards combined, but obviously, that means that all other skill-position players in the team are sharing a paltry 20 percent of all air yards between them.
• Seattle is the next team after Carolina to have its second receiver popping up at the top of the leaderboard. That being said, both DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett still are ranked below Anderson's and Moore's TAY%, neither of them even reaching 38 percent.
• Of the 20 receivers racking up a 30+ TAY% through Week 7, only three are doing so while catching more than 70% of their targets: DeAndre Hopkins and Tyler Lockett, you could have expect. The other one: Robby Anderson (78.0% catch rate).
• The only player with a catch rate of 80+ percent and a TAY% of more than 11 percent is Tre'Quan Smith (80% catch rate, 18.2 TAY%). Eight more players are catching more than 80% of their targets, but none is above 10.7 percent TAY% (Anthony Firkser).

• Minnesota's two qualified receivers (Thielen and Jefferson) are all by themselves putting the team at the top of both the TAY and TAY% leaderboards. The Vikings wideouts average 13.55 TAY and lead also in TAY% average with 35.16 percent.
• No other team is above 12.87 TAY on average (Baltimore) or reaching even an average 30 percent TAY% (Carolina is second at 29.96%).
• Pittsburgh's five qualified pass-catchers are racking up 100% of the team's TAY among its receivers. Dallas is second (95.5%), and Kansas City third (95.4%), both of them also ranking five players.
• Of teams having five players with 18+ targets through Week 7, the Jets trails in total TAY% among them, with the five adding up to just 74.6 percent TAY%. Tampa Bay has the second-lowest mark at 79%. The Jets are in that position because they have missed players to injury all season long, thus sharing the targets. Tampa, on the other hand, has such an embarrassment of riches that Tom Brady doesn't even know where to look among such a talented group of pass-catchers.
• Deebo Samuel--and the 49ers for that matter--is one of a kind player. His 2.3 TAY not only trail all qualified pass-catchers, they absolutely demolished anyone else's mark. Evan Engram is second at 5.1 TAY, and that 2.8-yard difference is the same as the difference between Engram and no. 35 (from the bottom) Darren Fells (7.9 TAY).
• This is far from a fluke in San Francisco's offense, though. The Niners are scheming plays for the YAC Boyz (Deebo and Brandon Aiyuk) and both are racking up big plays. Don't worry about Samuel on that front, because it's meant for him to play this way.

 

Receptions / Targets / Catch% / Touchdowns

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 75% / 69% / 32% / 65%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• We're one game from reaching the halfway point of the season, and no player is going to have a shot at reaching 100 targets by the end of Week 8. If everything clicks for Hopkins, Cooper, Diggs, Robinson, and McLaurin, though, they might do it by Week 9, although that means they'll have to rack up some massive near-15 targets per game.
• Among those, DeAndre Hopkins is one of three players since 2000 to reach 100+ targets in the first eight weeks of a season, though. He did so in 2015. Terrell Owens has the highest mark among those with 7 games played in that eight-week span, with 91 targets. Hopkins is on a bye this week, so he has no chance to tie him.

• Staying with Nuk, not only does he lead the league in targets, but he's also 16th in catch rate and has hauled in the most passes so far this season (57). Cooper's 53 has the Cowboy at just 73.6% catch rate, while both Tyler Boyd and Robby Anderson are the only receivers (other than Hopkins) with 40+ receptions and catch rates at-or-above 78%.
• Of the 128 qualified pass-catchers, only five of them have catch rates below 50% They have been targeted between 21 and 34 times, though, so it is not that they are killing a ton of opportunities for their teams. More worrying is A.J. Green's profile: he has been targeted 58 times but only has caught 29 passes for a paltry 50% catch rate. Green is the only receiver with 55+ targets and a catch rate below 62.3%.

• While Davante Adams (26.2) is leading the league in fpg, he's doing so having caught just 36 passes. Only Adams and A.J. Brown are averaging 20+ fpg while having caught fewer than 45 passes.
• All four receivers with 20+ fpg on the season have caught 71.9+ percent of their targets. All four receivers averaging between 19.0 and 19.9 fpg have caught 62-to-65 percent of their targets.

• Darren Waller has lost the lead in targets among tight ends. Travis Kelce is the new leader through Week 7, with 56. Waller is one below, with 55, followed at a 10-target distance by George Kittle and Zach Ertz (45).

• The last time we checked (Week 4), there was a 100% catch-rate player: Willie Snead IV. Through Week 7 no one has been able to stay above 90%, with Robert Tonyan clocking in at exactly that mark.
• All of Tyler Higbee, Curtis Samuel, Chris Godwin, and Anthony Firkser are in the 85-to-87 percent gap.
• Don't get catch rates twisted, though: of the nine players with catch rates at 80+ percent only one (Godwin) is posting more than 12 fpg this season.
• At the other end (players below 55% catch rate), only DK Metcalf (17.3 fpg) is averaging more than 12.4 (Odell Beckham Jr.) fantasy points per match.

• Both Christian Kirk and Robert Tonyan lead the league in fewest-receptions-to-score on average, hitting the end zone every 3.6 caught passes. Kirk and Tonyan have 5 TDs in 18 receptions each. Nelson Agholor (3.8) comes next with 4 TDs in 15 receptions. That is highly unsustainable, so temper your expectations going forward.
• Robby Anderson is also on a league of his own: he has 1 TD through Week 7 while having caught 46 passes. No other player has needed more than 31 receptions (Russell Gage) to score a touchdown.

• Positive touchdown-regression tracker: Green, Engram, Edelman, Landry, Hilton, and Fitzgeral have 37+ targets and no scores. Five players (Robby, Ertz, Gage, Hunter Henry, and Marquise Brown) have 42+ (!) targets and just one TD.
• Negative touchdown-regression tracker: Harrison Bryant, Tonyan, Agholor, Claypool, and Fells have scored at least 3 TDs in under-25 targets. All of Kirk, Mike Evans, Jonnu Smith, and Mark Andrews have 5+ TDs in fewer than 40 targets and 25 receptions.

 

Yards / Air Yards / YAC%

Correlation with Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): 82% / 72% / negative-4%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• Shout-out to Mighty Nuk, the lone receiver over 700 receiving yards (and 640, for that matter...) through Week 7. The volume has been massive, but that mark can't be negated.
• There are two very-contrasting profiles of receivers among the top-four players in yardage. While both Hopkins and Anderson have done most of their damage after catching their passes (41+ percent YAC%), Ridley and Diggs have done theirs through the air (lower than 19 percent YAC%).
• Even with that overly-high YAC%, Hopkins still ranks third in air yards through Week 7 with 413, only bested by Diggs' 492 and Ridley's 519 in that same span.

• Remember Deebo Samuel from two sections above this one? Well, he doesn't appear in the chart leading this section, but check this out: Samuel has a 116.8 percent YAC% through Week 7. Yes, you read that right. Samuel has -31 air yards, but 185 net yards on the season. It is what happens when you have a great coach making the most of your skillset with a ton below-the-LOS, negative aDOT, passes.
• The next-highest YAC% is that of Chris Herndon (69.4 percent), followed by Cedrick Wilson (65.9). None of them has reached even 60 air yards through Week 7.
• Tyler Eifert and Harrison Bryant are the only two other players (along with Deebo, Wilson, and Herndon) with 18+ targets but fewer than 60 air yards this season.

• Only three players (Deebo, Dallas Goedert, Sterling Shepard) below the 100-air yard mark through Week 7 are averaging at least 10.5 fpg, though none of them is above 11.5 fpg.
• On the other hand, all but three players (40) with 200+ air yards so far are averaging at least 10 fpg this season, while 35 are averaging more than 11.5 fpg.

• The most airborne of players: Kenny Stills, with only 10.1 percent YAC%, followed by Odell Beckham Jr. (13.2 percent) and O.J. Howard (13.7).
• Howard is the lone tight end with a YAC% mark below 18%. Jared Cook is second to Howard at 18.7 YAC%, followed by Mark Andrews (22.2 percent), and Greg Olsen (24.1). All other tight ends are at 27+ percent.

 

Yards After Catch / Expected YAC / YAC Above Expectation

Correlation with Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): 11% / negative-2% / 23%

Leaders and Trailers: 

Leaderboard Notes:

• It's been seven weeks of games already, and I stay firm advising not to get too lost in this data ROS. It is not that there is no relationship between YAC and YACOE (+/-) and fantasy points, but it is definitely not overly meaningful.

• Since the last time we checked, three weeks ago, Jamison Crowder has lost the no. 1 spot in YAC efficiency sitting now fifth at 2.4 yards over expectation.
• Chase Claypool and Deebo Samuel have come from nowhere to snatch the second and first place respectively. In fact, Samuel's 4.2 YACOE lead the league by a mile, while Claypool's 3.5 mark isn't bad either.
• Kudos go to Justin Jefferson, too. The rookie had a couple of monster games that could have skewed his plus/minus, but so far he's been able to keep his numbers up and is sitting fourth in over-performing with a moderate 2.6 YACOE mark.

• Getting way more yardage after the catch than expected tends to help receivers in fantasy football, but that hasn't been the case for both Deebo and Claypool so far this season on a per-game basis. Samuel is at just 10.5 fpg, and Claypool sits at 14.6. All other players averaging 2.0+ YACOE except Tee Higgins, though, are posting 16+ fpg, which is something to expect.
• We already knew that Stefon Diggs is one of the most air-prone receivers out there, with his YAC mark being nothing to call home about. That shows in his paltry -1.4 YACOE this season, which is tied for fifth-lowest with Dontrelle Inman's. Even then, Diggs is putting up 18 fpg, the most fantasy points per game among receivers averaging -0.6 or lower YACOE marks in 2020.
• Only four receivers of 38 currently averaging negative YACOE (Diggs, Tyler Lockett, Davante Adams, Will Fuller V, and Adam Thielen) are also averaging 15+ fpg through Week 7. 

• The top-12 pass-catchers in fpg are averaging at least 17.5 fantasy points per game. They have an average mark of 0.8 YACOE.
• The worst-22 pass-catchers in fpg are averaging fewer than 7.0 fpg. They have an average mark of just 0.1 YACOE.

• While factoring volume in, Deebo Samuel isn't the leader in racked-up yards after the catch over expectation. That would be Terry McLaurin, who has posted 90 total YAC above his expected yardage after the catch. The only other two receivers above 70 YAC through Week 7 are DeAndre Hopkins (74) and Justin Jefferson (73).
• At the other end, old friend Stefon Diggs trails everybody having an incredible fewer 67 YAC than he should on the season. That mark is wild, considering Robert Tonyan checks in second at -32, and Inman is third at 24.
• At this point, only six players are doing exactly what models think they should be doing, posting neutral 0.0 YACOE marks: Tyler Boyd, Brandin Cooks, DJ Chark Jr., Tim Patrick, Hayden Hurst, and Darren Fells.

That's it for today. Until we meet again next week, I hope you can crush your waiver wire, set up the best possible lineup, and get ready for another weekend full of fireworks!

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