RADIO
Half a season! Five weeks of games and half of the season is already gone. I don't know about you, but it went flying for me and what more than a month ago seemed like a weird experience is now part of my weekly schedule. And it is going nowhere, which is the best news I could have dreamt of when this whole XFL thing had yet to kick off.
With those five weeks already in the books and plenty of numbers stored from players showcasing their talent all around the country, it makes sense to crunch some of the data we have at hand to see how things have developed during the games each team has already played as we've reached the mid-season point this past weekend.
In this column, I'll be taking a look at some risers and fallers in the receiving stats department, more precisely at how different players fared in terms of targets from Week 5 to the previous ones (averaging the stats from those) to see how different teams are using their assets, and what those players are making of their chances. Let's get to it!
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Week 1-5 Targets: Overall View
With half of the season completed, there have been 251 receiver-games logged so far in this modern-day XFL iteration. That means plenty of data is there available to tackle, which we love around this place!
Wide receivers and tight ends (remember, we're not covering running backs in this column) just broke the 1K-mark and have combined for 1,029 targets (4.1 per player/game) midway through the season, which have gone for a total of 7,368 yards (7.2 per target) and finally more than 50 touchdowns with 52 on the season so far (exactly 2.5 per game).
Here is how those targets have been shared among players in Week 5 (vertical axis) and Weeks 1 through 4 (horizontal axis; calculated), with the color diverging from green (more targets in Week 5) to red (higher number of targets on the prior weeks on average).
click image for full-screen view
Only a couple of receivers, Cam Phillips (back from a horrific Week 4 performance) and Reece Horn (improving on his season average by a mile), logged 10+ targets this past weekend. The Houston Roughnecks blasted the charts by pairing Phillips' 13 targets with Sam Mobley's nine, while the Dallas Renegades were able to put three receivers inside the top-7 of the week (Flynn Nagel, Donald Parham, and Jeff Badet) though it was to no avail as they got the L against New York.
Now, let's take a look at the real risers and fallers from the prior weeks to Week 5.
Week 1-5 Targets: Risers and Fallers
I have calculated the difference in targets from Week 5 to Weeks 1-4 (positive numbers favor Week 5), and here is how things looked after this last weekend's slate of games was over. I have removed players with no change in targets (zero deltaTGT) and also those with fewer than a two-target difference, either positive or negative.
No surprises at the top of the leaderboard, as expected. Both Roughnecks led the pack bumping their season-averages by 6+ targets each, followed closely by Tampa's Reece Horn and his five-target improvement. More important for their long-term success are the rises of Tampa Bay's Reece Horn and LA's Saeed Blacknall, both of them bumping their target averages on the year to seven targets each this past weekend. Nelson Spruce remained out (same as Sammie Coates, who was inactive) and Eli Rogers suffered the hardest hits of the week dropping to just one target on the weekend.
Target Risers
Sam Mobley, HOU(+6.5, from 2.5 targets to 9)
After pulling off one of the most efficient performances of the season in Week 1 (2 targets, one reception, and 39 yards for a TD), Mobley had been on the low during the following three games with just eight targets combined. Enter Week 9, when the Roughneck logged all of nine targets and was just one short of tying his numbers from the prior four games together. Mobley finished the day with six receptions and 95 yards, which only trailed teammate Cam Phillips' 122 yards and L'Damian Washington's 114 this weekend.
Knowing Phillips might be shut down by defenses as it happened back in Week 4, it is a good sign for this seemingly unstoppable Houston offense that the team has a perfectly capable second-fiddle in Mobley playing next to no. 1 Cam Phillips.
Saeed Blacknall, LA (+3.5, from 3.5 targets to 7)
The second week in a row that we have an LA Wildcat in our risers column after Tre McBride found his place here seven days ago. It's time for Blacknall now, who in back-to-back weeks has found the end zone and has now a couple of touchdowns on the year (he's only played three games, as he didn't log stats in weeks 2 and 3).
Blacknall was the most-targeted Wildcat this weekend and although he finished the game with just three receptions he made the most of them going for 78 yards and the aforementioned score. No other player scored more than once for the team this week and only Jordan Smallwood racked up more yards (86) although he needed one more reception to do so and didn't score a TD himself. Can't look much better for a Spruce-less Wildcats team that has pilled up great talent at the receiving position lately.
Reece Horn, TB (+5, from 6 targets to 11)
Booming day for Horn and the Vipers even falling in the losers column. Horn had already settled as a go-to weapon for Tampa averaging six targets in the prior four weeks, but this past weekend saw him almost doubling on that mark and getting 11 targets of which he could catch nine for 90 yards and a touchdown.
This performance marked the best game of Horn's season in all four statistical categories and helped him reach a season-high 24 PPR points, almost tripling his season-average PPG (8.3) before Week 5. We'll see if he can keep it up.
Target Fallers
Eli Rogers, DC (-6.3, from 7.3 targets to 1)
The fact that Rogers logged more yards on the ground (25) than through the air (2) speaks volumes of his performance. Eli Rogers had a great four-game run to start the year with the Defenders, averaging more than seven targets in four games (6+ in all of them) for 162 combined yards but no scores.
Barring the zero in the TD category, Rogers' numbers had been good for a DC that has collapsed lately under the absolute falldown of QB Cardale Jones. Whether Rogers can recover from the embarrassing 1/1/2 game he just had this weekend is yet to be known, but DC better hope that's the case and that this last game was only an outlier in a full season of outings.
Keenan Reynolds, SEA (-3.5, from 6.5 targets to 3)
Is it time to officially start worrying about Keenan Reynolds? It is understandable that he had a bad debut for Seattle back in Week 1 (seven targets, two receptions for five yards) but he solved his issues during the next two weeks to the tune of 15 targets of which he was able to catch seven for 124 combined yards and a score. The problem for Reynolds, though, is that in the last couple of weeks his targets have gone all the way down and his production has absolutely plummeted.
In Week 4 Reynolds was targeted just four times and finished with a catch for four yards. This past weekend things were even worse as the WR logged just three targets and could only catch one for four more yards, and again no scores. That 19.7 PPR-performance from Week 2 is starting to look more like a mirage than an actual showcase of his true talents, and if Reynolds doesn't improve he might be an afterthought before he even realizes.
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