Perhaps even Simpsons paradox caveats. Well, the word useful will mean different things to different people. What Im curious about is the stickiness of each metric. Those types of opportunities vaulted Brown up this list. Quarterbacks sometimes can make receivers look good, but sometimes it's the other way around. At 6-feet, 226 pounds, Brown wins with size, speed and power. Of course, when comparing Stills numbers to Johnsons, one might note that Johnson was playing with EJ Manuel and Thaddeus Lewis while Stills was playing with Drew Brees, which provides some explanation for the drastic differences between the two receivers in yards per target. Sample size caveats here. For Hopkins, 125 of his 257 came after the catch. Next gen stats favored the deep threat, with a hearty 15.4 average target distance, 17.1 yards per reception . It wasn't his frame but his footwork -- a fake outside, an adjustment upfield and a sharp cut at the top of the route -- that created the space necessary for a 51-yard catch-and-run on that play. We will report this metric as targets above expectation per 100 routes run (TAE100), which is simply the number of targets a receiver gains above an average receiver whenever he runs 100 routes. Using the Next Gen Stats Draft Model, Mike Band identifies eight prospects to target AFTER Round 1. At the individual player level, we can learn more about the micro nuances of route running. Wide Receiver (WR) Stats 2022-2023 - Lineups Also, there are several other factors considered in establishing the benchmark on each route. 1:08 PM. The number of targets a player sees per route happens to be a very sticky metric. Finally, I thought it would be fun to use the regression formula above to predict the wide receivers with the top YPRR averages in 2014. Note: A couple of wide receivers have more pass routes than their teams had pass plays. Routes run ranked higher than targets for running backs, and though they ranked lower than targets for wide receivers and tight ends, routes run still ranked highly overall. To view standard stats, check out our WR Stats reports. Because he was below average for this data set, and everyone in the set gets regressed to the mean of the group, he benefits. The elements of savvy route running footwork, head and body fakes, disguising the intent of the route, changing direction sharply without losing speed all appear to be more reliable indicators of NFL skill and talent than speed. For instance, DeAndre Hopkins played on over 90 percent of his teams snaps in every game he played last year. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Latest on Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson including news, stats, videos, highlights and more on ESPN Looking at raw statistics can be somewhat misleading, but looking at yards per route run for a wide receiver actually shows what a player is doing with the opportunity presented to him. Subscribe:iTunes|Google Play|Spotify|Stitcher|SoundCloud|TuneIn|RSS. Are you looking to contact Customer Support about a subscription or account related question? Brown such a special talent? (You can access our route data for wide receivers here, running backs here, and tight ends here, if youre a PFF Elite subscriber.). These were somewhat shorter outs, averaging just 8.3 air yards per target, but Thomas still found a way to make the most of them, gaining an average of 2.72 yards after the catch on routes that are typically assigned to finish near the sideline. Or write about sports? With the help of player-tracking technology, the Next Gen Stats Analytics team set out to answer that exact question, decoding one of the key elements of an offensive play call by using player-tracking data to measure which routes pass catchers are running on any given pass play. Playing with Drew Brees a former Super Bowl MVP who holds the NFL record for highest career completion percentage, most career passing yards and most career passing touchdowns certainly doesnt hurt. Steelers' first draft under Omar Khan was 'aggressive' and achieved high marks, After hoopla of going No. It was an extremely small sample, but Seals-Jones was easily our most efficient tight end on a per-route basis last year. With the free agency frenzy right around the corner, the Next Gen Stats analytics team identifies the three biggest needs for each AFC team. I suppose one counter to that would be that Stills was competing with Jimmy Graham, Marques Colston, and the Saints obsession with throwing passes to running backs, while Johnson was competing with, While there are some issues with survivorship bias here, Im not sure (1) how to get around them, and (2) that those concerns bias the results in a way thats more biased towards one of. Route data and target data are pretty easy to come by so dividing targets by routes gives us a simple percentage to work with. Perhaps because of his success, Thomas has seen a steady increase in the number of targets at those depths. Hunter Renfrow caught 80.5% of the 128 targets thrown his way in 2021. RTMs are a set of four metrics we've named Open Score, Catch Score and YAC Score, plus the overall combination of those three. 300 routes run). Over the final 2.5 games of the year, Jernigan caught 19 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns. With hitches, there's some uncertainty for cornerbacks: Is their man running a hitch or is it going to be a go (or fade) route? CROE is catch rate over expectation, which measures performance relative to completion probabilities. For the first time, these metrics provided a method to isolate and assess individual player performance in a consistent and objective way. D'Onta Foreman thrived with the Panthers in 2022. Find updated NFL wide receiver stats including season-long and weekly totals for receptions, targets, TDs, and more on LINEUPS.com For qualifying receivers, Open Score has a correlation coefficient of 0.61, where 1.0 would be perfect consistency and 0.0 would be no consistency at all. In his second season as a pro -- and first in head coach Kliff Kingsbury's offense -- the Cardinals' Christian Kirk ranked as the most versatile route runner of the 2019 season. If you are looking for the raw data behind this article, do not hesitate to reach out. Which prospects selected in Rounds 2 and 3 project to be steals? An interesting note is how close a call it was between Thomas and Ridley for the top spot in the rankings, which should excite Falcons fans about the potential of the former Alabama star. If we wanted to predict each players Yards per Route Run in 2014 [4]Ignoring the fact that Johnson is now a 49er, of course. On average, wide receivers that hit 2.00 yards per route run and run at least 250 routes in their rookie campaign are 41% more likely to be a WR1 at any time during their career than a wide . And compared to Atlantas Julio Jones a receiver whose natural talent and skill set are rarely questioned Thomas comes out ahead on both our separation and value metrics. The 6-foot-3, 211-pound wide receiver ended up with the lowest single-season PFF grade and yards per route run average of his eight-year NFL career in 2021. Get used to seeing his name: Thomas is the top-ranked player in half of these categories. Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus has shown that the best receivers in the league earn their targets all over the field, so its no surprise to see familiar names in the deep-target SOE ranks. Bruce Arians offense wasnt very conducive toward fantasy success at the tight end position, ranking last in targets and fantasy points among all teams over the past three years. Time Period. You won't want to miss a moment of the 2023 season! But what we have here is a backup thrust into a starting role due to injury, and a player who then produced like a star receiver over the final 10 quarters of the season. Running Backs; Wide Receivers; Tight Ends; Line Stats. To try to capture the results of this game of cat and mouse between receiver and defender, we used NFL Next Gen Stats data that measures the distance between a receiver and the nearest defender at key moments in each play. I wanted to then break this down not only by the total number of wide receivers that fell into this bucket, but also by the wide receivers who ran at least 250 routes during their rookie campaign. Will the Cowboys and Packers invest in more star power at receiver? It makes sense intuitively, as the more routes you run, the more targets you have available to you. The other three are kind of interesting. Conversely, when looking at it from this lens, it might be time to pump the breaks on NKeal Harry, who only had .83 yards per route run his rookie season. Ignoring the fact that Johnson is now a 49er, of course. Of Thomas' league-leading 299 yards gained on slants, 162 came after the catch. Three receivers who met the 75-target minimum were targeted at least 10 times on corner routes: Robinson, Keenan Allen and Robby Anderson, who each saw 12 targets on such routes. In the tables above, I am referring to hit rate as any wide receiver that achieved WR1 (top-12 in PPR formats) status in a given season in his career. One example from recent memory that comes to mind is Chris Godwin. Now, by definition, if yards per target is less sticky than yards per route run, than targets per route run has to be the stickiest. Contextualizing routes at the league-wide level gives a macro look into the value of route classification. HaSS layers height into the traditional speed score equation by also dividing the player's height by the average wide receiver height: 73.0 inches (6'1") or average tight end height: 76.4 . Do you have a sports website? 2021 Allen 2021 Amendola 2021 Austin 2021 Beasley 2021 Benjamin 2021 Brown 2021 Cobb 2021 Goodwin 2021 Gordon 2021 Green 2021 Hilton 2021 Hogan 2021 Hopkins 2021 Jackson 2021 Jones 2021 Jones 2021 Roberts 2021 Sanders 2021 Sanu 2021 Slater 2021 Stills 2021 Woods 2021 Watkins 2021 Brown 2021 Adams . View wide receiver stats for the 2022 NFL season. As for the other 16 receivers on the list? Green (32.8), Julio Jones (30.7), and Tyreek Hill (24.6). Over the past decade, among all players with at least 250 snaps in a single season, raw targets had a 0.95 correlation to PPR fantasy points for wide receivers and that number sat at 0.96 for tight ends. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. This approach not only accounts for dedicated double teams, but for coverage methods such as bracketing. Some plays and situations lend themselves to a lot or a little YAC, so YAC Score doesn't measure mere yards but rather the yards the receiver was able to generate beyond the expected amount. Dividing total receiving yards recorded by the number of routes run in a given game, season, career, etc. It is highly recommended that you use the latest versions of a supported browser in order to receive an optimal viewing experience. Can Nick Sirianni successfully match wits with Andy Reid? Catch Score correlates at 0.38, and YAC Score correlates at 0.35. Thomas isnt in the same class as Adams and Allen when it comes to creating separation Adams has averaged over a half-yard of SOE the past two years on intermediates routes but despite the tighter windows, the expected value Thomas created on these targets ranks him among the best in the league on a per-play basis. Robby went on to score 74% of his total PPR points on routes run from the slot compared to a measly 26% on . Introducing Receiver Tracking Metrics: How our new NFL stats can better rate pass-catchers, Fantasy football rankings for 2023 season, 10 fantasy football breakout players for 2023, Broncos pick up Jeudy's 5th-year rookie option, Bills ink vet Murray after passing on RBs in draft, Source: Ravens decline LB Queen's 2024 option, LB Barrett's 2-year-old daughter drowns in pool, Bengals' Ossai recovering from offseason surgery, Deion 'ashamed' after only 1 HBCU player drafted, Sources: NFL eyes May 11 to release schedule, Cowboys scout emotional as team drafts his son. After spending some time looking at our route data, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite metrics that Ive found. He became just the second player in NFL history with an 80% or better catch rate on 100+ targets. We use pass accuracy data from ESPN's video analysis tracking to adjust both the Catch Score and YAC Score based on the accuracy (high, low, ahead, behind) and intent of the throw. Heres the best-fit formula: N+1 TPRR = 0.062 + 0.671 * TPRR (R^2 = 0.41). We found the shape of the routes aligned with our expectations of route paths; no egregious model predictions seem apparent. Over the past decade, among all players with at least 250 snaps in a single season, raw targets had a 0.95 correlation to PPR fantasy points for wide receivers and that number sat at 0.96 for tight ends. But he also led the league with 254 routes run during this time, a per-game increase of 56% compared to his first ten games. He was close to unseating Thomas and very well could take the next major step in his third NFL season. He grew up in Sanford, Florida, where he shined as a receiver for Seminole highschool.