ranked him first among all wide receivers, creates and maintains separation from a defender, the conversation for best receiver in the league. The data wizards are back again with another new way to break down some of the game's top weapons. Root mean squared error 1.52, r-squared 0.61, mean absolute error 1.09. We cant say anything about the skill of receivers who fail to earn targets. His reception total was also the most in the NFL on go routes (minimum 75 total targets, regardless of route). The data set includes all regular-season pass attempts from the last three seasons, excluding spikes and passes from punts and field goal formations. 2023 NFL Enterprises LLC. Below are a few tables showing the breakdown and thresholds used during this process. 2022 season stats. The metrics measure the degree to which the receiver exceeds or falls short of that benchmark. 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. Beasley spent nearly all of his time in the slot, and as a result, his playing time was tied to the health of Miles Austin. Do you have a sports website? It is highly recommended that you use the latest versions of a supported browser in order to receive an optimal viewing experience. He grew up in Sanford, Florida, where he shined as a receiver for Seminole highschool. We can study league-wide trends to gain a new understanding of offensive strategy and tendencies, and we can break down and rank individual players by advanced performance metrics. Wide receivers make the bulk of their high-value receptions on passes at intermediate depths (between 5 and 15 . Since depth of target is so important in determining separation, we grouped plays into buckets depending on whether a pass attempt was short, intermediate or deep and created an SOE leaderboard for each. A receiver can win with inside leverage against an outside corner who is trying to keep him from going deep, leaving the defender in the dust as he runs across the field at a shallow depth. On top of that, hes not playing a high percentage of his teams snaps in any game. window.PLAYERCARDS_CONFIG={affiliateCode:"fpros_cards"}; This FantasyPros staff member is an excellent contributor to our site who brings excellent analysis and content. And targets to him are among the most valuable plays in football across all depths. The teams to sport multiple wide receivers on this list were Atlanta (Jones and Mohamed Sanu), Denver (Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders), LA Rams (Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp), Miami (Jarvis Landry and DeVante Parker), Minnesota (Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs), and Oakland (Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper). Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. To predict a receivers future yards per target, we use only 28% of his prior yards per target average. Not only is there a significant advantage to hitting the 2.00 yards per route run threshold in ones rookie year, but there is also a clear difference when that wide receiver ran at least 250 routes his rookie year. 1, Panthers' Bryce Young is all 'business now', Top picks Christian Gonzalez, Keion White reflect Patriots' ideal identity, Big takeaways from the NFL draft: A historic QB class, the rebuilt AFC South and new GMs thriving, NFL Nation sizes up all 259 draft selections, XFL semifinals: Defenders roll Sea Dragons, set up title showdown with Renegades. 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. The Method. [2]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 Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20827_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20827_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); To predict Year N+1 Yards per Route Run using Year N Yards per Route Run, the best fit formula is, N+1 YPRR = 0.843 + 0.474 * Yr N YPRR (R^2 = 0.21). PFF's wide receiver rating is an individualized statistic that plays off the general knowledge of the passer rating statistic. No, we're not talking about the Minneapolis Miracle. Fortunately for our analysis, Yards per Route Run can be broken down into two metrics: Yards per Target and Targets per Route Run. It's pretty simple: Thomas wins in the short game and will make you pay if you don't stop him. Do Not Sell My Personal Information, Next Up - 2023 Superflex Dynasty Rookie Draft Rankings (Fantasy Football), 189 K. Are you looking to contact Customer Support about a subscription or account related question? As technology and the growth of the fantasy football community both continue to boom, so too do the metrics and measurables that present themselves for analysis. So while wed like more data, we should probably expect players who show the ability to separate above expectation on routes at these depths to continue to do so.7, Best and worst receiver seasons on intermediate passes as measured by separation over expected (SOE) per play, 2017-19. Namely, which route did the pass catcher run to get open before catching the ball? NFL wide receiver rankings 2021. NFL's Next Gen Stats captures real time location data, speed and acceleration for every player, every play on every inch of the field. Interestingly, among the three target depths, SOE on intermediate passes appears to be the most stable year to year. Because he was below average for this data set, and everyone in the set gets regressed to the mean of the group, he benefits. Deep targets (at least 15 air yards) are the most valuable in football on a per-play basis, but theyre also the throws with the tightest windows. Wide Receivers (14) 2023 NFL Enterprises LLC. Thats somewhat shocking and perhaps it explains why the number of Landrys short targets dropped by nearly half after he moved to the analytics-friendly Cleveland Browns. With Jermaine Gresham recovering from an Achilles injury suffered in Week 17, Arizona beat writers are projecting Seals-Jones to enter camp as the starter and with an expanded role in the offense. While sixteen of the wide receivers saw at least 80% of their teams passing snaps [6]Note: A couple of wide receivers have more pass routes than their teams had pass plays. Time Period. AP MVP: Aaron Rodgers. It also means the entire analysis is conditional on a player actually being targeted. The numbers that propelled Thomas to the top here were his yards, of course, but also his efficiency. Thomas caught 87.9 percent of his targets, landing in the top five in that category. In his six games before that, though, Aiyuk was one of the most productive wide receivers in the league, generating 2.44 yards per route run and an 86.3 receiving grade. 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. Which statistics and measurables are the most sticky? Dividing total receiving yards recorded by the number of routes run in a given game, season, career, etc. Subscribe:iTunes|Google Play|Spotify|Stitcher|SoundCloud|TuneIn|RSS. Michael Thomas (3). Future iterations of the model will look to delve deeper into the route tree to account for the nuance of route-running at the pro level. With the 2023 NFL Draft right around the corner, who are the can't-miss prospects in this talent crop? For example, Kenny Stills had the most extreme breakdown of any player in the NFL in 2013. With so many yards and an average YAC score, those yards must have been from deep or contested low-probability routes: How about Open Score? 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. For example, if there is a cornerback covering a receiver and a safety deep above him who matches the receiver's pattern much more than any other receiver, that receiver is credited with extra attention. (You can access our route data for wide receivers here, running backs here, and tight ends here, if youre a PFF Elite subscriber.). We've split up the route tree and looked at all of the advanced receiver metrics available to us -- including target percentage, reception percentage, yards per route run and separation -- to examine who excelled in 2019. The Next Gen Stats Team uses its draft model to identify the five best value picks from Day 2 of the 2023 NFL Draft. While Allen and Anderson finished below catch-rate expectation, Robinson shattered his, posting a mark of +37.9 percent and making it pretty easy to see who was best in this department. . We looked at every WR with 60+ targets* from 2020. Last year, Still averaged 1.29 YPRR, Johnson 1.56. Advanced stats like depth of target, separation window and completion probability provide greater insight, but they still leave out an important factor. 1 in the latest NFL Football Power Index? How will the Panthers address their quarterback void? One example from recent memory that comes to mind is Chris Godwin. While Johnson had the worst year of his career since becoming a Bills starter, he still managed to pull down targets on 25% of his snaps. All rights reserved. We can immediately glean insights. Interestingly, Thielen ranked 10th-best in targets percentage while Diggs ranked 24th, which might help justify the ADP disparity (11th to Diggs 16th), but its not a given that Kirk Cousins will prefer Thielen to the degree Case Keenum had. Yards per Target, of course, is very sensitive to outliers. He may be a bust, but it wasnt because of what he did on the field. The resulting lists have reasonably strong face validity players at the top of the leaderboards tend to be widely regarded as good route runners suggesting SOE could be useful as a descriptive metric. The type of play call matters, too. Over the past two seasons, LeVeon Bell averaged more routes run per game (33.0) than all of A.J. Learn More. 2. RTMs are a set of four metrics we've named Open Score, Catch Score and YAC Score, plus the overall combination of those three. 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. Keegan Abdoo meticulously explains how this could significantly impact Andy Reid's offense -- and fuel Lou Anarumo's defense. Look, there he is again! Over the past three seasons, Jones totals 871 more yards than Hopkins despite running 317 fewer routes. There are various versions of this metric -- and it is quite useful in some applications -- but there is a fatal flaw when applying the concept to pass-catchers, as tempting as it might be. the drag). 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. This approach is able to estimate each individual's contribution to overall effectiveness, accounting for the presence or absence of other players around them. Catch Score correlates at 0.38, and YAC Score correlates at 0.35. While averaging more than a half-yard over expected in separation, his per-play expected points added (EPA) was worth more than 0.4 points in 2019. 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 . Heres the best-fit formula: N+1 TPRR = 0.062 + 0.671 * TPRR (R^2 = 0.41). Davante Adams, Packers (6-1, 215 pounds) Adams, 28, came back from an injury-curbed season to light it up as big-time scorer again in 2020 setting a career high . Join our linker program. Next Gen Stats maven Mike Band crunches the numbers on seven crucial Super Bowl LVII matchups. CNNs allow us to engage with the spatial nature of our dataset (that is, where each player is on the field in a given play), while LSTM networks allow us to engage with the temporal nature of our dataset (what happens as the play develops over time). Can Nick Sirianni successfully match wits with Andy Reid? Those numbers came in garbage time against Seattle and against Detroit and Washington, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. Copyright 2010- FantasyPros.com 1:08 PM. While he didn't make the top three, one of my favorite receivers to watch run a hitch route is Odell Beckham Jr. because of how pronounced yet quick he is in his breakdown at the top of the route. There isnt much evidence to support the idea that Mike Thomas is anything but an elite football talent. His six drops were the 22nd most from wide receivers. Without success in the early part of the sequence, he wouldn't have many opportunities through the remainder of the process. We're back to the short routes, which means we're again seeing Thomas at the top of the list. Kirk was targeted at least 13 times on five different routes: Ted Ginn Jr., now a member of the Chicago Bears, ranked as our least versatile route runner of 2019 among qualifying wide receivers. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Having a high SOE in one season says very little about whether you will have a high SOE in the next.6 Short targets are also the only leaderboard where running backs make an appearance, owing to the dearth of targets they get deeper downfield. With an annual subscription. Which QB makes the list? It was an extremely small sample, but Seals-Jones was easily our most efficient tight end on a per-route basis last year. Cooper Kupp had three of them and was 0.5 points away from a fourth in Week 6. * These targets are based on play by play data and include penalties. The, The most valuable routes by expected points added per target were the, It's worth noting four of the five most valuable routes by EPA per target are. Jones was targeted deep more frequently, suggesting that his skillset is better suited to the demands of beating fast humans in a footrace, but hes also not as successful at creating separation from defenders as Thomas is. I did include sacks when calculating routes per team pass attempt, so that seems to be the only explanation. receiving yards along with his target opportunities. The assessment to catch and contest works in a similar way to openness. 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. 4) Stefon Diggs, Vikings (now with Bills), 72) Ted Ginn Jr., Saints (now with Bears), The most targeted routes outside of the WR Screen? Follow Nick Shook on Twitter @TheNickShook. 41) Yards Per Target, and 1.90 (No. Below, we'll reveal the top three receivers for eight different routes, and tell you why the No. Only the Catch and YAC Scores are counted for targeted screen routes, because openness on those routes is due to play design far more than receiver ability. John Brown also has a compelling case here, but he was edged out by Thomas in a close battle. In fantasy football, volume matters much more than efficiency for running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. D'Onta Foreman thrived with the Panthers in 2022. There are always going to be outliers on both ends of the spectrum for every statistic and measurable. Real-time route classification enables us to contextualize the passing game in new ways. For qualifying wide receivers, the overall score correlates with yards per route 00 which I believe is the best conventional stat to measure receiver production -- at 0.76. I believe this is because PFF includes passing plays called back due to offensive penalties in the number of, Worst Passer Ratings In Every Year Since the Merger, The Top Quarterbacks And The Receivers They Threw It To, Yards per Route Run, Yards per Target, and Targets per Route Run, The History of Black Quarterbacks in the NFL (2023 Update), Brock Purdy Looks To Make Quarterback Super Bowl History, Zach Wilson and The Worst Passer Rating In The NFL, The Eagles Rushing Offense Is Better Than Their Opponents Passing Offense, I suppose one counter to that would be that Stills was competing with. In other words, the regression thinks Johnsons much more likely to maintain his elite TPRR than Stills is to maintain his elite Y/T. The Real Reason Presidential Candidates Form Exploratory Committees, Aug. 10, 2020, Jalen Hurts and the Eagles have become quite proficient at the QB sneak. What To Do About A Problem Like Dianne Feinstein? Live From New York: Will AI Replace This Podcast. Which game is featured at the top of NGS's unlikeliest victory rankings? He finished in the top 20 in deep targets and red zone targets, but outside the top 30 in numerous stats; including an 18.8-percent target share (No. Regular-season passes of 5 air yards or shorter, minimum of 40 targets. Hes ranked 22nd, ninth, and 13th in target percentage over the past three seasons. Ja'Marr Chase and Tyreek Hill each had two 30+ points performances. Go to Ratings. All four are a per-play rate metric, rather than a counting or cumulative stat. Which view is correct? Number of WRs w/ at least one WR1 Season + > 250 routes run during rookie year w/ at least 20 targets, Number of WRs w/ at least one WR1 season w/ at least 20 targets during rookie year (no minimum route run threshold). NFL.com's Nick Shook takes a look at the top receivers of 2019 by route type. Specifically, Atlanta ranks 11th-lowest in dropbacks per game over the past three seasons, while Houston, Pittsburgh, and the Giants all rank higher. All route runners were included, regardless of whether or not they were targeted; given that we could not find a difference between the shapes of targeted routes and non-targeted routes, we saw no reason to train on only targeted routes. Thats what we are doing here. Thomas did this while fighting through press coverage on 34 percent of his targets, too. One thing to know is we exclude assessments of any nontargeted routes on a screen pass, because receivers typically are blocking rather than trying to get open. Regular-season passes of 5 air yards or less. TD. When you think about it, it makes no sense -- the better a receiver is, the higher the benchmark he sets for himself in the metric. Unlike running backs, weight and height are correlated to wide receiver and tight end production, because height expands the player's catch radius. I believe this is because PFF includes passing plays called back due to offensive penalties in the number of routes run by each wide receiver. Robby went on to score 74% of his total PPR points on routes run from the slot compared to a measly 26% on . To avoid noise in the data from broken plays (during which pass catchers often stop running their assigned routes) and player movement after the catch (which would not tell us much about the efficacy of any given route), all routes were capped at either the moment the ball was passed forward or at a given time (4.6 seconds after the snap for wideout routes and 4 seconds after the snap for backfield routes) -- whichever came first. Next gen stats favored the deep threat, with a hearty 15.4 average target distance, 17.1 yards per reception . One number that does not carry that weight for wide receivers is yards after the catch. Running backs saw a 0.87 correlation between raw touches and fantasy points. There is a 33% increase in the number of WR1/WR2 seasons for a wide receiver that hit 2.00 yards per route run when he also ran a minimum of 250 routes in his rookie year. Sample size caveats here. Route versatility calculation explanation: If Player A runs a go on 25 percent of routes, a hitch on 19 percent and an out on 12 percent, and the NFL averages are 22 percent, 18 percent and 10 percent respectively, the absolute difference from the average across those three routes would be 3 percent, 1 percent and 2 percent. 2023 Superflex Dynasty Rookie Draft Rankings (Fantasy Football), 2023 Dynasty Rookie Rankings (Fantasy Football), Fantasy Football Rankings: Dynasty Trade Value Chart (May 2023 Update), Dynasty Rookie Draft Primer: Quarterbacks (2023 Fantasy Football), Dynasty Rookie Sleepers: UDFAs (2023 Fantasy Football), Dynasty Rookie Mock Draft: Superflex, 4 Rounds (2023 Fantasy Football), Best Ball Strategy & Advice: Late-Round Quarterback (2023 Fantasy Football), Copyright 2010- FantasyPros.com This can give us a small insight into wide receivers either with partial seasons (injury, etc.) Mike Band uses the Next Gen Stats Draft Model to spotlight six enticing individuals: three on offense and three on defense. And there is a pretty clear answer to that question. The aforementioned play from last year's season opener came on a deep in route by Brown. So how much insight can we gather from a wide receivers yards per route in his rookie year? As a general rule, however, separation and value are decoupled on short passes. Now, by itself, that doesnt make Targets per Route Run a good metric. 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. AP Offensive Rookie of the Year: Ja'Marr Chase. Can Nick Sirianni successfully match wits with Andy Reid? Receiving stats on intermediate passes for Michael Thomas and Julio Jones, including separation over expected (SOE) and expected points added (EPA) per play. Among running backs, he ranks third in rushing fantasy points per game and first in receiving fantasy points per game. 300 routes run). For each, a benchmark is set based on the context and dynamic inner workings of the play. [3]In some ways, TPRR is like completion percentage. And that makes sense, at least to me. Whats more impressive to me is that Tony Romo threw to Beasley on 26% of his routes, which is an extremely high figure. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. [1]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 Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20827_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20827_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); But putting the quarterbacks issue aside, the question today is a more global one. The number of targets a player sees per route happens to be a very sticky metric. What Im curious about is the stickiness of each metric. Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals tight end Ricky Seals-Jones celebrates after catching a pass for a second quarter touchdown against the Jacksonville Jaguars at University of Phoenix Stadium. best players at key positions this summer, new way to break down some of the game's top weapons. Hunter Renfrow caught 80.5% of the 128 targets thrown his way in 2021. Some receivers attract more attention from defenses than others, which allows other pass-catchers to get less attention. Previous post: Worst Passer Ratings In Every Year Since the Merger, Next post: The Top Quarterbacks And The Receivers They Threw It To. Next Gen Stats maven Mike Band crunches the numbers on seven crucial Super Bowl LVII matchups. He was off-the-charts good in yards per target (13.9), but saw targets on just 9% of his routes run last year. Cole Beasley may be the weirdest case in the group. He leads all non-quarterbacks in fantasy points per game over the past two seasons. What does that mean? So, uh, whats up with that? Thats where yards per route run comes into play. How will Josh McDaniels' Raiders and Robert Saleh's Jets address the gaping hole at quarterback? 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 . Our architectural approach uses a combination of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks trained on Amazons SageMaker platform. 52) Yards After Catch, 8.4 (No. I believe this is because PFF includes passing plays called back due to offensive penalties in the number of Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20827_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20827_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, four receivers saw fewer than 35% of their teams snaps. The optimal time limits for these route types were determined by analyzing how pass attempts played out over the past two seasons; for reference, 4.4 seconds accounted for the 75th percentile of all pass attempts by time to throw in that span. If he does not catch the pass, he is debited at minus-0.75. 42. Contextualizing routes at the league-wide level gives a macro look into the value of route classification. Regular-season passes of between 5 and 15 air yards, minimum of 40 targets. RTMs also match up well with existing public benchmarks of receiver performance. No, I'm a California resident looking for the California Consumer Privacy Act form.