NextGen Stats - Wide Receiver/Tight End Breakdowns and Takeaways

4 years ago by Antonio Losada

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Most fantasy GMs are already celebrating or lamenting their success or failure at fantasy football for the 2020 season. With the average, usual 16-week leagues already over, there are folks out there (most-probably you're one if you're reading this) still fighting for the cheap in the mighty, unpredictable, crazy 17-week games that will wrap-up the season next weekend. That's why we're here today looking at the WR/TE position for the last time in-season before we move one to review what the 2020 year left in the stats sheets starting next week.

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 16 - 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 40 targets for both WR and TE.

Cushion / Separation

Correlation with Fantasy Points: negative-20% / negative-9%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

There has been virtually no change in the correlation percentages of both metrics from three weeks ago, and the two of them have stayed on the negative side of things also, which makes sense historically.
Don't get too high on any of those two relationships, though. Neither of them is above 20%, so it is not that SEP or CUSH explains a lot about how good a wideout/tight end performs in fantasy terms, much less predict future performance.

The top-3 players in SEP have retained their spots since the last time we checked. That means Deebo is no. 1 on the leaderboard followed by Demarcus Robinson and Robert Tonyan. With just one week to play, odds are there are no changes at the top with Deebo Samuel finishing the season as the player with the highest SEP per target through the 2021 fantasy season.
Kudos to Robert Tonyan for being the no. 1 TE in SEP, with Kittle ranking second already at an 0.3-yard distance that will be hard to make up for.
Every player above 3.6 SEP-yards per target has been targeted fewer than 60 times through the year, with Tonyan leading all men at 57. That's way overly-high SEP yards are flukier than anything, with marks at-or-below 3.5 being the most reasonable to expect at the top of a leaderboard built only with high-usage pass-catchers.

Only five players (down from seven last time) qualified while having SEP-marks of 4.0+ yards through Week 16. On the other hand, only two players are still qualifying while having <2.0-yard SEP marks (DeVante Parker and A.J. Green).
There are seven tight ends inside the top-24 players with the highest SEP marks compared to six inside the bottom-24. Talk about a random stat.

There is a tie at the top of the CUSH leaderboard, with Marquise Brown and Darnell Mooney both at 7.5 yards per route. The highest-ranked TE is Dalton Schultz, at 6.8 CUSH yards.
At the other end, rookie Denzel Mims has lost the lead which now belongs to TE Irv Smith Jr. at just 4.7 CUSH yards while John Brown and Rashard Higgins are the lowest-CUSH WRs at 4.8 yards each.

Six players have CUSH marks at-or-above 7.0, all of them WRs. The first tight end is 0.2 yards below, and there are only two TEs inside the top-24 players in the leaderboard.
Opposite to that, there are seven tight ends with marks inside the bottom-24 players in CUSH, and only five players are at-or-below 5.0 CUSH yards through W16.

There are 16 qualified pass-catchers averaging 16+ PPR points per game through W16. They are averaging:
- 5.6 CUSH yards
- 2.9 SEP yards
There are 70 qualified pass-catchers averaging <10 PPR points per game through W16. They are averaging:
- 6.0 CUSH yards
- 3.0 SEP yards
As you see, and as the correlation percentages above show, there is a very discardable difference between both groups, rendering these two metrics more descriptive than predictive.

Deebo Samuel is on a league of his own when it comes to his combined CUSH+SEP mark for the season, at 11.3 yards. Demarcus Robinson is second (10.9) followed by David Moore (10.8).
At the other end, DeVante Parker (6.5) is the only player below 7.0 yards of CUSH+SEP through Week 16 with A.J. Green coming in at that exact mark.

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

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 0% / 61%

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.
11 of the top-12 TAY% players are averaging 14+ FP/G through Week 16, and seven of them are posting 16+ FP/G marks.
That contrasts a lot with the other end of the TAY% leaderboard, where only six of the bottom-25 players are currently averaging 10+ FP/G.

If you're looking for one-man wrecking crews, look no further than these three teams/players: Calvin Ridley (ATL), D.J. Moore (CAR), and Marquise Brown (BAL) are the only players still having a TAY% above 39 percent this deep into the season.
Ridley is the one and only pass-catcher getting 40+ percent of his team's targeted air yards through W16, and it'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up once the regular season wraps up in a few days.

Carolina's case is really insane. Not only is D.J. Moore a top-2 player, but Robby Anderson (Moore's partner in crime) is also a top-12 player with a 34.1 TAY% himself. The two receivers have accrued 73.2 percent of all Panthers' targeted air yards this season, the leading pair league-wide.
Minnesota's Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson rank second in the one-two leaderboard gathering 70.4 percent of the Vikings targeted air yards between themselves.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling has been positive for a very slim Green Bay's offense with 17.6 TAY and a 600-yard, 5-touchdown season.
Henry Ruggs III is the only other player at 17+ TAY through W16, with no one getting to 16+ so far.

Both Deebo Samuel and JuJu Smith-Schuster have been able to post 10+ FP/G while having TAY marks below 6.0 yards, the only two doing so with just one week to play.
Deebo has been impressive after the catch, which has made up for his ultra-low TAY mark of 2.1. His 12.3 YAC leads the league by a mile.

All top-24 TAY marks belong to wide receivers. That streak is broken by TE Dan Arnold (12.8 yards) while 13 more WRs follow him.
There are 13 tight ends in the bottom-24 TAY averages. The contrast can't be much higher.

Pass-catchers with a 14+ TAY: 9.5 FP/G.
Pass-catchers with a TAY below 8 yards: 10.6 FP/G.

Tight ends are averaging 8.0 yards down the field and 9.6 fantasy points per game.
Wide receivers are at a 10.8 aDOT and averaging 11.4 FP/G.

The 22 pass-catchers currently averaging 15+ FP/G have aDOT marks ranging from 6.7 (Kittle) to 15.6 (Calvin Ridley), with an average of 10.3 yards.
Only three tight ends are in this group: Kittle, Travis Kelce, and Darren Waller.

Receptions / Targets / Catch% / Touchdowns

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 83% / 79% / 33% / 70%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

With just one game remaining on the schedule, 31 pass-catchers have already broken the 100-target mark and 13 more are less than 10 targets from reaching that mark.
I said three weeks ago that around 35 players would get there, but we could very well see 40+ players topping that mark.
Stefon Diggs was the first player to reach 100 targets this season. Keenan Allen surpassed him the last time we checked (Week 13), but Diggs is back leading all receivers with 158 targets through W16.

Allen has caught just 68 percent of his targets compared to Diggs' 76 percent mark, and no. 2 in targets DeAndre Hopkins' 74% catch rate. Diggs, Hopkins, and Allen have an almost evenly-distributed 120, 111, and 100 receptions respectively.
Davante Adam, Tyler Lockett, Diggs, and JuJu are the only players with catch rates above 75 percent that have been targeted 100+ times this season.
On the low-efficiency front, A.J. Green and Jerry Jeudy have been a disaster with putrid catch rates of 48 and 44.3 percent on 98 and 106 targets respectively.

Green and Jeudy are joined by Zach Ertz and Breshad Perriman (both at 50%) as the only four qualified pass-catchers with catch rates at-or-below 50 percent.
Only Robert Tonyan and Curtis Samuel qualify for the NGS leaderboards while having a catch rate above 80% through Week 16.
Four tight ends are inside the top-24 catch-rate pass-catchers of the season at this point.
Three tight ends are inside the bottom-24 catch-rate pass-catchers with one game to go.

Davante Adams has separated himself from the pack with 17 touchdowns compared to no. 2 Tyreek Hill's 15. This could end like it currently is, as KC is resting its starters in W17.
Only four of 127 qualified players have yet to catch a touchdown pass: Mims, Amendola, Meyers... and Michael Thomas!
Of players with at least two touchdowns, Jerry Jeudy is logging the most targets-between-scores of all qualified players at 53. No other player is above 49 (A.J. Green).
The most efficient scorer has been TE Robert Tonyan (fewer than six targets per touchdown). Thielen is the best high-volume WR-scorer, getting a TD for every 7.4 targets while having 103 targets to his name already.
Three players (Jonnu Smith, Tonyan, and Thielen) share the highest TD:REC ratio at 0.20.
Robby Anderson, Sterling Shepard, and Cooper Kupp have the worst TD:REC ratios among players with 2+ TDs, at just 3 percent.

Yards / Air Yards / YAC%

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 88% / 79% / negative-3%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

While 31 receivers have reached 100+ targets already, only 14 (45%) are past 1,000 receiving yards on the season led by Stefon Diggs who is very closely followed by TE Travis Kelce.
Fantasy pundits are saying (like every year) that the tight end position has been disappointing, that fantasy GMs must be mad at their draft picks, etc, etc... but I don't think that's the case. Tight ends are always going to disappoint, and truth be told it's all about Kelce and then the rest.
Congratulations if you drafted Kelce, even if you did with the first-overall pick. He's been a monster while playing at a hella thin position in fantasy leagues. If you didn't, I hope you were realistic in terms of expectations and had none of them, because it's just a goddam weekly lottery at the position.
The second-best tight end (Waller) is at 1,079 yards and averaging 16.8 FP/G compared to Kelce's 20.9 FP/G, which is tied for third among all qualified pass-catchers.

I predicted some numbers related to season-end targets, and I'm doing the same here for yardage. Back in W13 I said there would be 20 players to reach 1,000 receiving yards and we're almost there. Only six more guys need to make the cut, and there are 10 pass-catchers within 100 yards of getting there.
It looked like Metcalf would break the 1,500-yard mark three weeks ago, but you can now forget about it. Only Diggs has a reasonable shot assuming Kelce rests (KC will sit starters), and Hopkins is a distant-third in yardage at 1,372 so odds are he doesn't break the 15-hundred mark.

There are 61 pass-catchers with more than 75 targets through W16. Among those, the YAC% vary from a low of 18.9% (A.J. Green) to a high of 54.9% (Noah Fant and Cooper Kupp).
The top-10 receivers in YAC% among those are averaging 14.5 FP/G. The bottom-10 are averaging 12.6 FP/G.
Looking at it from the other side: the top-10 of those in FP/G are averaging 34.3 percent YAC% while the bottom-10 sits at 34.6 YAC%.

The 31 qualified tight ends are getting an average of 42.4% of their total yards after the catch on average. That is way above the wide receivers' mark of 36.8%. Nothing surprising, considering most receivers are faster than TEs but have less strength.
Every qualified player with the exception of Deebo Samuel (-15. LOL) has racked up more than 140 yards through the air.
Drew Sample has the lowest mark at 144 followed by three other TEs. Braxton Berries has the lowest mark among non-Deebo-WRs with his 166 aYDS.
Currently, only 9 players qualify while having yet to reach 200 air yards through the season. All of them are at 66 or fewer yards of doing so, but probably not even half of those nine will get there in W17.

Yards After Catch / Expected YAC / YAC Above Expectation

Correlation with Fantasy Points: 6% / 0% / 11%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

While the relationship between these three metrics and fantasy points isn't great, the YAC Above Expectation (+/-, or YACOE) is strong enough to consider it somehow meaningful. It makes sense, as talent ultimately rises to the top and those posting more YAC than it has happened through the history of the model are more often than not the better players overall.
These are only yards after the catch, though, and not total yards (meaning we're not factoring air yards into the equation).

Deebo Samuel hasn't surrendered the no. 1 YACOE since he took hold of it all the way back in Week 7. He barely qualifies for the leaderboard, though, with just 44 targets. Even though he'll be out next weekend, he will still qualify after the regular season is over by just one target, getting the YACOE crown.
The real MVP Award of this category, though, must be handed to A.J. Brown and his 2.9 YACOE through W16 on a much healthier target dose (95 so far).
D.J. Moore, Terry McLaurin, and Cashe Claypool would be the next in line among pass-catchers with 75+ targets through the year.

The correlation between the top-10 players in YACOE through W16 and their fantasy points can't be higher, but then drops a lot among players with 1.0+ YACOE.
- Top-10 YACOE players: 12.3 FP/G.
- Players with 1.0+ YACOE: 11.5 FP/G.

The average YACOE among qualified receivers sat at 0.5 three weeks ago. It is a nail up in W16 at 0.6 yards. That means the receiving game is a bit better this season than it has historically been when it comes to getting yardage after the catch.

Only 26 of the 127 receivers (20%) are currently under-performing in YACOE, having marks below the neutral/average 0.0.
Of those 26 "underperforming" players, six (23%) are tight ends, and the rest are wide receivers (77%).

Deebo Samuel is an extreme outlier in xYAC, averaging 7.8 yards per target compared to the second-largest mark of 6.5 (Cam Sims).
Only six players are at 6.0+ xYAC through W16, which makes up for just a tiny 4.7% of all qualified pass catchers.
Robert Tonyan (5.8) is the only tight end at 5.5+ xYAC this season, with Austin Hooper and Dan Arnold tied at 5.4 xYAC below him.

Outside of stupid Deebo Samuel (12.3 YAC), Sims leads the league in actual yards after the catch at 8.6. No other player is up there, with only two more pass-catchers at 7.0+ yards (Michael Pittman Jr. and George Kittle).
Danny Amendola ranks eight in YAC (6.7) but has yet to score a touchdown this season. He's the only player with more than 5.1 YAC per target that has yet to score a TD (Denzel Mims).
On the other end, Adam Thielen has scored 14 touchdowns while posting a YAC mark of just 3.1 yards.

Travis Kelce has amassed the most YAC this season with 841. No other player has broken the 800-yard mark after the catch through W16 (Terry McLaurin, 794).
Kelce (841) and Waller (770) are the only two tight ends with 515+ YAC on the year. Fant, Hockenson, and Engram come next at a distant 513/510/504 YAC.
Only two players have qualified while still having fewer than 100 YAC through W16, and both are Browns: OBJ (77) and Rashard Higgins (98).
A.J. Green has the fewest YAC (206) among players with 75+ targets.

A.J. Brown has gained the most "extra" yards after the catch of all qualified receivers with 276 of those. Only three more receivers (McLaurin, D.J. Moore, and Justin Jefferson) are also above the 200-yard mark.
Austin Hooper has lost the most expected yards after the catch, posting up 98 fewer YAC than he should, given the historical model used by NGS. Tyler Lockett is the "worst" wide receiver, having lost 71 such yards.

Adam Thielen is the only player with 13+ FP/G on the year that is averaging fewer than 3.3 YAC through W16. He is the WR8 on a per-game basis this season.
Lockett, Curtis Samuel, and Cole Beasley are the only players with 13+ FP/G currently underperforming their xYAC (negative YACOE).

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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