The Chief's quarterback is not a particularly accurate thrower, but he helps his targets get open. 1-ranked player for each was the best running that particular route. Over the past two seasons, Bell also averages 63.9 snaps per game, or about 11.8 more per game than the next-closest running back (Ezekiel Elliott). Specifically, Atlanta ranks 11th-lowest in dropbacks per game over the past three seasons, while Houston, Pittsburgh, and the Giants all rank higher. 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. Danielr28 2 yr. ago. New Orleans Saints (52) You won't want to miss a moment of the 2023 season! Forty-eight percent of Thomass 185 targets came on passes 5 yards or less downfield in 2019. Any idea where they get this data from? 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. For example, if the tracking data indicates a pass will be completed 75% of the time and the receiver actually catches the pass, he is credited with plus-0.25. The story of the Cowboys scout and prospect son Dallas just drafted, Legacy pick: Cardinals take great-great-nephew of team's first-ever draft pick, Big takeaways from ESPN's new pass-catcher stats: A.J. 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 the variables were examining than the others. 32 lingering post-draft questions: Will Lions have regrets? 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. It makes sense intuitively, as the more routes you run, the more targets you have available to you. Since the most interesting routes to analyze are those that earned a target, there are two obvious points in a play to focus on: the moment the ball leaves the QBs hand and the moment the ball arrives at the receivers location. NOTE: The two players ranked below who changed teams this offseason -- Bills WR Stefon Diggs and Cardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins -- are listed with the teams they played for last season, since these rankings are based on their performance in 2019. Cole Beasley may be the weirdest case in the group. The purpose of the metrics is not solely to rank receivers from best to worst; the goal is to describe and explain how a receiver is -- or isn't -- able to produce yards. We looked at every WR with 60+ targets* from 2020. Source: NFL Next Gen Stats, ESPN Stats & Information Group. 41) Yards Per Target, and 1.90 (No. 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. At the individual player level, we can learn more about the micro nuances of route running. Looking at this historical data and also pairing it with metrics such as draft capital, breakout age, college dominator, etc. Ignoring the fact that Johnson is now a 49er, of course. Do you have a sports website? Julio Jones has ranked first in yards per route run in four of the past five seasons, and top-five in each of the past five seasons. For running backs, YAC Score accounts for about half of the overall score, with Catch Score the second largest component, followed by Open Score. The final model does a decent job of predicting separation at the catch point on a given play.4 We used its predictions as a baseline for performance and compared each receivers actual separation on a given play to what the model expected an average players separation would have been, given similar circumstances. His 207 yards gained on post routes ranked sixth in the league, and he was one of only two receivers to break 200 yards on less than 10 receptions on post routes in 2019 (the other was DeVante Parker, who ranks second in this grouping). Its not very sensitive to outliers, which makes it sticky. Jones averaged 6.0 fewer routes run per game than Hopkins over this stretch. Now, by itself, that doesn't make Targets per Route . In fact, on an EPA-per-play basis, throwing short to Landry has a worse point expectation than running the ball. Tired of Thomas yet? Wide Receiver (WR) Stats 2022-2023 - Lineups Which QB makes the list? So, what can we do with this information, and why should we care? Who has the edge? 2021 Wide Receivers | Football Outsiders 1:08 PM. The Next Gen Stats Team uses its draft model to identify the five best value picks in Round 1 of the 2023 NFL Draft -- including two Georgia defenders selected by the Philadelphia Eagles. We think this also makes sense. NFL wide receiver rankings 2021. The Vikings pulled off the biggest comeback in NFL history last week, but the Next Gen Stats analytics team says it wasn't the most improbable comeback of the season. the drag). The Real Reason Presidential Candidates Form Exploratory Committees, Aug. 10, 2020, Subscribe to Stathead Football: Get your first month FREEYour All-Access Ticket to the Pro Football Reference Database. He led the league lead in catch rate above expectation (actual catch percentage compared to expected catch percentage), but among the top 25 wide receivers in that category (minimum 50 targets), he's the only one who averaged fewer than 10 air yards per target (8.1). 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). Ginn ran a go route more often than any receiver in the sample . 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. However, he averaged only 6.3 yards target, leaving Johnson with a poor 1.56 yards per route run average. ESPN Analytics is launching RTMs leaderboards next month in conjunction with FiveThirtyEight -- you'll be able to view updated numbers every week -- but we're unveiling the metrics now to provide a reference to explain what they're all about. The Next Gen Stats analytics team uses its newly launched Expected Return Yards model to identify the top 10 returners of the 2022 regular season. Let's see Thomas led all wide receivers in yards gained on hitches. 101st. 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. One interesting insight from the adjustments is that quarterbacks have a large effect on the openness of receivers at pass arrival. The NFL's best wide receivers by route type: Rob Gronkowski - PFF As for the other 16 receivers on the list? 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. He got 34 receptions, 525 yards, and only one touchdown. Who has the edge? What is also encouraging is the three components of RTM generally do not correlate with each other. There isnt much evidence to support the idea that Mike Thomas is anything but an elite football talent. The browser you are using is no longer supported on this site. Over the past two seasons, LeVeon Bell averaged more routes run per game (33.0) than all of A.J. Fortunately for our analysis, Yards per Route Run can be broken down into two metrics: Yards per Target and Targets per Route Run. So how much insight can we gather from a wide receivers yards per route in his rookie year? 4) Stefon Diggs, Vikings (now with Bills), 72) Ted Ginn Jr., Saints (now with Bears), The most targeted routes outside of the WR Screen? On top of that, hes not playing a high percentage of his teams snaps in any game. Parker went deep plenty in 2019, running 155 go routes and seeing 36 targets on those routes. The lone outlier there is Robert Foster, and his situation clearly changed from 2018 to 2019. 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? Rookie Wide Receivers: An Analysis of Yards per Route Run and When Yards per Target, of course, is very sensitive to outliers. Ted Ginn Jr., now a member of the Chicago Bears, ranked as our least versatile route runner of 2019 among qualifying wide receivers. Super Bowl Champion: Los Angeles Rams. RTMs account for who's throwing the pass in two ways: We adjust the Catch Score and the part of the Open Score that assesses openness at pass arrival based on the quarterback. Top 3 NFL wide receivers by route: Michael Thomas reigns 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. Gabriel Davis Stats & Fantasy Ranking - PlayerProfiler 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. It was far below his 2020 form, which ended in him being one of the five most valuable wide receivers in the NFL, according to PFF WAR. That's not bad for a strictly objective measure as something as mercurial as receiver performance. When we account for the most impactful context that affects a receivers most important job getting open Thomas is routinely above average in creating that separation. 2. The Next Gen Stats analytics team digs into three key free agency needs for every NFC team. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. That means our models do have some sense of timing. Where can I find Yards Per Route Run stats? : r/DynastyFF - Reddit . Our New Metric Shows How Good NFL Receivers Are At - FiveThirtyEight AP Offensive Rookie of the Year: Ja'Marr Chase, AP Defensive Rookie of the Year: Micah Parsons, AP Offensive Player of the Year: Cooper Kupp, AP Defensive Player of the Year: T.J. Watt, Rushing Leader: Jonathan Taylor, 1811 Yds, Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Monday, May 1, 2:31PM. Find updated NFL wide receiver stats including season-long and weekly totals for receptions, targets, TDs, and more on LINEUPS.com 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. How do we know which is which? For Hopkins, 125 of his 257 came after the catch. For wide receivers and tight ends, Open Score accounts for roughly half of the overall score, while Catch Score accounts for a little over a quarter and YAC Score accounts for the remainder. Among wide receivers (min. Final 2020 NFL wide receiver rankings | NFL News, Rankings and - PFF 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. In the table below, Ive listed the 20 wide receivers with the highest YPRR projection based on their 2013 Yards per Target and Targets per Route Run averages (minimum 40 targets, with all data coming from Pro Football Focus). Copyright 2010- FantasyPros.com On its face, that seems like an outrageous question. Also, there are several other factors considered in establishing the benchmark on each route. Those types of opportunities vaulted Brown up this list. So again, what numbers can we look at and believe we have a strong indicator of future success for wide receivers? A few moments ago, we used Year N YPRR to predict Year N+1 YPRR. The Giants Jerrel Jernigan not only had a 66% catch rate thats excellent for someone playing with the 2013 version of Eli Manning but he was targeted on a remarkable 28% of his routes in 2013! 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. Join our linker program. Best and worst receiver seasons on deep passes as measured by separation over expected (SOE) per play, 2017-19. With year-to-year R-squared values of around 0.3, these three metrics are the most stable existing metrics that measure wide receiver performance. The Next Gen Stats analytics team digs into three key free agency needs for every NFC team. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20827_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20827_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); But it is interesting to know, and it is useful in making predictions. 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. The aim now is to do the same thing for receiving. How will the Panthers address their quarterback void? I believe player profile has them too. Michael Thomas (3). After spending some time looking at our route data, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite metrics that Ive found. Our new Receiver Tracking Metrics (RTMs) use player tracking data from NFL Next Gen Stats to analyze every route run -- including those that are untargeted -- and assess receiver performance in three distinct phases: getting open, contesting and making the catch, and generating yards after the catch (YAC). 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. If a completion occurs, the receiver is credited with the marginal difference. For example, why did only 11 of 12 wide receivers drafted since 2010 that ran 250 routes and had at least 2.00 yards per route run during their rookie years find future success? Next Gen Stats maven Mike Band crunches the numbers on seven crucial Super Bowl LVII matchups. Michael Thomas, the New Orleans wide receiver who led the NFL in receiving yards and set an NFL record for receptions in 20191 on the way to winning Offensive Player of the Year that Mike Thomas might not be an elite receiver? Another interesting feature of short-target SOE is that a players ability to consistently get open on short throws appears to be mostly nonexistent. 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. Those metrics have offered a new way to see a part of football that largely goes unnoticed -- or at least unquantified. Sports Info Solutions' charting allows us to break down receivers by their routes -- seeing which routes they run most often, and at which they are the most effective. Backs typically run swing routes, check downs and screens, which don't require excellent route-running skills but do rely on yards after catch for success. As were using air yards the vertical yards on a pass attempt relative to the line of scrimmage this bucket includes passes behind the line of scrimmage. For each, a benchmark is set based on the context and dynamic inner workings of the play. No, I'm a California resident looking for the California Consumer Privacy Act form. The intermediate SOE leaderboard includes seasons from receivers like Davante Adams, Keenan Allen, Danny Amendola, Cooper Kupp and Adam Humphries, all of whom are generally regarded as skilled route runners. Wide receivers make the bulk of their high-value receptions on passes at intermediate depths (between 5 and 15 . Our new Route Recognition model leverages this data as inputs into a model that assigns a route type to every eligible receiver on every pass play, including tight ends and running backs. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports. Of note, this is one of Patrick Mahomes' superpowers. And that makes sense, at least to me. Among running backs, he ranks third in rushing fantasy points per game and first in receiving fantasy points per game. Yards per Route Run, Yards per Target, and Targets per Route Run 2022 NFL season's top 10 wide receivers: Justin Jefferson reels in No 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. We also needed to decide when to measure receiver separation. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. He's no DK Metcalf (his 6-4, 229-pound former Ole Miss teammate), but that actually works to his advantage, as his 226 pounds are well-packed into his frame to allow him to box out defenders, catch the ball and then outrun them to the end zone, with a stiff-arm packed in as a complimentary parting gift. And the ultimate goal of every route is to create enough separation from a defender to earn a target and make a catch. When looking at any metric or measurable, it is always best to marry it up with other available data points to paint a clearer picture. Metrics that Matter: Fantasy fun with routes run - PFF