PFFs Fantasy Strength of Schedule (SoS) metric provides a league-wide, season-long view of opponent matchups for each fantasy position. Part of this effect might be due to scheme, but unfortunately scheme and signal-caller overlap too much to parse those effects apart. 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. The receiver is credited (or debited) for the yardage beyond (or below) that benchmark, rather than the raw yards after catch gained. 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 . The top five and bottom five most versatile route runners from the 2019 season among 72 wide receivers with at least 300 routes: This only scratches the surface of the analysis possible with our route recognition. Ginn ran a go route more often than any receiver in the sample . The idea was that NFL Next Gen Stats tracking data could estimate the chance of a completion on a pass, given the locations, directions and speeds of relevant players. Regular-season passes of 5 air yards or less. The WOPR and YPRR look a bit different than other sources. Copyright 2000-2023 Sports Reference LLC. 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. You don't currently have any notifications. * Selected to Pro Bowl, + First-Team All-Pro. Keegan Abdoo meticulously explains how this could significantly impact Andy Reid's offense -- and fuel Lou Anarumo's defense. Can Nick Sirianni successfully match wits with Andy Reid? 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. I hope that this deep dive has put yards per route run on your radar when evaluating wide receivers and making educated decisions when identifying breakout wide receivers. Which statistics and measurables are the most sticky? If you are looking for the raw data behind this article, do not hesitate to reach out. Frequently Asked Questions about the NFL and Football, Pro-Football-Reference.com Blog and Articles, Subscribe to Stathead Football: Get your first month FREE. What Im curious about is the stickiness of each metric. 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. Other players appear able to consistently create separation on short targets Jarvis Landry is one example but the value of Landrys targets as measured by EPA are much lower than those directed at Thomas. 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). 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. The following browsers are supported: Chrome, Edge (v80 and later), Firefox and Safari. Who knows, but that at least explains why Jernigan was on the list. If a completion occurs, the receiver is credited with the marginal difference. Yet throughout the offseason, NFL analysts have debated whether Thomass production is best explained by his skill and talent, or if instead hes merely a good receiver who runs a lot of slants and benefits from being in an elite offense. He grew up in Sanford, Florida, where he shined as a receiver for Seminole highschool. And Julios targets have, on average, been worth less than Thomass in the previous three years. Unlike running backs, weight and height are correlated to wide receiver and tight end production, because height expands the player's catch radius. (Again, no one doubts Joness talent or skills, and both he and Thomas are consistently in the conversation for best receiver in the league.). So how much insight can we gather from a wide receivers yards per route in his rookie year? Regular-season passes greater than 15 air yards, minimum of 30 targets. What are advanced WR stats? Do you have a sports website? will certainly allow you to drill down and begin to cross off several variables when projecting future performance. . He was off-the-charts good in yards per target (13.9), but saw targets on just 9% of his routes run last year. And running routes in schemes designed by Sean Payton, a coach with a .630 career win percentage (208-131, third among active NFL coaches), probably also has a strong positive effect on his production. 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. Finally, we see the continued effect of depth of target on separation. 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. In other words, YPRR already incorporates Yards per Target, but it adjusts that statistic for Targets Per Route Run. The Chief's quarterback is not a particularly accurate thrower, but he helps his targets get open. Totals Per Game. Follow Nick Shook on Twitter @TheNickShook. Parker went deep plenty in 2019, running 155 go routes and seeing 36 targets on those routes. While thats not a great stat line, it is a pretty good stat line for a player who was still only getting about 20 snaps per game. 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. 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. 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. Latest on Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson including news, stats, videos, highlights and more on ESPN Catch Score correlates at 0.38, and YAC Score correlates at 0.35. Brown trails in yards (306 to 282) but posted a better catch rate above expectation (+22.5% to +7.9%), although he saw 14 fewer targets than Thomas. There are important modifications to this calculation, which I'll detail below. Otherwise, actual targeted receivers would appear to be less likely to complete a catch. Running Backs; Wide Receivers; Tight Ends; Line Stats. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. AP Offensive Rookie of the Year: Ja'Marr Chase. In fantasy football, volume matters much more than efficiency for running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. Basic Stats Advanced Stats Red Zone Stats Fantasy Stats. Here are the top-five seasons since 2017: The top-rated players mostly match our intuitive sense of great receivers, but there are more concrete ways of determining the usefulness of metrics. His six drops were the 22nd most from wide receivers. It's hard to argue these aren't dominant seasons by elite receivers. 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. Next Gen Stats maven Mike Band crunches the numbers on seven crucial Super Bowl LVII matchups. One more big stats project before the 2020 season begins is our now-annual look at DVOA by pass routes. This route is a little easier to explain, primarily because of one infallible truth: Everyone loves the long ball. A note: all yards per route run data collected from www.pff.com. He also posted a catch rate above expectation of +14.7 percent on those routes. Regular-season passes of between 5 and 15 air yards, minimum of 40 targets. 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). This speaks greatly to Bells value as a fantasy asset. RTMs also match up well with existing public benchmarks of receiver performance. The numbers that propelled Thomas to the top here were his yards, of course, but also his efficiency. 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. [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. Research past fantasy performance with sortable player stats including PFF-exclusives like aDOT and fantasy points per opportunity. One of the most widely recognized PFF signature stats, yards per route run takes into account the amount of snaps a receiver runs a route as an eligible receiver against the amount of receiving yards he gains for a . 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. Super Bowl Champion: Los Angeles Rams. There isnt much evidence to support the idea that Mike Thomas is anything but an elite football talent. In total, the wideout model was trained on over 100,000 routes, while the backfield model was trained on over 15,000 routes. Thomas was pressed 49% of the time on crossing routes, yet he posted a catch rate that was 24.9% above expectation on 29 targets. 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. If a completion actually occurs, the quarterback would be credited with all the probability between that prediction and 1. 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. 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. Danielr28 2 yr. ago. 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. The defense is typically willing to allow an offense to throw to wide-open players short, then rally to make a tackle for a short gain. We're back to the short routes, which means we're again seeing Thomas at the top of the list. Keegan Abdoo investigates this strength -- and whether it will give Philadelphia an edge over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. Jalen Hurts and the Eagles have become quite proficient at the QB sneak. Of note, this is one of Patrick Mahomes' superpowers. See how WRs perform across the NFL's key metrics. 101st. A few moments ago, we used Year N YPRR to predict Year N+1 YPRR. In each of four seasons coached by Mike McCoy (now calling plays for the Cardinals), Antonio Gates totaled at least 85 targets. Specifically, Atlanta ranks 11th-lowest in dropbacks per game over the past three seasons, while Houston, Pittsburgh, and the Giants all rank higher. The browser you are using is no longer supported on this site. We also hear about touchdowns being random from year to year. Jones never hit a 90-percent snap share last year and reached 80 percent of his teams snaps in only seven of 16 games. He leads all non-quarterbacks in fantasy points per game over the past two seasons. Whats more impressive to me is that Tony Romo threw to Beasley on 26% of his routes, which is an extremely high figure. The table below combines our more descriptive NGS receiving metrics with the results of our Route Recognition model. Thomas wins the yardage battle between the two (382 to 318), helping us find some separation between a couple of receivers that are incredibly dangerous when running shallow routes over the middle. Only wideout routes are included (i.e., players aligned wide, in the slot or tight): How often a pass catcher runs a route can give us insight into strategy and tendencies at the league-wide, team and individual levels of the game. The values corresponding to each route represent league averages over the last two seasons. The model is an xgboost trained with fivefold cross validation and tested on out-of-sample data. These statistics provide a detailed view of how a WR accumulates How will Patrick Mahomes' ankle injury factor into Sunday's AFC championship rematch between the Chiefs and Bengals? Woods led all qualifying receivers in yards per route . There arent too many surprises there, but it might be interesting to compare that list to the True Receiving Yards leader board. One number that does not carry that weight for wide receivers is yards after the catch. The Saints' WR1 gained 326 yards while running outs, the most in the NFL. Next Gen Stats maven Mike Band crunches the numbers on seven crucial Super Bowl LVII matchups. 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. With the free agency frenzy right around the corner, the Next Gen Stats analytics team identifies the three biggest needs for each AFC team. We looked at every WR with 60+ targets* from 2020. The other three are kind of interesting. To put that in perspective, he is currently the only player in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016) to average over 3.3 yards per route in a season (min. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. 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. 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. 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018. Which wide receivers run the most diverse route tree relative to the average player? Hunter Renfrow caught 80.5% of the 128 targets thrown his way in 2021. 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. For reasons that will become evident in a moment, the far right column lists each players routes per team pass attempts in 2014. He then has to catch the ball to gain additional yards. 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 . Essentially, based on routes run, Hopkins is almost playing an extra full quarter per game when compared to Jones. New Orleans Saints (52) Source: NFL Next Gen Stats, ESPN Stats & Information Group. He may be a bust, but it wasnt because of what he did on the field. NOTE: EPA/target is expected points added per target; this measures the value of individual plays in terms of points comparing the down, distance and field position situation at the start of the play relative to the end of the play. Ultimately, our separation model ending up including features that account for quarterback arm strength, the receivers separation at the time the QB targeted them, the horizontal and vertical position of the receiver on the field at the time of the throw, where the receiver lined up pre-snap, the distance to the goal line, the amount of break in the receivers route during the footballs journey through the air after it was released, the depth of the QBs drop, the number of other routes that were being run on the play, if the play was a play-action pass or a screen, and the number of deep safeties.3. Quarterbacks are clearly an essential factor in whether a receiver makes catches and gains yards. What about Yards per Target? His opponents surely are, but you can't say they weren't warned: Thomas makes it clear with his Twitter handle that he can't be guarded. But Thomass numbers are still eye-popping, and his peers in the NFL recently ranked him first among all wide receivers (and fifth overall) in the NFL 100. If you are simply a box score watcher, nothing about Chris Godwins rookie season would have gotten you excited. What To Do About A Problem Like Dianne Feinstein? NFL and the NFL shield design are registered trademarks of the National Football League.The team names, logos and uniform designs are registered trademarks of the teams indicated. On its face, that seems like an outrageous question. Since 2018, ESPN has introduced pass-rush, run-stop, pass-block and run-block player metrics. As dynasty fantasy football players, we are constantly trying to stay ahead of the competition by identifying potential breakout players prior to any drastic changes in values. With the 2023 NFL Draft right around the corner, who are the can't-miss prospects in this talent crop? The model was trained and validated against all routes from every passing play from 2018 and '19, including both the regular season and the postseason. The Method. Chark and Kenny Stills at the top of the list the stretch X receivers whose job is to take the top off a defense. Brown is always open, Kendrick Bourne is underrated, We created better pass-rusher and pass-blocker stats: How they work, Introducing new NFL run-blocking and run-stopping stats: How our metrics work. This site rocks the Classic Responsive Skin for Thesis. He was historically productive in 2019, in large part because he is excellent in the short game on routes like the cross (a.k.a. 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 receiver that hit the 2.00 yards per route run threshold alone. With NFL+, stay connected throughout the rest of the NFL offseason with special content from Training Camp, Hall of Fame, and more! AVG . For more from John, check out his archive orfollow him@TheBauerClub. His reception total was also the most in the NFL on go routes (minimum 75 total targets, regardless of route). Discover Next Gen Stats News, Charts, and Statistics. The Buffalo Bills added additional weapons in Cole Beasley and John Brown, while also bolstering their defense and making a greater commitment to the run. 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). Any idea where they get this data from? You don't currently have any notifications. 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. Looking at this historical data and also pairing it with metrics such as draft capital, breakout age, college dominator, etc. While its unlikely well see Beasley see significant playing time in 2014, Im a little more interested in watching him now than I was before this post. To account for this effect, Open Score is adjusted for the number of defenders exclusively "assigned" to a receiver. receiving yards along with his target opportunities. This problem vexed me for months, but about a year ago I thought of a way to crack it. Wide Receivers (14) To do this successfully, it takes a receiver who can win off the line, cut inside at an angle and catch a bullet from the quarterback for a solid gain. Which game is featured at the top of NGS's unlikeliest victory rankings? Oct 25, 2020; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin (14) against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. 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). 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? So we need to account for depth of target and how far the QB had to throw the ball when we apportion credit for the separation a receiver got on a given play. 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. If we can establish the probability of a catch of a typical receiver, given all the contextual details of a pass route, including route type, depth, coverage and many other variables, we can set a benchmark of expected "openness" agnostic to the ability of the receiver to get open. Average number of seasons as a WR1/WR2 + >250 routes run during rookie year w/ at least 20 targets, Average number of seasons as a WR1/WR2 w/ at least 20 targets during their rookie year (no minimum route run threshold). 1. 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. [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). 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). So we decided to focus on separation at the moment the ball arrives, on the theory that scheme and QB play have the least influence at this crucial moment in a pass play. D'Onta Foreman thrived with the Panthers in 2022. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20827_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20827_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); using just their YPRR from 2013, we would project Stills at 1.45 [5]Because he was below average for this data set, and everyone in the set gets regressed to the mean of the group, he benefits. Over the final 2.5 games of the year, Jernigan caught 19 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns. NFL.com's Nick Shook takes a look at the top receivers of 2019 by route type. 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. Brown, and Hunter Renfrow all ran at least 250 routes while also having at least 2.00 yards per route run. Tied-93rd. Using the Next Gen Stats Draft Model, Mike Band identifies eight prospects to target AFTER Round 1. Who has the edge? You won't want to miss a moment of the 2023 season! Which view is correct? In other words, only 47.4% of a receivers Yards per Route Run is predictive of his YPRR in Year N+1. For starters, we could look at the top 10 seasons since 2017 (when our data begins). We approached routes run by players aligned in the backfield separately from routes run by players aligned out wide, in the slot or tight, because of clear differences in route archetypes. Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Beasley also saw significant action against Philadelphia in week seven, when the Cowboys were without their top two running backs. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? The resulting weights tell us a lot about the importance of the three skills. Find updated NFL wide receiver stats including season-long and weekly totals for receptions, targets, TDs, and more on LINEUPS.com Live From New York: Will AI Replace This Podcast. Seems like he has a strong case, even without a touchdown scored on a hitch. Jones averaged 6.0 fewer routes run per game than Hopkins over this stretch. For example, we can see that A.J. Jones is usually on everyones list of the top wide receivers in the league, but he is rarely No. The next-closest players in that category were the Rams' Cooper Kupp (99) and the Browns' Jarvis Landry (96). In other words, the regression thinks Johnsons much more likely to maintain his elite TPRR than Stills is to maintain his elite Y/T. So, what can we do with this information, and why should we care? 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. Also, there are several other factors considered in establishing the benchmark on each route. The aim now is to do the same thing for receiving. 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. It helps paint a more complete picture of each receiver's skill set and .

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