Fantasy Football: Which Wide Receivers Were Better Than Expected in 2016?

Did you know that a target to a wide receiver is worth about 1.04 standard fantasy points? Let’s break that number down a little bit. A target in the red-zone isn’t worth the same as a target outside of it, right? Inside the red-zone, the average target was worth 1.84 fantasy points in 2016, while targets in between the 20’s averaged 0.94 fantasy points. If you enjoy this article, let me know and I’ll do another one for PPR leagues.

I’ve spent the last few days going through this data from last season in order to find out which players scored more than expected, as well as those who scored less than they were expected to. In an article last week, I stated that Amari Cooper would’ve finished as the No. 9 receiver instead of No. 12 if he’d simply been average in the red-zone, while Michael Crabtree would’ve been No. 18 receiver instead of the No. 11 receiver that he finished as.

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That’s ultimately how this research started, because I was so taken back by how few points Cooper scored in the red-zone last year. But that’s why this is all relevant, because touchdowns can be extremely volatile year-over-year, so we want to take a look at the players who performed well over expectation, as well as those who performed well below expectation based on their targets inside the 20, as well as their targets outside the red-zone. There’ll always be exceptions to every rule (Dez Bryant’s red-zone ability is phenomenal and he defies the touchdown projections every year), but those are outliers and not the norm. Let’s start with the more predictive of the two (as well as the larger sample), outside of the red-zone.

Outside the Red-Zone

Let me start by saying that not everything rests on one statistic or one metric. The game of football is a giant puzzle and all we’re doing is looking for small pieces to fill the cracks. There are often stats that will point you towards the great players, but there’ll always be a few mixed in that make you look at the sheet a little cockeyed. Like yards per carry, for example. Jamaal Charles is among the best all-time in yards per carry, and some of the others among the league leaders in that category in 2016 were LeSean McCoy, Jordan Howard, Ezekiel Elliott, and Le’Veon Bell. Then you see DeAndre Washington is right there in between McCoy and Howard. Does that mean he’s as good as them? No, but often, a good yard per carry average will gravitate towards the more talented backs.

Now just like the players near the top of every list, most bad players end up towards the bottom of lists. If you’re an elite or semi-decent player, you shouldn’t be popping up at the bottom of any list, including the one below. On the chart below, you’ll see a player’s non-red-zone points they scored, as well as how many they would’ve scored if they’d simply been average, and the difference between the two numbers. I’ve narrowed it down to those who saw at least 20 or more targets, which was a total of 127 wide receivers.

The Top-36 (Above Expected)

So, teaching you how to read the chart above, Julio Jones scored 49.92 more points than the average wide receiver would have on targets outside the red-zone. Granted, he saw a large amount of targets, but he also saw the best cornerbacks in the league on a majority of his snaps. The players on this list weren’t heavily influenced by touchdowns, as most of them are thrown inside of the red-zone. Actually, the number of wide receiver touchdowns was 497 last year, with 306 of them caught in the red-zone, equaling roughly 62 percent.

As you can see, there are a lot of elite players in the top-36, which is what you should expect when looking at any statistic or metric that matters. Again, there will be some players that make you do a double-take, like Chris Hogan, but again, there are outliers. And if you didn’t notice, they aren’t all speed wide receivers with a high yards per reception. The larger the sample size, the less likely that a player is a fluke.

The Bottom-36 (Below Expected)

This was the portion of the list that you don’t want to be on, so seeing Allen Robinson rank dead-last, it’s a problem. If he had simply been average outside of the red-zone, he would have finished as the No. 9 receiver instead of the No. 28 receiver that he did. When looking at the names surrounding him, most make sense, including Tavon Austin and Dorial Green-Beckham. Now don’t get me wrong, the player throwing them the ball will have an effect on their numbers, but it shouldn’t affect an elite player so much that he’s among the worst in anything.

The names that should surprise you towards the bottom of this list include Jordan Matthews, Julian Edelman, DeAndre Hopkins, and Michael Crabtree. You shouldn’t be writing them off completely, because after all, this is just a small piece of the puzzle. But when looking at players like Crabtree and Amari Cooper, you can clearly see why it’s possible that Cooper is set to take a leap if he overcomes his red-zone inefficiencies and/or usage.

Inside the Red-Zone

This is the area of the research that is heavily weighted by touchdowns, and the reason an average target is worth 1.84 fantasy points instead of the 0.94 that it is outside the red-zone. So instead of using this statistic as one to lean on for projecting future success, use it to see who may regress in 2017, because after all, touchdowns are the most volatile thing in fantasy football. Similar to the above charts, I’ve broken it down by those who scored much more than expected in the red-zone, as well as those who scored much less than expected.

The Top-36 (Above Expected)

If there’s something that should be taken away from this chart, it’s that Aaron Rodgers is gold for his wide receivers red-zone targets. His three starting wide receivers all made it inside the top-36, including Davante Adams, who would have finished outside the top-12 wide receivers if he’d simply been average inside the 20-yard-line. Another name that we see on this list is Allen Robinson, who was better than average inside the re-zone, despite being the worst outside of it. There’s some serious inconsistency, and while a lot comes from his quarterback, some blame falls on him.

So when looking at the list above, you should expect some of the top options to regress to the mean, simply because that’s what happens (again, unless you’re Dez Bryant in the red-zone). It helps if they’re playing with an elite quarterback, but again, red-zone numbers can correct themselves the very next year. In 2015, Michael Crabtree scored just 13.8 fantasy points on 13 targets in the red-zone, but then scored 55.7 points on 23 targets in 2016. That’s just one example of how you can use this chart to your advantage.

The only players who made both of the lists inside the top-36 were: Adam Thielen, Brandin Cooks, Davante Adams, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Michael Thomas, Mike Evans, Rishard Matthews, Taylor Gabriel, and Terrance Williams.

The Bottom-36 (Below Expected)

Again, those who ended up on the short-end of the touchdown stick will suffer on this chart, so we don’t want to hold too much against this group, just as we don’t want to give too much credit to those who finished in the top-36. When you see players like Golden Tate, Amari Cooper, and Stefon Diggs towards the bottom of this list, it should give you hope that we haven’t seen their actual ceiling.

Just as I did with those inside both top-36 lists, here is the list of players who performed well below expectations in both lists: Brandon Marshall, Tavon Austin, Julian Edelman, DeAndre Hopkins, Jermaine Kearse, Corey Brown, Charone Peake, Kevin White, Quinton Patton, Tajae Sharpe, Tyler Boyd, and Vincent Jackson. If you’re Hopkins, these are not names you want to be surrounded with.

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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.