Take a Pass?

Jacob Feldman

watkins

Dynasty Christmas is almost here as Goodell Claus is making his list and checking it twice. He’s also lifting some weights, so those bear hugs he gets don’t break any ribs! As he calls the names and the hugs are given, we learn the last piece in the rookie puzzle – which team these rookies will be playing for. As soon as we hear those names, twitter is going to blow up, forum posts will be made and things will be thrown out of frustration about how a certain team just killed the value of someone’s favorite rookie.

It happens every year.

Like it or not, situation does matter. Anyone who says it doesn’t matter is fooling themselves. A receiver playing as the top target for Drew Brees or Peyton Manning is going to put up more points than one playing for someone like Christian Ponder or on a team that starts four different quarterbacks in the same season. Of course the debate that comes up is just how important situation really is and if it’s important enough to take a less talented player who lands in a better situation over the more talented counterpart? The talent versus situation debate is almost as timeless as the eye test versus metrics debate for evaluating prospects.

Today I’m going to try to shed a little bit of light on exactly what happens on bad offenses in terms of their receiving group – this will hopefully help you figure out exactly how concerned you should be if Sammy Watkins ends up in the likely places like Oakland or St. Louis.

In order to answer this, I took a look at the “bad” passing offenses in the NFL over the last three seasons. For this exercise, I considered any team with fewer than 3,500 passing yards during the regular season to be a “bad” passing offense. This was somewhere between the bottom 10 and 15 teams in the league on any given season and provided me with a total of 40 teams to look at. A few things definitely stood out when looking at this group:

1)     The average passing season for the group of 40 teams was 295 completions for 3,100 yards and 18.7 touchdowns.

2)     Almost 25 percent of the teams (9 of the 40) started a rookie quarterback in at least ten of their games that season.

3)     An additional 18 of the 40 teams had more than one quarterback start multiple games during the season.

If we put those three items together, it means we have a vast majority of the “bad” passing offenses over the last few years starting either a rookie or multiple quarterbacks (meaning backup level talent or worse) for multiple games. Bad quarterbacks lead to bad passing offenses. Brilliant conclusion, right? This is why I make the big bucks! No, that isn’t the point. The point is to make you realize just how bad the situation was on the vast majority of these teams in the sample. We’re talking about teams like Oakland and Minnesota who have no quarterback and no foreseeable future at the position. Or teams with rookies at the helm or even teams like the Jets who though Mark Sanchez was a franchise quarterback (sorry Jets fans). These teams are as bad as it gets. The true bottom of the barrel when it comes to offenses, but even these teams managed to put together seasons with an average of 718 PPR fantasy points scored by they pass catchers. There are points to be had by someone!

So, who is that someone?

Well, I took a look at that as well! Of the 40 teams, four of them were led in receiving by a tight end. Carolina, Buffalo and St. Louis in 2013 and the Jets in 2011. One of them (the 2013 Chiefs) was led by a running back. Some of this was due to injury, some due to scheme and some of it due to just not having a truly valid option at the receiver position, but I’m going to toss those five teams out since we’re talking about receivers. Of the remaining 35 teams, seven of them had their top receiver miss multiple games. This led to a secondary receiver playing in the top slot for extended stretches and spread the ball around a little more than it would have been had the receiver stayed healthy. That kind of distribution skewed the data a little bit, so I’m going to toss out those seven teams as well – that leaves me with a sample of 28 healthy receivers on some of the worst offenses of the last three years.

This sample of 28 receivers includes all different skill level of players. It includes players like Mike Thomas, Johnny Knox, Brandon Lloyd and Jeremy Kerley who had no business being the top target on an NFL team but they were for a season (or in the case of Kerley, two seasons). It also includes dominant talents like Brandon Marshall and Larry Fitzgerald. I didn’t cherry pick which receivers would be a part of this group but took any and all “top targets” on the bad teams who were healthy for at least 15 games.

Here’s some tidbits about this group of 28 “top targets:”

1)     They accounted for an average of 22% of the receptions, 29% of the yardage and 27% of the passing touchdowns for their teams – that’s 66 receptions for 892 yards and five scores. In most PPR leagues, that is right in the middle of the WR3 ranks in 12 team leagues.

2)     Two of the 28 managed to post WR1 numbers even with their teams being bottom ten passing teams. While an additional ten were at least WR2s in fantasy leagues – that’s 43% of the sample group who were every week starters even though they had some of the worst situations possible.

3)     As for the other 16 receivers, nine of them were WR3s. That leaves only seven of the receivers, or one fourth of the sample group, who didn’t belong in the starting lineups of fantasy teams.

4)     Who are those seven? All world talents like Nate Washington, Greg Little and Doug Baldwin, in addition to the four mentioned above.

The data suggests that even on the worst teams, a receiver with talent, such as the ones who might be highly drafted in the NFL and fantasy drafts alike, is going to be at least a WR3 in fantasy leagues if they are the top target on their team and can stay healthy. At this point, I feel the need to interject that if they are playing second fiddle to another receiver, tight end, or a pass catcher out of the backfield, all bets are off. Bad offenses can only support one fantasy relevant pass catcher at a time.

I wanted to test the theory that receivers with talent will produce by removing the receivers like the seven questionable talents mentioned above as well as an others who have questionable talent levels. Removing players like Baldwin, Little, Washington and the others leaves us with a group that includes the rookie seasons for AJ Green, Josh Gordon and Kendall Wright. There are underrated players like Brian Hartline, Stevie Johnson and Golden Tate. We also have players like Fitzgerald, Marshall, Percy Harvin, Michael Crabtree, Reggie Wayne and a few others. These are players who are more on par with the talent level of highly drafted rookies and can help to paint the situation a little bit better should someone like Watkins or Mike Evans end up in what is viewed as a terrible situation.

With only this group, we get the following:

1)     The average season was 75 receptions for 999 yards and 5.6 touchdowns – that’s an average in the WR2 ranks.

2)     The percentage scoring at least WR2 points jumps up to 60%, while the portion posting at least WR3 numbers jumps to 90%.

3)     The only two not to make WR3 numbers who possess above average talent were Gordon during his rookie year with fellow rookie Brandon Weeden throwing to him and Eric Decker’s year with Tim Tebow at the helm.

Let me sum all of this up for you.

If someone like Watkins or Evans goes to an undesirable situation, it isn’t the end of the world. Don’t threaten to kill GMs or kick any small, furry animals. In all likelihood, even if they end up in the worst of situations, they will still be at least WR2s if they are the top target on their new teams. That might not happen right away as a rookie, because all rookies require a little bit of time to develop, but it will likely happen. This results in an every week starter and pushing for top 20 (if not better) numbers. Plus, as an added bonus, is the fact that the majority of teams do eventually find a serviceable quarterback who can at least raise their offense out of bottom dwelling mode, especially if they have a weapon of the caliber of Watkins or Evans to target.

I’m a big believer in talent over situation, especially at the wide receiver position. Even the bad teams throw the ball and someone needs to catch it. They can’t support multiple receivers in terms of fantasy production, but even the majority of bad teams will have at least one talented player who needs to be starting for someone on game day. If Watkins or Evans (or both of them) end up in a “bad” spot, it isn’t going to change my mind at all and it shouldn’t change yours either. They are still the top two picks in this draft, with Watkins going first and Evans following right behind him.

jacob feldman