Target Share Report: Week Seven

Peter Howard

Welcome back to the target share report where I look over player volume trying to predict and understand how teams are using the roster.

This week I’m changing up the stats I’m including in our tables. I’ve been asked “which stats are important?” and “which of all these columns do I actually need to look at?”

I do go overboard with my data collection. So, to try and answer those questions broadly I’ve shrunk the tables in this article to the stats I look at most often to evaluate players.

I’ll include an explanation of all the columns at the end, just in case any of them are unfamiliar.

Anyway, let’s take a look and see what we see through seven weeks of the 2020 NFL season.

Target Share Leaders

As always, let’s take a look at the crème of the target share crop this year – the top 12 players in target share so far.

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Denzel Mims, WR NYJ

Let’s just go straight to the New York Jet in the room, shall we? Mims makes the top 12 because he’s only played one game and the Jets roster is struggling. I know what you’re thinking, but in my opinion, the roster is just struggling, it’s the coaching staff that is a dumpster fire.

So, will Mims breakout and be the next great 2020 rookie? Well, as someone who really liked his college profile, and values this off-season, I hope so. But let’s take a closer look at his production.

If he had performed “as an average player” with his volume, he’d have scored around 13 fantasy points. He has already established a 12% target share inside the red zone, in just one game, and his quick rise up the target share depth chart was exactly what we’d expect a good player to do. His aDot was very low, 2.6, and while more games it’s not the best area of the field to be working in for fantasy. All this also speaks to the anemic nature of the offense in general, from the minimal red zone attempts to the low value of a 30% target share in expected points.

In short, I think Mims can hit impressive rookie numbers, even if/when Jamison Crowder comes back, mostly at the expense of Braxton Berrios, moving forward. However, without an improvement to the offense (unlikely?) or expanding into Breshad Perriman’s (higher aDot) role, he’ll struggle to produce much better than top 36 wide receiver numbers.

But this is dynasty, so, mostly it’s all good if he can keep up a high enough target share.

Terry McLaurin, WR WAS

I’ve mentioned Mclaurin before in this article series, but he was on my shortlist to write about again even before he created a 52% target share in week seven, boosting his overall percentage into the top 12.

Look, I don’t know any better way of explaining how well McLaurin is doing in this virtually Jet-like offense, than to point out I would take any opportunity to victory lap over him failing. I almost hate to admit it but I was hoping his rookie season was a fluke. I don’t want another “exception” to the rule of college production metrics. But here we are – McLaurin wasn’t a fluke, his college profile was a lie and he is good.

He is 14th in yards per team pass attempt at wide receiver and has squeezed every point out of his expected points. On an offense that is struggling, his numbers are more impressive to me. But even outside of his offense, he is producing volume and efficiency numbers that look similar to the likes of Calvin Ridley and Stefon Diggs (in EPG).

Finally, McLaurin has a 33% red zone target share and is underperforming in touchdowns, which could regress any time this season (more touchdowns). He is also one of only two players this year who has had seven targets in every game he has played. The other is DeAndre Hopkins.

Robby Anderson, WR CAR

Speaking of being “owed” touchdowns, Anderson is still under-producing touchdowns based on his yardage total. But since I’m tired of saying that, I downloaded the red zone data available at DLF’s partner, 4for4.com. Here’s some more information on Carolina’s red zone touchdowns.

Mike Davis is a damn greedy volume hog. He has 36% of the team’s red-zone targets (nine), which is fourth-highest in the NFL right now. He’s the only running back with over 30% of his team’s red-zone targets.

Despite that, Anderson has a 20% share of targets. However, Carolina has passed the ball 25 times in the red zone (the average is 28). The only other player with more than 30% of his team’s red-zone targets who has a player behind him with 20% or more is N’Keal Harry, (the player with 20% is Rex Burkhead) and the team has passed 20 times in the red zone.

In short, even in terms of just raw targets in the red zone, Anderson should have more touchdowns.

This has the potential to tip over from “he’s going to score soon” to “the team moved its volume somewhere else because he couldn’t catch the touchdowns” at some point. But for now, Anderson should score a few more touchdowns soon.

Please?

Two players I want to draw your attention to

N’Keal Harry, WR NE

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As I mentioned above, Harry has a high share of New England’s targets inside the red zone (40%, with eight targets). He also has an 18% target share overall. He is working a 0.44 yards per team pass attempt, which is bad, but the average for wide receivers with a similar aDot (between six and seven) in 2020 is 0.36. The only player over one yard per team pass attempt in this range is Chris Godwin.

In summary, he’s had a good sophomore year for a player who had a terrible rookie year, and there is new hope for his future.

This week he was injured in the first quarter and is now basically “forgettable” in redraft leagues, according to the content I’ve read.

We are not playing in redraft leagues though, so…

AJ Brown, WR TEN

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Honestly, he’s someone I want to draw your attention to because it feels like all the great young wide receiver performances this year are obscuring the fact that AJ Brown is among them. He has a higher expected point per game, and just PPG, than DK Metcalf, and if that isn’t interesting enough, know that he is 13th in yards per team attempt for wide receivers (something Metcalf ranks sixth in, to be fair).

I’m not saying you have to like him more than anyone in particular, but I wanted to point out that everyone’s new favorite wide receiver from last year has still been impressive this year.

Travis Fulgham, WR PHI

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Travis Fulgham ranks 13th in target share, so he missed the top 12 list this week. However, he also ranks top five in yards per team pass attempt at the position. He has had at least seven targets in 75% of his games and is absolutely killing it as a 2019 sixth-round pick. I (almost) don’t care that I didn’t notice him before now. I can’t take my eyes off his usage this year.

I mentioned him last week as well, but it keeps happening.

For context, if Jalen Reagor was doing this, I’d rank him above DK Metcalf and AJ Brown, and I’m not sure it would be shocking. Draft capital matters. It’s a problem for his future, but don’t ignore his NFL production either.

Okay, that’s about all I have time for this week. You can find all my data for the 2020 season at the following link.

You can ask me about any of it in the comments below or on Twitter anytime.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s article, and appreciate you checking it out.

Peter Howard

@pahowdy

Addendum: The Stats explained

Real quick, here are the stats I’m using this week and what they are good for.

YD/TM Att: Yards per team pass attempt

This takes the Pass and Rush attempts of the player’s team each week and divides the player’s total yards against it. It’s a simple, yet powerful combination of efficiency and volume. It has a high R squared value in stickiness (it stays relatively consistent week over week and year over year).

It’s a good statistic to sort players by within a position.

PPG: PPR points per game

Fairly common stat that’s often undervalued these days. Depending on the sample, PPG is actually the stickiest and most accurate stat for predicting production.

EPG: Expected Points per game

This is based on rotoviz.com’s expected points formula (which I don’t know) but essentially measures how “valuable” the touches a player has received. It can be seen as a more accurate volume metric removing the player’s “efficiency” from the equation and just looking at how much value they are “given” by the team for fantasy points.

FPOE/G: Fantasy points over expected per game

Also a rotoviz stat, it gives us an idea of if a player is underperforming (negative number) or overperforming (positive number) their “given” volume. In other words, how efficient they have been.

TD Rate: Yards per Touchdown

Players typically average between 100 and 200 yards per touchdown. To be more accurate, if you’re like that, in 2020 (with more than 20 targets) wide receivers are averaging around 175 yards per touchdown, RBs are averaging 130 yards per touchdown, and tight ends are averaging 160.

Essentially, outside of this range, it tells us who may “regress” in touchdowns in the coming weeks.

Percentage of games with seven targets or more:

This one is fairly self-explanatory. I use it as a context check for target share. A high target share in a low passing offense isn’t as “good” as a lower target share in a high passing offense in terms of expected targets.

peter howard
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