The Worksheet: Wide Receiver Notebook

Continuing our offseason look in making the 2015 season do some of our 2016 work for us, we’re looking forward at the wide receiver position through a similar lens. If you’ve missed the look at play splits or red zone pieces so far, I’d encourage taking a gander at those. Regression and regression to the mean are often overused phrases in fantasy analysis, but I’m going to push forward regardless with a look at  a few wide receiver touchdown and target statistics that we can expect to see movement on based on their historical and player context as well as some efficiency and game splits data mixed in for a few receivers. 

DeAndre Hopkins – 12 targets per game

Hopkins closed the season as the fourth highest scoring receiver in PPR leagues and 6th in standard formats in 2015, but his season was a tale of correction happening in season, masking some of final season numbers. Over their first eight games, the Texans won just three times, which resulted in them throwing the football 63.8 percent of the time while trailing for 62.3 percent of their offensive plays. Over that opening half of the season, Hopkins averaged 14 targets per game with 108.8 receiving yards per contest and was the second highest scoring receiver in the league. During that stretch, Hopkins the led the NFL in targets (35), receptions (21) and receving yards (333) in the 4th quarter of games to go along with three of his touchdowns.

After their bye, the Texans went 6-2 and threw the football just 51.6 percent of their offensive plays as they trailed for just 36.4 percent of their offensive snaps. Hopkins’ averages went to 10 targets per game and 81.4 yards per game with just four top-20 scoring weeks to close the season. Those marks were still good for being the 12th highest scoring receiver overall over that span, so this is far from a hate piece on Hopkins, but more of a cooling on him being able to reach the pantheon of receiver output on his own without the aid of an extremely negative passing climate for fantasy. I’d argue that he belongs more in the second or third tier of wide receivers rather than pushing to be a part of the first. Houston’s game script in 2016 will likely meet both halves of last season somewhere in the middle. With so many more targets in house this season, Hopkins will see less coverage roll his way, but he will also trade off some volume even if the Texans turn back into the pumpkin they were to start last season.

Torrey Smith – 62 Targets

I covered Smith and his wildly minuscule usage from a season ago when unearthing what Chip Kelly could mean for his 2016 prospects, so I won’t eat too much space here. Smith was targeted on just 11 percent of his routes in 2015 per Pro Football Focus, which ranked 138th at the position for receivers with at least 100 snaps in route. This was not only bizarre given the contract he received last offseason, but was a major outlier for his career usage, which had been steady while in Baltimore. Over his first four seasons, Smith was targeted on 17.3, 19.6, 19.0 and 19.1 percent of his routes. Even last season on such small volume, peripherally Smith was the same player that he’s always been. He averaged 10.7 yards per target while scoring once every 15.5 looks, right near his 8.3 yards per target and touchdown every 14.5 target marks for his career up until last year. Over his three seasons in Philadelphia, Kelly’s leading receiver was targeted on 21.9, 22.5 and 20.3 percent of their routes respectively. If Smith can just get up to an 18 percent mark this season while running 550 routes (he ran 508 in 2015), it will put him right against 100 targets for the season.

Randall Cobb – Everything

There wasn’t more of a true bust than Cobb last season. After Jordy Nelson was lost late in the summer, owners elevated Cobb to fringe WR1 status. He then injured his shoulder in preseason and found out that life is a lot harder when the passing game funnels itself through an interior receiver as he struggled to separate from the added defensive attention. Cobb still salvaged being the 26th scorer overall in PPR leagues, but he was the WR32 or lower in 11 weeks while scoring as the WR41 or lower in seven of those contests. Just look at his rate stats from last season compared to his previous three years.

Because nearly all of Cobb’s numbers are universal outliers to a point where they’re beyond any gradual decline that could’ve occurred, I’d say they are almost certainly going up in 2016, even if they don’t reach his previous totals. With the return of Nelson, a possible role extension for Jeff Janis and the signing of Jared Cook, I believe the Packers will make it a point of emphasis to stretch the field vertically more in 2016, allowing Cobb to operate with similar freedom that he experienced prior to last season. Tack on the fact that Cobb has 34 targets from the 10-yard and in over the past three seasons, tied for the fourth most in the NFL and he can be a value in the third round. Cobb has only fallen to a mid WR2 in early drafts to that later third area, so owners are accounting for a bounce back with his cost, but as a third receiver in a wide receiver heavy approach or even as a second wide receiver that can smooth out an earlier selection of Allen Robinson or Mike Evans on a weekly level, Cobb stands to be a solid purchase with Green Bay’s light outlook in 2016.

Willie Snead – Touchdown on 4.4 Percent of Receptions

Snead was a pleasant surprise for those playing the waiver wire last season and although there’s merit that he could be “The New Lance Moore” for fantasy, there’s plenty of reason to believe that Snead will be better in 2016 even if newly acquired Michael Thomas and Coby Fleener make a push for targets. Snead scored on just 4.4 percent receptions (90th), catching a touchdown once every 33.7 targets (71st). Snead himself may not have a mean to regress to, but those marks were criminally for a Drew Brees wide receiver.

In fact it was the third lowest touchdown per reception rate that a Brees receiver that has seen 25 or more targets in a season has posted since he joined the Saints in 2006. The only other two worse belonged to Devery Henderson. For his career in New Orleans, Brees’ receivers have scored on 9.9 percent of their receptions and caught a touchdown once every 15.9 targets. Even if Snead just matches his 101 targets from a season ago without building on them, we should see him at least double his touchdown output this upcoming season.

A.J. Green – Targeted on 22.8 Percent of his Routes

That mark ranked 24^th of all wide receivers and contributed in Green seeing just 8.3 targets per game, his lowest total since his rookie season in 2011.  Although Green ended up as the WR8 in seasonal scoring and scored double digit touchdowns for the third time in four seasons, that lack of true lead receiver volume contributed into him having nine weeks at WR28 or lower on the season. Not an ideal floor from your lead high capital receiver.

In his three seasons prior, Green was targeted on 28.1 percent of his routes, seeing a target on 27.1, 27.4 and 30.9 percent of his routes each season, respectively. Even if Green is targeted on just 25 percent this season and his snap usage remains lateral, we’d be looking at nearly two full games worth of targets as an increase this season. With Mohamed Sanu and Marvin Jones recently departed via free agency and Tyler Eifert already nursing an ankle injury, seeing Green approach 150 plus targets shouldn’t be an issue this upcoming season. 

Larry Fitzgerald – 109 Receptions

2015 was a renaissance season for Fitzgerald as he posted career high 109 receptions on his way to the most fantasy points he’s scored in a season since 2011, but it wasn’t all smiles for his owners to close the season. Through 11 weeks, Fitzgerald was fourth in PPR fantasy points and 5th in standard leagues for all wide receivers. Afterwards, Fitzgerald was 28th in PPR and 41st in standard leagues over the final six weeks. It’s not unusual to see a player of Fitzgerald’s age decline as the season goes on and both Michael Floyd and John Brown got healthy over the back third of the season, so this could be a dismissible small sample, but something else happened that dramatically altered the Arizona offense.

Chris Johnson was lost for the season in Week 12, infusing David Johnson as the primary back for the Cardinals. Johnson’s receiving ability immediately cut into Fitzgerald’s intermediate target output. Chris had tallied just 13 targets on the season prior to injury despite playing 54 percent of the team snaps. Prior to Chris’ injury, Fitzgerald had seen a gaudy 29.3 percent of the Arizona targets, which fell to 22.4 percent to close the season throughout the playoffs. Fitzgerald surpassed seven targets in a game just once over the Cardinals final six games after bypassing that mark in 10 of their opening 12 games.

*aDOT =Average Depth of Target and is Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

That missing 6.9 percent from team target share went right to David Johnson as his target hold increased from 8.1 percent to 16.7 percent over those final eight weeks. Over that span, Fitzgerald not only seen his target share drop, but his rate stats plummet and depth of his targets suffocate to being ranked 97^th of 115 eligible receivers over that span per Pro Football Focus.

There’s little doubt that David Johnson’s usage will come down from the pace he was on to close the season, but Johnson’s viability out of the backfield remains a direct threat to the intermediate targets Fitzgerald sees in the offense. Fitzgerald is the type of receiver who needs to push 150 targets to cover his lower yards per target and reception marks, which is something I believe is in jeopardy of duplicating itself in 2016 while the Arizona offense is entirely intact. 

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