Are Bigger Wide Receivers Really Better?

Is Bigger Better?

With the NFL Draft just hours away, football enthusiasts of all walks are busy looking over their lists and numbers and lists of numbers to make sure our “big boards” and “mock drafts” are as final as they are going to get.  In reviewing my position of focus, wide receivers, I've been picking apart a particular spreadsheet that brought some interesting insights based the ideal “size” of potential WR draft candidates.  We have been taught that a large WR is better for numerous reasons.  Especially as Americans, we go by the mantra “Bigger is better” but in this case, is it? 

Density

For the purpose of this article, our data will be pulled from the top 20 WRs in terms of receiving yards over the past 5 seasons ending 2018.  We will define a big receiver as one whose weight in pounds divided by height in inches (referred to as “Density” for this article) is greater than one standard deviation from the average of that group.  Looking at the most recently ended season, we can see the Density ranges from 2.59 lbs/in (Antonio Brown) to 3.00 lbs/in (Mike Evans) with the average at 2.77.

Productivity

How do we measure productivity?  Well, if we went simply by receiving yards, we would see the larger the receiver, the higher up on the rankings:

• WRs in 2018 with density of 2.93 lbs/in and above  (like Mike Evans, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Davante Adams) had an average Top 20 Receiving Yards rank of 3.6
• WRs with density less than 2.65 lbs/in (like Antonio Brown, Brandin Cooks, Tyler Lockett and T.Y. Hilton) placed around 10.8 on the Top 20 list.

And so the answer would not be more clear, the WRs with higher density are get more yards so they are, therefore, better receivers.  Case closed, right?  Not so fast, my friend.

Over the last five seasons there is a pretty causal relationship in between receiving yards and targets among the Top 20 WRs (on average over the 5 years, about 64.1% correlation, as high as 91.4% in 2015).  Each period, larger density players received more targets, on average, than their smaller league mates ranging from 5.5% more in 2015 to 24.2% more in 2018.  So if we know the larger receivers have higher receiving yard totals because they get more targets, the only measure that makes sense is Yards/Target. 

Yards per Target

When we look at this number over the last 5 seasons, of Top 20 WRs, those with Density less than 1 standard deviation below the average out gained those with Density greater than 1 standard deviation above the average each year based on Yards per Target by at least 12.1%. 

When you look at the broader picture and separate the Top 20 into above and below average Density, the lighter receivers as a whole, outperformed the bigger ones by no less than 3.8%, up to 13.3% for the 2014 season.

So, as the larger WRs received more targets, smaller WRs provided far greater Yards per Target, based on the Top 20 reception yard gainers over the last 5 years.

So What?

OK, so what. What if the higher Yards per Target were during garbage time and were meaningless?  Well, we could go back and pick through each game to determine the importance of the yards to gain, but we have a simpler way to look at this by comparing results of players in the Top 20 whose teams made the playoffs compared to those in the same Top 20 who sat home and watch the playoffs from home.

Over the last five playoff periods, Top 20 receivers who played on playoff teams had higher Yards per Target than those who missed the playoffs every year except one year (2016).

Also, Average Density of Top 20 WRs whose teams made the playoffs was below average each year while density of those who missed the playoffs is above average.

Conclusion - Play Small Ball?

From the above, it is not unreasonable to be left with the following beliefs:

1. Larger WRs (based on “Density”) are typically better represented in the Top 20 WR based on receiving yards although this would appear because there is a strong correlation between targets and receiving yards and the larger WRs statistically receive more targets. 
2. Despite the lower share of targets, WRs with below average density provide higher Yards per Target than those above average (by at least 3.8% in each of the last 5 years).
3. The value of the contribution of the below average WRs is validated by the observation that of the Top 20 WRs used for our data pool, the average WR density for teams making the playoffs is below average while that of teams missing is above average.

This is just a rough analysis. Clearly, much more intensive research is conducted by teams leading up to the NFL draft, but it is pretty clear that “prototypical” size for a WR is a concept that may not be founded in anything other an what is intuitive. "Bigger is better" is assumed but the data here can convince otherwise.