2018 NFL Impact Receiver Measures

Potential vs Impact

Those of you who follow this blog understand the use of efficiency measures as early identifying tools for screening out college players with potential.  Efficiency shows who has made the most of the opportunities they have been given but they don't always show the gaudy baseline statistics fans look for.   I've developed a way to quantify efficiency through the Return on Investment metric which has screened out players such as Ken Golladay, Cooper Kupp, Keelan Cole, Josh Reynolds, Keke Coutee, and others before they became more commonly known. 

But now that we've identified potential, once they get to the big time, what's next?

Impact. 

Impact for our purposes is measured using three metrics:

• Yards per Target
• Targets to Touchdowns ratio 
• Yards After Catch to Air Yards ratio

After analyzing 2018's Top 100 players in terms of receptions  (excluding RBs), here are the statistically elite players (greater than 1 standard deviation above the mean) for each category:

Yards per Target (Average 8.44 YPT)

•  Top Gun Tyler Lockett produced Yards per Target at a rate 63% better than average (8.44 Y/T) and 25% better than the number two man, Mike Evans. 

• George Kittle represented Tight Ends on the list, showing results 20% better than average.
• Two members of the elite performers will likely not be playing in 2019 so we will see how that impacts the Chiefs and Parriots going forward.

Targets per Touchdown (Average of 1 TD every 23.13 Targets)

•  Mike Williams did not blow it up in terms of gross receptions or yards but he scored at a faster clip than any player in the data group after taking. medical redshirt his rookie season.

• Calvin Ridley was #5 on the list, but his TD production exceeds his teammate Julio Jones' who needs more than twice the number of targets to keep pace.
• The slowest Targets per TD rate was a Raven who scored at a rate of 1 touchdown every 95 targets . 

Yards After Catch to Air Yards ratio (Average of 0.65 YAC/AY)

• Engram dwarfs the competition with a ridiculous 2.05 yards after the catch for every air yard.

• Not surprising, the top 3 players are Tight Ends who combine size and speed; both Kupp and Moore were human freight trains in college, so no surprise to see them with their physical running styles on this list.
• Of the top 10 players in terms of gross YAC, only Kittle (who  registered the highest YAC total for 2018) was a standout in terms of YAC/AY ratio comparison. 
•  The man with the most "upside" is a long, lanky receiver on Carolina who had a ratio of 0.16:1; he eeked out 1 YAC every 6.25 Air Yards.  That's basically falling down after the catch.

Your Impact Players 2018

We gave every player a grade in each category and ranked the aggregate scores awarding letter grades from A to F with he top performer earning 100%  and grading each subsequent player based on the differential in score compared to #1.
The 3 rankings were averaged and the same differential grading was implemented to simplify  the rankings.

Tier I equates to an A+ (100) through A- (90) grade.

Tier II equates to a B+ (89) through B- (80).

Tier I

• Lockett was the #1 overall Impact Receiver for 2018;  we should expect to see his gross numbers increase given the retirement of Doug Baldwin. 
• Kupp is in the conversation at #2. What's more, the differential between his score and that of the third place player is 4.2%, the largest margin in the survey.
• Which is about twice as large as the next largest margin between any two consecutive players.
• And is about 10x larger than the average margin between players scoring 80 or higher. 
• Hollywood Higgins is proving to be a solid component of the Browns offense and it will be interesting to see what effect the revamped CLE receiving corps has on his performance. 

Tier II

• TB led the NFL in Passing Offense in 2018 and has FOUR Impact receivers in Tier II, the most from any single team across both Tiers I and II.
• Watkins will be one to watch in 2019 as KC's wide receiver situation gets a bit murky. The opportunity could not have been set up any better for him to take a more meaningful role in what looks to remain a high powered offense.
• Missing in Action: Teams not represented in the top two tiers: BAL, BUF, CAR, DAL, DEN, DET, MIA, TEN, WAS
• NFC West is the only division fully represented across the top two tiers.

 Outside Looking In

The following players were below the 70 points or "low C" mark:

•  Crabtree, BAL :  63.6%
• Landry, CLE:       62.8%
• Reed, WAS:         62.1% 
• Doctson, WAS:    61.6%
• Graham, GB:       61.3% 
• Gabriel, CHI:      58.7%
• Wright, CAR:      57.2%
• Amendola, MIA: 55.5% 
• Snead, BAL:        55.4%

• With no player higher than mid "C" level (John Brown), we'll see if the Lamar Jackson experiment in BAL takes off in 2019.
• WAS is also represented twice in the bottom tier and they are hoping they can get McLaurin and Harmon going at WR especially with that murky QB situation. 

Check back during the season for Impact updates of which receivers are contributing at a high level for their teams. 

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