The unspoken truth about fantasy receivers in 2021 is that Cooper Kupp was the only good draft pick.
Every other wideout was either a remorseless team killer or so inconsistent, so unreliable that fantasy managers have subsequently sworn off ever taking an early-round receiver. We’ll forget that Jonathan Taylor was the only good running back draft pick of 2021 and move on before the dissonance takes hold.
As a radicalized Zero RB truther, I have complaints for management, starting with wideout touchdown scoring.
My griping isn’t done. It never is. We also saw a dramatic dip in wide receiver receptions in 2021 despite the NFL’s extra regular season game.
Everything that went right for Stefon Diggs went wrong in 2021, Tyreek Hill had his week-winning upside effectively stripped away midway through the season, DeAndre Hopkins wasn’t even good when healthy, Calvin Ridley left the Falcons for mental health purposes, DK Metcalf was a victim of his team’s incompetence, A.J. Brown battled nonstop injuries from start to finish, Keenan Allen’s short-target gravy train went off the tracks, Adam Thielen struggled through injury, D.J. Moore’s early-season promise curdled along with Carolina’s atrocious QB situation, Bears coaches didn’t even know Allen Robinson was on the roster, the Cowboys refused to feature CeeDee Lamb, and Terry McLaurin was done in by some of the worst quarterbacking in the NFL.
Davante Adams was his usual excellent self. So we had that going for us, which is nice.
Then there’s Kupp, whose raw stats and peripheral numbers make no sense. Throughout 2021, I’d often double and triple check Kupp’s underlying stats to make sure I hadn’t made an egregious mistake. It was all correct, and it was all otherworldly. Being an extension of a team’s rushing attack, its most lethal downfield pass catcher, and its only red zone threat turns out to be good for one’s fantasy value. Kupp’s chemistry with Matthew Stafford -- forged through many avocado toast-fueled offseason breakfasts -- was undeniable.
The most perplexing part of Kupp’s 2021 production was that it doesn’t scream regression in 2022. His ‘21 touchdown rate was about two percent higher than his career TD rate, his catch rate was around three percent higher than his career mark, his yards per reception was just 0.7 higher than his career average, and his 8.8 average depth of target (aDOT) wasn’t that much higher than his 8.2 aDOT over his five NFL seasons. Kupp hardly came from nowhere: He entered 2021 two years removed from a top-four fantasy campaign with Jared Goff as his quarterback. He might simply be great. Kupp, in my less-than-humble opinion, should be the automatic No. 1 pick in redraft formats next summer.
Targets, And Who Gets Them
You may have heard earning targets is a skill. Consider every time fantasy analysts have glommed onto a no-name wideout who is the Last Man Standing in an injury-riddled receiver group. The Last Man Standing has to see ten targets, we say. He is, after all, the Last Man Standing.
We then tilt our brains out when the Last Man catches three of four targets for 27 scoreless yards while someone else commands double-digit looks. Fantasy managers would do well to pay close attention to any pass catcher piling up targets, as best reflected in the targets per route run metric.
Beyond the usual suspects, there’s Kadarius Toney, the Last Man Standing among Giants wideouts early in the 2021 season. He also happened to be an adept route runner and a stunningly explosive playmaker after the catch. Toney tied Tyreek Hill with 2.19 yards per route run, the tenth highest mark among wideouts in 2021. Criminally misused by Joe Judge and Jason Garrett after New York’s receivers recovered from their myriad injuries, Toney -- who gets a marked upgrade with new head coach Brian Daboll -- did a lot with a little in his rookie campaign. His string of injuries shouldn’t scare managers from going in on Toney in 2022; he’s by far and away the Giants’ best offensive weapon who can (and should) be used across the formation as a living, breathing nightmare for opposing defenses. After all, commanding targets isn’t new for Toney, who in his final collegiate season led the Florida Gators with a 19 percent target share. That Florida offense, lest you forget, included a guy named Kyle Pitts.
DK Metcalf’s up-and-down 2021 season -- in which he briefly (and remarkably) fell outside fantasy relevance -- included some positive indicators for 2022 and beyond. His 28 percent target per route run rate was five points higher than Tyler Lockett and a huge jump from his 16.9 percent TPPR in 2020. Trapped in an intentionally uninventive offense, Metcalf’s true upside may never be explored as long as he’s a Seahawk. For this, Pete Carroll should be tried in an international court. Metcalf’s air yards per game actually fell from 105.4 in 2020 to 98.3 in 2021, not nearly an alarming decrease considering Russell Wilson’s midseason absence and subsequent struggles. His WOPR -- not the genocidal computer from the 1983 movie War Games, but a weighted average of a player’s target market share -- ticked up from 2020 to 2021. Here’s hoping the most physically dominant receiver in football falls in 2022 redraft formats.
Justin Jefferson has succeeded in an offensive system designed specifically not to explore the wideout’s full potential. Jefferson in 2021 tied Davante Adams’ for the league’s highest WOPR (0.75) while leading Minnesota in TPPR by a country mile. Jefferson, who has the second most air yards over the past two seasons combined, now gets a coaching staff committed to scoring points and refusing to establish the run only to trigger the analytics nerds. In games where Jefferson has seen at least ten targets (an admittedly arbitrary cutoff), he’s averaged 7.4 receptions, 104.2 yards, and 1.1 touchdowns -- or about 24 PPR points per game. Jefferson’s cap could come all the way off in 2022. There will be a reasonable case for taking Jefferson as the second receiver off the draft board in next summer’s redraft leagues.
A.J. Brown, like Metcalf, was a maddening player in 2021, seemingly coming off the field every fourth play and missing four games with various ailments. But Brown showed in 2021, as if there were any doubt, that he’s a target-dominating alpha when healthy. He went from 11th in WOPR in 2020 to seventh in 2021, hogging targets in the low-volume Tennessee offense. Julio Jones’ addition to the Titans roster had no impact on Brown, who took in 27 percent of the team’s air yards when active. Only six receivers had a higher air yards share last year. It’s only a matter of health for the nearly unstoppable fourth year receiver in 2022.
A quick and seemingly out-of-left-field note on receiver peripheral numbers: Deonte Harris, the little-used downfield threat for the Saints, popped in several categories last year. He was fifth in yards per route run, catching 36 of his 59 targets in 13 games as a part-time receiver for New Orleans. He was targeted on a hefty 28 percent of his pass routes. Nearly 20 percent of his targets came on throws of at least 20 yards -- caught four of 11 deep balls for 195 yards and two touchdowns. In limited opportunity, Harris proved electric with the ball in his hands. A larger role for Harris could be excellent for fantasy purposes.
Air Yards/Prayer Yards Dominators
The widespread dismissal of air yards as an important measurement of a pass catcher’s opportunity for high-value passing attempts strikes me as curious bordering on inexplicable. That some receivers rack up loads of air yards without converting them into actual yards and real-life fantasy points shouldn’t dissuade us from tracking a guy’s downfield opportunities. Sure, some air yards can be deemed prayer yards -- but not because of the wideout.
It’s usually a woefully inaccurate quarterback who makes those yards prayerful.
Below is a look at wide receivers who in 2021 had the largest share of their team’s air yards (in games in which they were active).
In Kansas City’s relatively dink and dunk approach in beating two high safeties, Hill became a high-volume compiler instead of a fantasy producer who could make or break a matchup with a single reception. Hill’s air yards per target dropped by 2.6 from 2020 to 2021, though his share of the Chiefs’ air yards remained intact. Hill in 2021 caught nine of 25 passes (36 percent) of more than 20 yards. In 2020, he nabbed 13 of 33 deep balls (39.5 percent). While those sorts of targets are inherently volatile, we should focus on the decrease in downfield looks, even with an extra regular season game. Hill will head into 2022 with a safer floor than he has had in his time as the team’s No. 1 wideout. His stratospheric weekly upside will be limited, thanks to defenses outright refusing to be beat by Patrick Mahomes’ killer deep shot.
McLaurin was the epitome of hard luck in 2021. Nothing broke right for the target-commanding Commanders wideout, plagued by horrific play from Taylor Heinicke throughout the season. It didn’t help that Washington turtled into an ultra-run heavy offense during their lucky four-game win streak near season’s end. McLaurin finished fourth among all pass catchers with 33 targets of more than 20 yards, but managed to catch a meager 33 percent of those balls. His ability to get valuable deep looks should be the key takeaway from his borderline devastating 2021 fantasy campaign. Hopefully Ron Rivera’s efforts to lure a decent quarterback to Dan Snyder’s franchise pay off and McLaurin gets an upgrade under center in 2022. Probably you won’t fall off your seat when you read Heinicke completed 32.8 percent of his passes of more than 20 yards last season, the sixth-worst mark in the league. No QB had more interceptions on downfield attempts in 2021. Scary Terry must be freed.
Watch out if Ja’Marr Chase’s aDOT in 2022 looks anything like his late-season aDOT in a more aggressive, attacking Bengals offense. Chase’s late-season explosion was fueled in part by a tweak in his usage. From Week 13 to Week 17, Chase averaged 13.6 yards per target as Joe Burrow’s unquestioned first read. On the year, the rookie notched 11.5 yards per target. A revamped Cincinnati offensive line and more of the pass-first offense we saw in the season’s second half could fuel an absurd sophomore season for Chase.
Not pictured in the above chart: Stefon Diggs. For the second straight season, Diggs was second in air yards and took in 35 percent of Buffalo’s air yards. The dirty little secret of Diggs’ disappointing 2021? His opportunities became more volatile. He recorded 33 downfield targets in 2021 after seeing a mere 16 deep balls in his terrific 2020 season. Diggs’ air yards per target and aDOT jumped too. His yards per route, meanwhile, crashed from 2.49 in 2020 to 1.84 in 2021. The nearly automatic PPR points Diggs collected by the truckful in 2020 weren’t there for much of the 2021 season. It’s hard to say if those intermediate targets will return in 2022 with the ascendance of Divisional Round hero Gabriel Davis.
What We Learned
Perhaps the central takeaway from Kupp’s unholy 2021 season is the value in seeking receivers who might be their team’s No. 1 wideout while being drafted as a No. 2. Remember: Robert Woods was taken before Kupp, a fact that must not be lost to history. In 2020, we saw the same phenomenon with Calvin Ridley seizing the Falcons’ WR1 mantle from Julio Jones and Robby Anderson out-producing assumed WR1 D.J. Moore. The 2019 season saw Chris Godwin usurp Mike Evans -- who was drafted two rounds earlier than his teammate -- as Tampa’s WR1.
It happens every year, and we probably require more conversation about WR1 candidates who can be drafted as their team’s WR2. This discourse will bring me no pleasure.
We also learned 2020 was a brain-melting outlier of a season that required a heavy dose of context when analyzing. Many of the above receivers, I must say, fell on the wrong side of volatility, or luck, or whatever you want to call it. The failure of most top-end wideouts to deliver top-end results in 2021 will likely create a Robust RB backlash unlike we’ve ever seen in 2022. I, for one, will be here for it.
