Wide Receiver Notebook

Continuing our offseason look into making the 2015 season do some of our 2016 work for us, we’ll assess wide receivers through a similar lens. If you’ve missed my Play Splits or Red Zone pieces so far, I’d encourage taking a gander. Regression and Regression to the Mean are often overused phrases in fantasy analysis, but I’m going to push forward regardless with a few touchdown and target statistics that we can expect to move based on historical player context as well as efficiency and game splits data.

DeAndre Hopkins – 12 Targets per Game

Hopkins closed 2015 as the PPR WR4 and WR6 in standard formats, but his season was a tale of self correction. The Texans won just three of their first eight games, which resulted in a 63.8 passing percentage while trailing for 62.3 percent of their offensive plays. Over that opening half of the season, Hopkins averaged 14 targets and 108.8 receiving yards per game, and was the second highest scoring receiver in the league. During that stretch, Hopkins also led the NFL in targets (35), receptions (21) and receiving yards (333) in the 4th quarter of games, to go along with three of his touchdowns.

Editor’s Note: For updated rankings, projections, player profiles, positional tiers, mock drafts, sleepers and busts, exclusive columns and plenty more, check out our Draft Guide!

After their bye, the Texans went 6-2 and passed just 51.6 percent of the time, also trailing on just 36.4 percent of their offensive snaps. Hopkins’ averages dropped to 10 targets and 81.4 yards per game with just four top-20 scoring performances in the final eight weeks. Those marks still made Hopkins the overall WR12 in the season’s second half, so this is far from a hate piece. I’m simply cooler on Hopkins’ chances of reaching the elite pantheon of receiver scoring without the aid of an extremely pass-friendly climate. I’d argue that he belongs more in the second or third wideout tier rather than pushing to be part of the first. Houston’s 2016 game script will likely meet each half of last season somewhere in the middle. With so many more viable offensive targets in Houston, Hopkins will see less coverage roll his way, but he will inevitably lose volume even in the seemingly unlikely event the Texans turn back into the pumpkin they were in last year’s first half.

Torrey Smith – 62 Targets

I covered Smith and his wildly minuscule 2015 usage 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 per Pro Football Focus, which ranked 138th among receivers with at least 100 snaps in route. This was not only bizarre given the five-year, $40 million deal Smith received last offseason, it was a major outlier for his career usage. Over his first four NFL seasons, Smith was targeted on 17.3, 19.6, 19.0 and 19.1 percent of his routes. Even on such small volume in 2015, peripherally Smith was the same player he’s always been. He averaged 10.7 yards per target while scoring once every 15.5 looks, right near his 8.3 YPT and 14.5 TDPT rates in Baltimore. Over Kelly’s three seasons in Philadelphia, the Eagles’ lead receiver was targeted on 21.9, 22.5 and 20.3 percent of routes. If Smith can just get up to an 18 percent mark 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 through an interior receiver, failing to separate from added defensive attention. Cobb still salvaged a WR26 finish 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:

Year	Gm	Tgt/Gm	Rec/Gm	Catch%	Yds/Gm	Yd/Tgt	Yd/Rec	TD	TGT/TD	STDPt/Tgt	PPR/Tgt	StPt/Gm	PPR/Gm
2012	15	6.9	5.3	76.9%	63.6	9.2	11.9	8	13.0	1.49	2.26	10.3	15.6
2013	6	7.8	5.2	66.0%	72.2	9.2	14.0	4	11.8	1.6	2.26	12.5	17.7
2014	16	7.9	5.7	71.7%	80.4	10.1	14.1	12	10.6	1.59	2.31	12.7	18.3
2015	16	8.1	4.9	61.2%	51.8	6.4	10.5	6	21.5	0.96	1.57	7.7	12.7

Because nearly all of Cobb’s numbers are universal outliers to a point where they’re beyond any gradual or age-induced decline that could’ve occurred -- Cobb is still only 25 years old -- 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, allowing Cobb to revisit the interior freedom he experienced prior to last season. Tack on the fact that Cobb has 34 targets from the 10-yard line and in over the past three seasons -- tied for fourth most in the NFL -- and he can be a value pick in the third round. Cobb has only fallen to a mid-range WR2 in early drafts in that later third-round area, so owners are accounting for a bounce back with his cost. But as a third wideout in a receiver-heavy drafting approach or even as a second receiver that can smooth out an earlier selection of a more volatile Allen Robinson or Mike Evans on a weekly level, Cobb stands to be a rock-solid purchase.

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 to the notion 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 strong push for targets. Snead scored on just 4.4 percent of his 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 criminal for a Drew Brees wide receiver.

In fact, it was the third lowest touchdown-per-reception rate of any Brees receiver who’s seen 25 or more targets since he joined the Saints in 2006. (The two worse TD rates 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, we should see him at least double his touchdown output.

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

That mark ranked 24^th among all wide receivers and contributed to Green seeing just 8.3 targets per game, a career low 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 years, his lack of true lead receiver volume resulted in nine weeks at WR28 or lower on the year. Not an ideal floor from your high draft-capital receiver.

In his three years prior, Green was targeted on 28.1 percent of his routes, drawing targets 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 stays lateral, we’d be looking at nearly two full games worth of targets as an increase. With Mohamed Sanu and Marvin Jones departed and Tyler Eifert already nursing an ankle injury, seeing Green hit 150 plus targets shouldn’t be an issue.

Larry Fitzgerald – 109 Receptions

2015 was a renaissance season for Fitzgerald as he posted a career high 109 receptions en route to the most fantasy points he’s scored since 2011. But it wasn’t all smiles to close the year. Through 11 weeks, Fitzgerald was the WR4 in PPR fantasy points and WR5 in standard leagues. He slumped to the WR28 in PPR and WR41 in non-PPR 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 year, so this could be a dismissible small sample. But it’s important to note that something else happened to dramatically alter 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 tallied just 13 targets on the season prior to injury despite playing 54 percent of the team’s snaps. Before Chris’ injury, Fitzgerald saw a gaudy 29.3 percent of Arizona’s targets, which fell to 22.4 percent to close the season and through the playoffs. Fitzgerald surpassed seven targets in a game just once over the Cardinals’ final six games after bypassing that mark in 10 of the opening 12 contests.

Weeks	Gm	Tgt%	Rec/Gm	ReYd/Gm	Yd/Tgt	Yd/Rec	aDOT
1-11	10	29.3%	7.3	92.6	9.4	12.7	10.2
12-19	8	22.4%	6	61.9	7.4	10.3	7.4

*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 saw his target share drop, but his rate stats plummeted and the average depth of his targets suffocated to 97^th of 115 eligible receivers per Pro Football Focus.

There’s little doubt 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 Fitzgerald’s intermediate targets. 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.

Doug Baldwin – Touchdown Reception Once Every 7.4 Targets

Only one fantasy receiver closed 2015 hotter than Doug Baldwin. From Week 10 on, Baldwin caught 47 passes (8th) for 724 yards (5th) and 12 touchdowns (first). He had one fewer fantasy point than Antonio Brown over that span. From Weeks 12-15, Baldwin caught two or more touchdown passes in all four weeks, joining Calvin Johnson and Cris Carter as the only players to catch multiple scores in four consecutive games.

After catching just 15 touchdowns over his first four NFL seasons, Baldwin reached the paint 14 times last year. 31.2 percent of Baldwin’s PPR points came via the touchdown, trailing only Ted Ginn (32.6 percent) for the highest TD dependency in the league as Baldwin caught a touchdown once every 7.4 targets. 28 NFL receivers have caught double digit touchdowns while scoring once every 10 targets or less. Of those players, nobody increased their touchdown total the following season. The group on average lost 7.5 touchdowns off of their previous receiving total.

Outside of blind faith in those numbers, there’s a reason to be skeptical of Baldwin’s touchdowns, and that’s how he tallied them. Baldwin’s average length of touchdown was 25.3 yards as he scored seven times from outside of the red zone, tied with Odell Beckham, Brandin Cooks, Sammy Watkins and Michael Crabtree for the league lead. Outside of Crabtree, Baldwin is far from the consistent splash play provider like the rest of the receivers in that group.

In conjunction with providing so many long touchdowns, Baldwin didn’t score many short ones. Although he converted a solid 41.2 percent of his 17 red zone looks for scores (29 percent of the team total), only five of those targets came from inside the 10-yard line, which made up just 21 percent of Seattle’s team total. Last week we highlighted why there’s a big difference in those types of targets and why collecting those shorter looks are relevant. Baldwin scored 90 percent of his fantasy points from the slot in 2015, so being so reliant on long touchdowns to anchor his totals over passing volume is a tough slope to tread, making Baldwin a bigger gamble in an area of the draft where he can be expected to see 20 or more fewer targets than receivers being selected around him.

To Baldwin’s credit, he has improved his target, reception, yardage and touchdown totals in each of the past four seasons as Russell Wilson’s attempts have risen each year. Indeed, there’s a point where Baldwin’s expected touchdown regression could still meet his room for improvement across the board in other categories, creating a value if he falls too far. But even if he lands closer to 120 targets on the season, that’s going to be below a number of the receivers going around his ADP, meaning Baldwin will still have to do more with less for your roster.

Mike Evans – 4.1 Percent of his Receptions for Touchdowns

Last season, Evans was largely due for a letdown in touchdown production regardless of having a rookie quarterback throw him the football. But his season was more of an overcorrection in that department. After scoring 12 touchdowns on a wildly unsustainable 17.7 percent per-reception clip as a rookie, Evans posted nearly identical peripheral efficiency marks across the board except his touchdown rate fell to 4.1 percent. The average top-36 PPR scoring receiver in 2015 was at 10.4 percent.

Not only should his touchdown rates find some middle ground with continued development from Jameis Winston, they could return in a big way if Evans is leaned on as much as he was in 2015. Unfortunately, the ghost of Vincent Jackson still may prevent a big payoff. Evans ranked 5^th in the NFL in targets-per-route rate at 28.6 percent, but he was targeted on 32.2 percent of his routes when V-Jax was inactive (a mark that would’ve finished second in the league behind Alshon Jeffery) as opposed to a 25.6 percent mark with Jackson on the field. While that percentage doesn’t seem like a huge gap, Evans was on a plus-70 target pace over the course of a full season (200 targets to 130) when Jackson wasn’t on the field.

A lot of Evans’ expected touchdown recoil is already being priced into his ADP, but Evans may be the type of volatile weekly performer that needs to eclipse the 150 target mark to smooth those out. It’s something Jackson’s presence may compromise, even at this later stage of his career given the lack of challengers at the position in Tampa Bay. If Evans has to be my WR1, then I’m likely to pass, but he will be a target where I can insulate potential volatility with a first round receiver because there exists a scenario where a proxy of Evans’ 2014 rate stats meet a proxy of his 2015 volume.

Allen Hurns – 50 and 15 Percent Club

That club is for receivers that scored on 15 percent or more of their receptions while catching at least 50 passes in a season. The other members of that club from 2015 are the aforementioned Baldwin, Allen Robinson, Sammy Watkins and Eric Decker, all of whom we covered in the Red Zone Report.

There have been 115 such seasons since the 1970 NFL merger prior to last season and on average, that group caught 5.1 fewer touchdowns and lost 6.7 percent off their touchdown rate. Even if we move that window up to 2010 to last season to account for the league’s passing boom, there is no change. Those 18 receivers lost an average of 6.0 touchdowns the following season and 8.9 percent was shaved off of their previous touchdown rates. The only player of that group to score more touchdowns the following season was Calvin Johnson in 2011.

Hurns was anchored in fantasy by scoring 10 times -- once every 10.5 targets -- which ranked third in the league. But looking at his other totals, you can see how that touchdown scoring allowed him to outkick his production for fantasy. For all receivers, Hurns ranked 34^th in targets per game (7.0), 37^th in receptions per game (4.3) and 23^rd in yards per game (68.7) in 2015. While the touchdowns should drop, the other marks suggest that he can still be of service as a WR3 for those that are overpricing forthcoming TD regression into Hurns’ cost.

Denver WRs With and Without Peyton Manning

From Osweiler	Tgt	16Pace	Tgt%	Rec	16Pace	Catch%	ReYd	16Pace	TD	16Pace
Demaryius Thomas	79	175.6	28.7%	42	93.3	53.2%	526	1168.9	5	11.1
Emmanuel Sanders	47	125.3	20.9%	28	74.7	59.6%	463	1234.7	2	5.3
From Manning	Tgt	16Pace	Tgt%	Rec	16Pace	Catch%	ReYd	16Pace	TD	16Pace
Demaryius Thomas	98	178.2	29.7%	63	114.5	64.3%	778	1414.5	1	1.8
Emmanuel Sanders	90	163.6	27.3%	48	87.3	53.3%	672	1221.8	4	7.3

Demaryius Thomas notched career lows in rate stats such as yards per reception (12.4), yards per target (7.4) and fantasy points per target (.92), and a large part of that was due to the Broncos’ change at quarterback. Even with Peyton Manning playing the worst football of his entire career, Thomas was well on his way to a roaring season. Through eight weeks, he was actually fourth in the league in receptions and yards receiving. He had only one touchdown from Manning, but we did see a midseason reversal of touchdown fortune as Demaryius’ TD rate went from 1.5 percent to 11.9 percent, but that likely had some natural recalibration baked into it rather than strictly Brock Osweiler taking over as the primary reason.

While Manning wasn’t playing well and the Denver quarterback situation was poor overall -- ranking 24^th in completions, 28^th in passing touchdowns and 32^nd in interceptions thrown -- Manning being under center did matter for Thomas, as he largely lived off those touchdowns in the back half. If he can’t find a way to score on 10 percent of his receptions with Mark Sanchez, Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch while his rate stats still suffer as they did with Osweiler, that puts Thomas in a spot to live off of volume alone, which is a uneven road to travel week to week.

That type of efficiency creates a lot of volatility and variance, but the target volume isn’t going anywhere as the Broncos will still have shallow distribution in their passing game. At least 20 percent of the Denver pass attempts went in Thomas’ direction in every game but one last year, while he drew a 25 percent or more target share in 12 games.

The top version of Thomas from above can still be of value at his cost as your second or third receiver in the third round of PPR formats, even if you want to shave those pace totals down to the area of 80/1000/7 and his touchdown rate meets in the middle. But the days of Thomas being a primary, set-and-forget WR1 are very likely over. He had just four top-12 scoring weeks in PPR formats with nine weeks below WR25 in standard leagues a season ago.

Emmanuel Sanders is also being underpriced in totality when looking at his 2015 splits, as he was essentially the same player in bulk stats, but his target share took a major hit as he was on a 40 target loss pace over a full season without Manning. With Osweiler, Sanders saw nine or more targets just twice over his final six games after hitting that number in six of his opening eight with 90 or more yards receiving in three of those games and under 20 in two. A lot like Thomas, I see Sanders hitting his objective price point this summer based on what his total numbers will bear out, but I’m anticipating some major variance between the two week to week that could lead to frustration for owners.

Indianapolis WRs With and Without Andrew Luck

From Luck	Tgt	16Pace	Tgt%	Rec	16Pace	Catch%	ReYd	16Pace	TD	16Pace
T.Y. Hilton	65	148.6	22.8%	31	70.9	47.7%	548	1252.6	3	6.9
Donte Moncrief	54	123.4	18.9%	32	73.1	59.3%	351	802.3	5	11.4
From Other	Tgt	16Pace	Tgt%	Rec	16Pace	Catch%	ReYd	16Pace	TD	16Pace
T.Y. Hilton	69	122.7	21.6%	38	67.6	55.1%	576	1024	2	3.6
Donte Moncrief	51	90.7	15.9%	32	56.9	62.7%	382	679.1	1	1.8

Looking at the Colts’ receivers with and without Andrew Luck is interesting because Luck was a far cry from what we got from him in 2014. But even with an inefficient Luck, T.Y. Hilton was right on pace to cash in another 130 plus target, 1,200 yard, seven touchdown season, which is basically who he has shown us that he is. Hilton has been the WR10-24 in standard leagues now for four consecutive seasons and WR12-22 in PPR formats in each of the past three because of his gaudy splash play output.

Hilton could definitely still stand to see an increase in targets as the Colts have a plethora of inexperienced pass catchers on their roster behind him, while Hilton has shared a smattering of targets each year with aging veterans that have seen significant snaps. A target increase would go a long way in smoothing out some of his volatility and vault him up a tier in the receiver landscape as he’s topped 100 yards receiving in 18 of his 62 games played, but also had less than 50 yards in 26 others while only scoring nine red zone touchdowns to date in his career. Hilton’s reliance on splash plays has also cut down on his ability to sustain touchdown viability as he’s scored in just 17 of his 62 career games and in just 11 of his past 47. At a similar price point to the aforementioned Thomas, I’d still prefer Hilton outright.

While I like Hilton a lot, I especially love Donte Moncrief’s outlook. His splits with Luck last year aren’t intoxicating at face value, as he was solely dependent on touchdowns. He scored in 5-of-7 games with Luck while also being held under 50 receiving yards five times. I’m not overly concerned with that lower yardage output because of the consistent volume, however. Given the Colts’ lack of depth beyond their top two or three receivers (sophomore Phillip Dorsett is an intriguing talent but has 18 career catches), it’s hard to envision a scenario where Moncrief doesn’t push past 120 targets health permitting. If you’re giving me that many targets in an offense that has the Colts’ scoring capability as a probable floor, I’m going to make a play on that low efficiency of 6.9 yards per target (67^th of all wide receivers with 50 or more targets) taking an upward spike rather than staying neutral or going down. Moncrief’s current ADP of WR24 is priced closely to where I view his floor, and that doesn’t even include the potentially massive elevation were Hilton to miss any time.