Air yards and their entire family of associated, advanced receiving metrics have become rather trendy over the last few seasons. Especially with the advent of so many next-gen stats services, savvy fantasy managers are beginning to evaluate receiving opportunity versus superficial receiving production.
Which is to say: advanced receiving opportunity metrics can be especially helpful when evaluating players week-to-week when their Fantasy production might not necessarily be a direct result of their scoring opportunities.
Today, using DraftKings Network’s preferred next-gen stat aggregator, NFL Next Gen Stats, we’ll endeavor a thorough retrospective of the 2023 season with an eye towards:
- Defining air yards and some related metrics so as to understand why/how they might help us identify WR sleepers
- Walk away with a few mid-to-late round WR names we’re slightly more confident in based on their air-yard-related opportunities in 2023
- Walk away, also, with a few receivers we might want to fade a bit based on their production over expectation in 2023
Let’s trace some jetstreams, shall we?
What we talk about when we talk about air yards
S/O Raymond Carver. Simply enough, air yards are a measurement of how far the football has traveled through the air on its way to a receiver, regardless of whether or not the receiver catches the ball.
That last bit is precisely what differentiates air yards from receiving yards, and what makes them a much more abstract currency that we’ve come to value.
So, for example, for all those of us who watched Chiefs WR Marquez Valdez-Scantling drop so many deep bombs in 2022 and 2023 and saw those plays count for naught towards our actual fantasy scores that week, air yards are, shall we say, validating. The yards of that incompleted pass get credited to MVS, and suggest that the offense was manufacturing opportunities for him to score, even if those opportunities rarely crystallized.
Let’s call it like it is: opportunity in football is just another way to think about potential volume. And, as ever, volume remains our fickle overlord as Fantasy managers.
Other important air-yard-related stats to know
Here are some other important air-yard-related stats to keep in mind when evaluating wideouts, as defined by NFL Next Gen Stats:
The rest of the stats we’ll reference in tandem with the list above are self-explanatory.
Wide Receivers to target in 2024 based on unrealized air yards
Because that’s what we care about, right? Which receivers had the opportunities, whose offenses manufactured touches for them down field, that didn’t translate directly to statistical performance.
Unrealized air yards in 2023 mean potential production in 2024, and as we prepare for our drafts, we’re looking for any advantage. So let’s see if we can draw some conclusions, here, that’ll give us a leg up in our drafts.
We’ll start with a marquee name to get even more excited about, and move into some middle-round values/fades.
Garret Wilson, Wide Receiver, New York Jets
Most Fantasy managers won’t need any more reason to target Wilson in the first round of their drafts. Goodness knows there’s enough hype surrounding the healthy(?)-Rodgers-led Jets right now. They’re currently +1900 favorites to win the Super Bowl on DraftKings Sportsbook, and their win/loss total is currently set at 10.5.
But what’s better than some deep-dive validation on your first-round pick? It would come as little surprise to many of us if Wilson’s air yard stats last year were unimpressive, what with the disastrous and dizzying quarterback carousel in New York. And yet, despite all the dysfunction, he still finished the 2023 season as the tenth-best wide receiver when it comes to air yards, with a total of 1,716.
All this suggests that even with a replacement-level quarterback, Wilson last year would have been significantly more productive than his WR26 finish. Wilson’s RecYOE figure at that ranking is a staggering -136 (eighth-worst in the NFL). This means he was expected to end the year with 136 more receiving yards than he actually did. All this during a year when he somehow still managed to clear the 1,000-yard mark.
Wilson salvaged last season despite a paltry 2.5 average Sep. figure, which tells us a lot about how defenses were playing him. Clearly they were shading coverage his way, closing throwing windows, because a talent like Wilson likely generates more than an average of 2.5 yards of separation on his defenders when the offense is clicking.
With Aaron Rodgers being more hands-on with the offense, I imagine we’ll see some schemes that build in designs for more separation between Wilson and his defenders, making it easier for him to translate opportunity to production.
Important to note, too: he commanded a 26% target share last year, but he also had seven drops. Wilson is the clear alpha in the Jets’s hangar, and he should be less frustrated and mistake-prone this year. Let’s expect to see his production skyrocket so long as his quarterback situation both improves and remains consistent.
Marquise Brown, Wide Receiver, Kansas City Chiefs
I know we’re a bit concerned about his injury, but a mostly-healthy Hollywood Brown with Patrick Mahomes throwing him the ball—even despite the crowded receiver room—is a plenty thrilling prospect for the entire NFL. Made even more so if you key in on a few of Browns air yards stats from last year.
Hollywood Brown, despite missing time with injury last year, finished third-worst overall among wide receivers in RecYOE, with a figure of -192. Granted, he still did command an impressive 23.5% target share in his woebegone 2023 Cardinals offense, so the inflated RecYOE stat might be a result of forced volume.
But—we love that, right? It’s not altogether unlike the Wilson situation: Brown had a frustrating and not-altogether-healthy year, bad quarterback play, still commanded a healthy target share, and managed to be a decent producer.
Just to beat the drum even louder on the comparison between Brown’s and Wilson’s 2023 seasons: Brown had the exact same Sep rate as Wilson, at 2.5. So, again, we can deduce that bad quarterback play led to tighter coverage on brown, smaller windows for him to catch the ball, and thus a down season in terms of actual production.
He’s a huge positive regression candidate, and the most important distinction between he and Wilson’s outlooks for 2024: Hollywood has Patrick Mahomes throwing him the ball. I’m all in on this move to the Chiefs for his Fantasy numbers.
Quick aside: Mahomes, with both Hollywood and Xavier Worthy added to his hangar of wideouts, is the favorite to win NFL MVP at +475 odds on DraftKings Sportsbook. That’s at least a little juicy.
Romeo Doubs, WR, Green Bay Packers
We all know he had a bonkers 2023 playoffs, so he’s on a lot of Fantasy radars so far. But, anecdotally, I think Fantasy managers who invested in Doubs season-long last year were largely frustrated with his production. He did, after all, finish as the WR36, which is eleven slots lower than Jayden Reed (WR25).
The trepidation is fair: Reed is a guy for whom Green Bay’s offense is manufacturing touches in the passing game as well as the running game. But Doubs could have been a lot more productive last year, such that I think we can dispel at least some of the concern about investing in him, especially as Jordan Love is maturing as a passer.
Doubs finished the regular season with the 16th-worst RecYOE with -101. In a crowded Packers receiving room last year, he still garnered a 19.8% target share. Interestingly enough, though, Doubs had an impressive 21.3% prime target share, highest of all Packers pass-catchers.
One other encouraging stat: while Doubs finished the 2023 season with 1,168 air yards to Jayden Reed’s 937. This is all to say that Doubs is still getting more valuable opportunities than Reed in the passing game, despite them both dealing with injuries at different times last season.
Draft Doubs with confidence at his current ADP, and don’t be surprised if he reaches new summits in 2024.
Demario Douglas, WR, New England Patriots
Let’s pop off! Douglas has New Englanders excited about a Patriot’s playmaking ability for the first time since Julian Edelman retired. With Mac Jones as his QB last year, Douglas showed flashes of production, spectacle, and verve. So, how did they eye test translate to opportunity statistics?
Douglas only had 641 air yards, which is fairly low-percentile, but consider how tough it was for him to even command a snap share as a rookie in New England, let alone how tough it was for him to translate that snap share to any meaningful production with Mac Jones at the helm.
What we’re excited about? Pop’s whopping 25.0% target share last year. Again, this tells us the offense was manufacturing was to get him the ball. Forcing it there, even, at times, just to try to get him in space so he could make plays.
He also has the highest Sep figure of any receiver on this list, with 3.1. That’s exciting, because it means even in an offense where Douglas was the primary receiving threat in a deflated-balloon passing game, he was creating separation on his own while running routes.
It’s hard to invest in any Patriot right now, but Douglas, at his current ADP, is a fine later-round dart throw.
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