FANTASY FOOTBALL ARTICLES

Rod Tidwell: I am a valuable commodity! I go across the middle! I see a dude coming at me, trying to kill me, I tell myself "Get killed. Catch the ball!' BOO YA! Touchdown! I make miracles happen!
Jerry Maguire: How’s your head?
Rod Tidwell: Bubblicious
(From the movie Jerry Maguire, 1996)

Understanding wide receivers is critical and yet most challenging in fantasy football. Unlike running backs and quarterbacks, a wideout has a complicated role on an offensive play. The wideout must get off the line cleanly and into his exact route so that the quarterback knows where to look for him. He has to get enough separation from the defensive backs so that the quarterback considers him as the best option. He must then catch the ball often at top speed and that pass may be coming over his shoulder, drilled as a fastball into his chest or lofted a mighty jump and fingertip catch away. Oh yes, and he must actually catch and hold on to the ball while every defensive back turns their attention to crushing him without the nuisance of wading through any blockers.

Great receivers are not born overnight and they are not created on a practice field. When reviewing wideouts, realize that the equation for success of the wide receiver is different from those for quarterbacks and running backs.

Rule 9 – WR Value = (Talent x 2) x Situation x Opportunity

As always, talent is expression of natural ability, attitude, preparation and hard work. And for a position that takes longer to learn and master, wide receivers must exemplify those attributes to have significant fantasy value because he is merely the conclusion of a passing play that could have any number of endings and only one involves him catching the ball and gaining yards.
It is more than mere opportunity – there are always multiple receivers on any given play. Situation matters but most teams average between 30 and 35 passes per game. Just being on the field is not enough with so many options for the quarterback, it is all about talent to make a wideout become a preferred target that creates consistency and productivity. Consider too that success only breeds more coverage by the defense, so the best of the best are more than just incrementally better than the other receivers on his team.

One last qualifier for wide receiver success that is not quantifiable. They need to be crazy. Maybe not so much the “wear a foil hat to prevent alien abduction” sort of crazy. He needs to be a bit off-center in that obsessively dedicated, fearless and often more than a little conceited type of way. There can be no reticence of a receiver when he goes out into a pattern. He has no blockers. He is going over the middle at times to catch passes in the heart of the defense. There is perhaps no job on the team that demands as much courage as the wide receiver and he needs to be completely confident in his abilities.. He needs to be “crazy good”. Many come across as egotistical and self-centered but that is merely a by-product of his need for supreme confidence. After all, he needs to feel “bubblicious” on every play.

Concerns and Adjustments

Thanks to their sheer number and varying role in every game, no other position enjoys as many “break out” seasons as does wide receiver.  After reviewing past statistics both overall and per game to create your initial projections, there are several concerns that you must apply to those calculated numbers before you can be confident you have nailed down the toughest position to project.

1. Coaching Changes – The worst impact to a wideout is a change in offensive scheme typically brought about by a coaching change. As noted, a pass play is fairly complex in terms of what has to happen and that means all players on the offense have to be well versed in their roles for the wide receiver to even get a pass thrown to him. Despite the reality that most teams suffer through a losing record when they swap out coaching staff, the fact that the team will be behind in the score often does not necessarily equate to meaning that the wide out is going to get a ton more catches. He may well have a higher number of passing targets, but can actually decrease in production from the previous season. Even top wide receivers in the league will suffer at least a bit with a change in scheme and coaches, at least for the first half of the season while the offense begins to form chemistry and executes the plays as they were designed. In fantasy football, a slow start can be death for your season.
2. Passing Game – You must determine what role the wideout is expected to play in the offense.  If the same scheme is being used and the same players – including quarterback – are still on the team from the prior season, will there be any reason to expect a change in the roles of the wideouts? Is the receiver you are reviewing the clear #1 target or is there reason to believe that the #2 wideout is about to break out and supplant him as the primary receiver? Is there any reason to expect either tight ends or running backs to increase or decrease their role in the passing game? By the same token, is the scheme just now taking effect after a year or so after being installed?
3. Health Issues – Fortunately, wide receivers generally are among the healthiest players and every season typically has at least 50 to 60 wide receivers that play in 15 or 16 games. Wide receivers are also most often of two types – players that never get injured and players that rarely stay healthy. While age has a significant effect on NFL players, it affects wide receivers far less than most. Don’t be concerned that a wideout is over 30 years of age. The top 20 wideouts in any given season will contain five to ten players over 30 years old. This position requires a lengthy learning curve and the best wideouts are very experienced. Unless there is a demonstrable reason to assume otherwise, consider an older player to actually be more valuable than a younger one. The only true injury of major concern with wideouts are ligament tears in the knees which rob the player of burst, speed and the ability to cut sharply but medical science now can do wonders for a player committed to rehabilitation. Do not overvalue past health issues with a wide receiver unless he has proven to be injury prone. However – the safest play is to not draft a wideout coming off a major knee injury. A few turn in decent seasons, most fall far short and almost none meet the expectations of the drafter.
4. Rushing Game – The better the rushing game, the worst the passing game will be. Rushing the ball is a far safer action than passing and is preferred by NFL offenses all things being equal. From 2001 to 2005, the 25 times that teams were in the Top 5 for rushing yards in a season, only six of them were in the Top 10 for passing yards. Of the 15 Top 3 rushing teams in that time period, none did better than 12th overall in passing yards. The top rushing team was never better than 22nd in passing and four of those were 27th or worse. It is an obvious inverse relationship between rushing and receiving that should be considered when determining what expectations to have of a wide receiver.
5. Is He the #1 WR? – While a few offenses will have two wideouts with significant fantasy value, the average team has one true “primary” wideout and one secondary target. The preferred wideout can be either the split end or the flanker depending on the team but only the #1 wideout produces significant fantasy points and any amount of consistency for most NFL teams. The better his team’s running game is, the less you should expect from the passing game overall though #1 wideouts tend to maintain their role while secondary receivers end up with declining numbers. In individual games with big passing numbers, both starting wide receivers will usually share in the bounty.
6. Learning Curve – The third year phenomena was traditionally a near guaranteed role where the receiver would do almost nothing in his first season, then show signs of improvement in his second season before exploding on the scene in his third season. That is not nearly as true anymore. NFL teams are less interested in developing players now that the salary cap constraints and free agency mean that players are only locked to a team for about their first three or four years. NFL teams now throw their top rookie talent into the lineups more as a rule than an exception.  What we have seen since 2000 are receivers in their second or even rookie seasons having significant fantasy value. That all draws back to the initial argument – talent is king with fantasy wide receivers and that either shows up early or not at all in most cases. Look for an upward progression of production from a wide receiver that can suggest continued improvement but once again – his opportunity, situation and especially talent is going to be key to his fantasy value. 
7. Defense – Just as the rushing game suppresses the passing, the better the defense is the less a team will find itself in a shoot-out that entails plenty of balls thrown. Consider those top defenses from the previous season – did they have great passing games or were they primarily run first and pass last? The better the defense is at holding down the score, the less a team will need to pass the ball. Ball control is a goal of every offense and with a lead to protect and a clock to drain; passing the ball just does not make sense on most plays. One caveat here – again the #1 wideout can maintain his production levels because he will be the primary receiver. Great defenses typically affect the secondary receivers much more since there is less need to get them involved in game. 
8. Schedule – While the schedule has a major impact on running backs and quarterbacks, it is less so for the individual receivers. A worse schedule can benefit wideouts from needing to pass more but facing superior defenses won’t help. Unless a team will have a brutal passing schedule the next year, don’t concern yourself as much with it when reviewing individual wide receivers. It remains mostly situation and talent which will affect them, not the schedule as is more the case for running backs.

Stud Repeatability

There is nothing like ending up with a stud receiver that will score as well as most any running back. Each season witnesses a few top wideouts repeating a great year and there are always a few players who turn in career best seasons which give them a pass to the top of most draft boards the next season. But who predictive is a great season for a wideout?

Here is a dose of reality about Top 5 wideouts. If you remove the “uber-studs” of Marvin Harrison (6), Randy Moss (6), Terrell Owens (3) and Rod Smith (3), no other wideout appeared in the Top 5 more than twice in the nine year sample. Only four players qualified with double showings – Cris Carter, Antonio Freeman, Chad Johnson and Eric Moulds. That makes 8 players that had repeated Top 5 years at least once in the sample while 22 other players only came up truly big just one time. Other than a player that has repeatedly been in the Top 5, it is nearly a lock that a Top 5 wideout will NOT repeat again the following year.

Since there are so many wideouts needed in a fantasy league, consider what the next level of wideout did the following season once they had ended a season ranked 6th through 10th.

Other than a freak season in 1999, most years only witness one player rise to the top level the next season and normally none of them do so. What’s just as bad is that in most seasons, three or four will actually go down in production the next season. One major reason is that a wideout experiences a “magic year” where his situation and opportunity suddenly comes together to create great production and then he returns to his normal level of production the following season. This most often happens when the other starting wideout for the team is injured or the team has major problems that lead to them being woefully behind in most games and forced to throw far more than desired.

Where Sleepers Come From

While most fantasy players will rely heavily on those prior year statistics, what is the reality about where those elite Top 5 wideouts came from the prior year? They usually do not come from the previous Top 5 receivers.

Almost like a bell curve, wideouts peaked in 2001 and 2002 with an uncharacteristically high number of Top 5 players repeating but in most seasons, the majority of Top 5 wideouts came from either the 11th to 20th level of the previous season or even more commonly, from having been worse than 20th in the prior year. 19 of the 45 instances (42%) of the best players were likely not even worthy of being a second wideout for a fantasy team in the previous season. Unlike the consistent similarities seen in running backs that rose in the same manner, consider the variation in wideouts during a five year sample:

If there are two themes that are common, they would be either that the team had a poor rushing game and was forced to throw and/or the wideout found himself as the only truly viable target for the quarterback. Most often that comes from an injured player missing time but it can stem from a team which loses a good wideout to free agency or retirement and no other wideout steps up to fill the void. That leaves just one good wideout behind that becomes a great fantasy player for the year. You have to find the situation where one wideout is clearly favored by the quarterback who has almost no other options.

While the Top 5 wideouts each season typically had 40% (2) players shoot up from 20th or worse in the previous season, that phenomena happens even more in the next tier of 6th to 10th best. The reason is easy enough to discern – the Top 5 witnesses a select few players who repeat (Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Marvin Harrison, etc.) each season while the rest of the NFL is far less consistent. Consider in the nine year sample above, 24 of the 45 instances of a player ending up 6th to 10th best came from having been worse than 20th the previous year – over half. These players are all difference makers for fantasy teams and a great deal of them came relatively cheap in a draft that year.

Unlike that Top 5, we see different commonalities from this group:

This grouping typically comes from three categories. There are possession receivers who will gain a bit more yardage but primarily they just happen to catch an unusually high number of touchdowns that season. Then there are several who experience their breakout season anywhere from their first to third year in the league. Lastly, there are a number of players who experience the “magic year”. That season which it all comes together like never before or again.

Break-Out Years

There is perhaps no term more lovingly used by fantasy fans than “breakout” year. That season which witnesses a player leaving the mass of average receivers and turning in what appears to be a defining notice to the league that they are the newest members in the elite receivers club. While too often the players expected to break out will just break down, each season contains several who will greatly benefit their owners. The notion that a wideout always breaks out in his third season has some credence but actually does not even describe most players.

Since wide receivers sometimes start notoriously slow or even play sparingly in their initial season, the best measurement is now many full seasons that they have played. Taking a sample of 17 players who either were already at the top of their position or that have recently had a break out season during a two year span, only five of them experienced their first big year during their third season. Slightly more common was the fourth season and there were four who had their first big year occur in just their second season.

All but one did so with the team that originally drafted them and after their fourth year as a fulltime wideout, only one had breakout year come later. It either happens in their first four seasons or it never does. Muhsin Muhammad was an extreme exception to the rule.

The round in which they were drafted was more heavily slanted towards former first round picks (7), but hardly were the only ones stepping up. The second round (4), third round (3) all had success stories and even the undrafted Drew Bennett snuck in though that was much more a magic year than the start of a storied career.

As a rule of thumb, it is most often players in their third OR fourth seasons as starters that experience the breakout season. It happens in other years but 11 of the 17 breakout wideouts considered (65%) came from those third and fourth year players.

Rookies

Recall that running backs most often had a break out season as rookies and that almost none stepped up big after their second season as a full-time player. Now forget all that for rookie wideouts. It just does not happen. Yes, Randy Moss had 1313 yards and 17 touchdowns as a rookie. It was beautiful. It was great. It never happened before and likely won’t happen again. Get over it.

Most fantasy fans love rookies and the unbridled optimism and potential they bring into the league. You can get them relatively cheap and until the season begins, you can easily pretend you have the next Randy Moss. Go ahead and imagine you dating a Hollywood starlet and winning the lottery as well. Now wipe that smile off your face and see how well first round rookies fared from 2000 to 2005.

The allure of a rookie wideout is undeniable. They catch everything thrown at them in training camp. They sign huge dollar contracts and come off amazing college careers. And then they spend their first season making their fantasy owners slap their foreheads while muttering “what was I thinking?”

Draft Plans

Your first consideration in drafting wideouts is their relative value as shown in a LAG analysis. They are more difficult to draft because of the variation year-to-year of almost all players outside the elite handful. And yet most leagues require there to be three starters so waiting on them as so many do means having usually a third of your starting roster taken from a group of players that are already notoriously hard to predict.

The best bet is to ensure that you have at least one productive, highly reliable wide receiver. Not a player coming off a freak high year and not a rookie or someone who is anything less than a primary wideout for his NFL team and that can be relied on to produce at least moderately consistent fantasy points each week. The best fantasy teams will aim to include a mixture of wideouts that include a couple of possession receivers, at least one or two players in a breakout scenario and as many top players as can reasonably be acquired without undue harm to other positional needs.

It is important to recognize the wideouts that come off an uncharacteristically big year which cannot reasonably be repeated. Each season over half of the top wideouts will come from deep in the draft and yet over half of the players that had great seasons will fall very significantly the next season. Look for the talented players first, and then consider those situations that indicate a break out could occur – lack of rushing game or a player spending the season with very little competition for passes.

Understanding wideouts and projecting them well is the final sign that you are at the next level. It is about team first, talent over situation and opportunity and no other position produces the empty hype each summer as do wide receivers. Take the ones that look the best for this year – not just from last year.