Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

Greetings! Now that we have Week 3 of the NFL season in the books, the Numbers Nerd in me is firing on all cylinders. Last week I talked about top running backs after two weeks and what we can expect out them in the future. This week I’ll be looking at receivers (WRs, TEs, and even RBs) and I think the analysis is getting better and better now that we have 3 weeks of data and can start actually calling things trends rather than happenstance. 

So this week will be similar to last week – first I looked at the Top 10 Receivers based on yardage alone:

Rank	Player	Receptions	Yards	Targets
1	Reggie Wayne	20	325	29
2	Vincent Jackson	16	317	22
3	Jerricho Cotchery	18	285	25
4	Dallas Clark	18	284	23
5	Randy Moss	26	281	39
6	Steve Smith	23	277	29
7	Andre Johnson	18	270	30
8	Mario Manningham	17	263	24
9	DeSean Jackson	12	259	26
10	Brent Celek	22	245	27

 

Next I looked at the Top 10 Receivers based on number of receptions:

Rank	Player	Receptions	Yards	Targets
1	Randy Moss	26	281	39
2	Steve Smith	23	277	29
3	Brent Celek	22	245	27
4	Nate Burleson	20	229	33
4	Tim Hightower	20	172	25
4	Reggie Wayne	20	325	29
7	Jason Witten	19	181	23
8	Jerricho Cotchery	18	285	25
8	Hines Ward	18	242	22
8	Andre Johnson	18	270	30

 

So much like last week, the truly interesting piece here to me is figuring out which players have yardage and receptions that don’t quite match up. Are there players that have had a ton of receptions but just not very many yards? Check. And maybe there are players who have burned opposing pass defenses on a relatively small number of receptions? Check. Let’s take a look at the details, including the strength of the pass defenses they’ve seen so far, compared to those they’ll meet over the next few weeks (note: pass defense rankings pulled from ESPN).

Player	Receptions	Yards	Targets	Avg Pass Def Ranking: Weeks 1-3	Avg Pass Def Ranking: Next 3 games
High Yardage & Low Receptions
Vincent Jackson	16	317	22	19th	12.3th
Dallas Clark	18	284	23	29.7th	20.3th
Mario Manningham	17	263	24	19.7th	18.7th
DeSean Jackson	12	259	26	16.7th	15.3th
High Receptions & Low Yardage
Nate Burleson	20	229	33	20.3th	24.3th
Tim Hightower	20	172	25	22th	8.3th
Jason Witten	19	181	23	10th	14.7th
Hines Ward	18	242	22	20th	18th

 

A few things jump out at me here. First, in terms of the players with top 10 yardage but relatively low receptions, scope out Vincent Jackson who has caught nearly 73% of the balls thrown his way for 19.8 yards per catch. Nice, real nice. The pass defenses that he’ll be facing over the next three games will be a tougher crew than what he’s seen so far, but that average is based on the Denver Broncos remaining the No.2 overall pass defense in the league. There’s a lot of doubt that the Broncos are for real since their opponents in Weeks 1-3 haven’t exactly been a challenging crew. If the Broncos prove to be a little easier to pass on than we thought, then Jackson should continue to see this same level of production, which should make all Jackson owners quite happy.

Dallas Clark has capitalized on 78% of his targets with a sweet 15.7 yards per catch, which makes him an uber-valuable TE in my book. He has the luxury of facing the lax Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Rams defenses in Weeks 5 and 7. Meanwhile based on these numbers, the future of Mario Manningham probably will look a lot like we’ve seen so far, which I certainly can get down with. 

In looking at DeSean Jackson’s numbers we of course must keep in mind the Donovan McNabb-to-Kevin Kolb switch and suddenly his low percentage of caught targets (46%) makes more sense. Now if you believe that the more time he spends with Kolb, the more of a rapport they’ll establish – or that McNabb will be back soon, again bolstering Jackson’s number of receptions – then his monster 21.6 yards per catch should be enough to make you drool.

Moving on to the guys who ranked in the top ten in terms of receptions but didn’t have the equivalent yardage, let’s look first at Nate Burleson. I think I’m most excited about Burleson out of all these guys since I don’t even think he’s owned in a good chunk of leagues. Burleson doesn’t have a super-impressive yards per catch (11.4) but take a look at the number of targets he’s seen: 33. That’s the 3rd most targets in the league (behind Randy Moss with 39 and Steve Smith (NYG) with 35). He had a strong Week 3 against the 12th ranked pass defense of the Chicago Bears and he will be facing the 32nd and 31st ranked pass defenses, Jacksonville and Arizona, respectively, in Weeks 5 and 6. Sign me up for a piece of Burleson in a PPR league for sure. 

Next, you’ve got to love seeing a running back with one of the top 10 number of receptions in the league. Tim Hightower remains a potent element of the Arizona Cardinals offense but he is likely to face pass defenses that are significantly tougher than what he’s seen Weeks 1-3, particularly in Week 7 against the New York Giants. Temper your expectations for the number of receptions and yards that he’ll put up in the passing game especially as the Cardinals use the bye week to figure out how to get their wide outs more involved. 

Jason Witten is an interesting case – the level of pass defenses he will play appears to get worse over the next few weeks, but part of that is that he played against the Carolina Panthers this past week whose pass defense ranking is good (8th) merely because teams really don’t have to pass against them when they have such success running the ball. So Witten will probably stay the course, continue to catch 83% of the balls thrown his way, and maintain his mediocre 9.5 yards per catch. However, all that said, with the Cowboys running game hit by so many injuries it wouldn’t surprise me if they threw a bit more often – they’re facing the No.2 pass defense of Denver next week and could be the first to expose some serious issues with the Denver defense. So keep hope alive that Witten will perk up his yards per catch to match his impressive receptions/targets percentage.

Now I think Hines Ward is just awesome. He’s snagging 81% of the balls thrown his way and has the great fortune of playing the Detroit Lions in Week 5. Expect another solid performance out of him in Week 5 (a la his Week 1 performance of 8 receptions for 103 yards against the Titans) and probably another impressive outing against the increasingly bad Cleveland Browns in Week 6. 

One final thought: Brent Celek for MVP? Okay, okay how about just best value drafted? Hop on the Celek train, folks!

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The Bruno Boys are pleased to once again welcome guest columnist, Sara Holladay, back for her feature,A Librarian’s Touch, for the 2009 season. The woman behind the web-site, Fantasy Football Librarian, Holladay is someone all fantasy owners should be well familiar with if they want to win their league’s title as she provides some of the best fantasy football insight and resources found around the web!