In this weekly article, Bjorn Yang-Vaernet uses the Advanced Stat Explorer and other RotoViz tools to dive deep into wide receiver usage trends. Usage is key for making waiver wire adds, start/sit decisions, and finding the next blow-up WR in DFS.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I will keep this intro short and sweet, as most probably want to spend time with their family during the start of the holiday season. I am thankful this year for the opportunity to be able to share my thoughts in a weekly article and grateful for those who take the time out of their day to read it. I really appreciate it.
On a less serious note, I am also thankful that the NFL has given us so many surprises each week. While predictability is great in many aspects of life, the fact that each game carries less certainty than before makes analyzing WRs that much more fun. Nothing is as it seems and everything needs more context. This also means examining underlying usage is that much more important. With that, let’s get to the stats below.
Routes Run and Targets per Route
Routes run is the first key statistic I’ll focus on because WRs need to be on the field to produce. The second statistic is routes per target. Unlike RBs usage, targets are earned as a WR and routes per target is a helpful measure in figuring out which players are good (or which players coaches want to get the ball to).
