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.

The game of fantasy football is amazing when things break right and super tilting when it breaks wrong.

Tyler Lockett vs. the Rams in Week 5 is a perfect example of the latter. For context, this matchup was quite good for Lockett as Jalen Ramsey was expected to play on D.K. Metcalf for the majority of the game. For the most part, teams have been content to shy away from Ramsey and instead attack anyone else. Ramsey has allowed a 31% completion percentage while no other Rams defensive back has allowed less than a 60% completion rate, according to the Advanced Stat Explorer.

Three potential touchdowns illustrate this point:

1. Lockett ran a double move to get past Robert Rochell. However, instead of allowing an easy touchdown, Rochell tackled Lockett for a pass interference penalty. Great football play, but extremely tilting for fantasy football.
2. Lockett caught a 15-yard TD, but it was negated by a holding penalty.
3. On the play Russell Wilson injured his finger, Lockett got past Darious Williams for a wide-open touchdown. Unfortunately, Wilson overthrew Lockett and again, we get a zero in the box score.

Am I a little tilted that I lost close matchups that could have been won with just one of these three plays? I am, but the bigger takeaway is that looking through the advanced stats rather than the box score provides a tangible edge. While one person may see three straight games of disappointing production, I can tell that Lockett’s underlying usage should lead to productive games going forward.^[1]The downgrade from Russell Wilson to Geno Smith needs to be taken into consideration but the usage is there

With that in mind, let’s explore the advanced stats looking ahead to Week 6.

Routes Run and Routes per Target

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).