In this weekly article, Bjorn Yang-Vaernet will use 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.

Bye weeks are in full swing and WR-heavy drafters should start to gain momentum in these upcoming weeks. While many opponents will be scrambling to find a WR that can realistically get five to six targets, the WR-heavy managers have a multitude of WRs that can be started with confidence.

For example, in one league, I had Stefon Diggs and Mike Williams on bye last week. Yet, I fielded a team that started AJ Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tyler Lockett.

That said, not every team is built in this manner. For everyone, and those teams in particular, this article will explore several players to pick up on waivers and key start/sit decisions on brand-name players with relatively volatile production.

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).