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+---- Thread: *Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets (/showthread.php?tid=2304)
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*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - Deusolis - 07-18-2017
Player A: 50 catches, 750 yards, 2 touchdowns
Player B: 45 catches, 725 yards, 1 touchdown
On the surface, it looks like there’s no debate on which receiver is better, Player A outproduced Player B across the board. But, what if I told you that Player A was targeted 100 times and Player B was only targeted 50? Would that change your answer? Unlike in basketball or baseball, football fans tend to put an emphasis on volume rather than efficiency. That focus on volume isn’t bad per se, but it doesn’t paint the whole picture. If someone produces similar stats on half as many opportunities, then it’s pretty clear that he’s more beneficial to an offense. With that in mind, I sought to rank the NSFL’s receiving groups with an eye towards efficiency. After all, 2012 Calvin Johnson would still have been the best receiver in the NFL even if he’d been in a run-heavy offense. I will caution however, quarterbacks tend not to throw to covered wideouts, meaning that the ability to get separation is a skill in and of itself. Regardless of efficiency, there’s a reason that some guys were only thrown to seven times the whole season.
If the goal is to rank receiving corps with a focus on efficiency, that begs two questions: What exactly makes up a receiving corps and how do you measure efficiency? If you haven’t already seen it, @SimmerDownBruhh published a simply phenomenal article ranking the league’s receiving trio (implicitly volume-focused) where he defined a group as the two starting WRs and a third player. Because I’m taking a slightly broader look, I’m defining receiving group as a team’s top-4 players in receiving yardage.
The more interesting question, how does one measure efficiency, required a little creativity and somewhere north of 400 tick marks. The critical stat I used was catchable targets, which is a receiver’s catches plus his drops (yes, I sat down and counted). From that number, five other stats are derived: catch percentage, the number of targets a receiver caught; touchdown rate, the number of catchable targets that were converted into touchdowns; and catches, yards, and touchdowns per 100, which standardizes a receiver’s counting stats if he were targeted 100 times.
For those of you that are formula-inclined:
Catchable Targets: Drops + Catches
Catch Percentage: Catches / Catchable Targets
Touchdown rate: Touchdowns / Catchable Targets
Catches per 100: Catch Percentage * 100
Yards per 100: Yards per catch * Catches per 100
Touchdowns per 100: Touchdown Rate * 100
This next few parts are going to reflect the formatting influence of SimmerDown. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and his layout noticeably improved readability. First, we’re going to take a look at each receiving group’s performance. Then I’m going to explain the methodology of the rankings. Finally, the part you actually came here for, the rankings themselves.
Team Run-Down
Arizona Outlaws
![[Image: 70umj5.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/70umj5.png)
The Season 1 NSFL champions out together one of the most interesting receiving performances in the league. On the one hand, they were downright dominant when it came to getting the ball into the endzone, as their receiving corps averaged 4.25 touchdowns per player, the only group to break 4 touchdowns-per. Their top-two receivers, Stormblessed and Lincoln Jefferson combined for a whopping 13 touchdowns, which would have been 1 TD shy of first place among all receiving groups. The Outlaws also excelled pushing the deep ball, largely on the back of Stormblessed’s mind-bending performance. Tackling the now-Las Vegas Legion offensive weapon was like tackling a greased pig, as he posted 18.7 yards per catch and a season long completion of 50 yards. Unfortunately, his hands were just as greased as his pads, sporting a catch rate of just 56%, a full 8% worse than any other player in the league. Stormblessed’s performance served as a microcosm for the entire team, as the Outlaws led the league in drops (93) and were dead-last in catch percentage (66.18%)
Baltimore Hawks
![[Image: 2uetwxz.png]](http://i66.tinypic.com/2uetwxz.png)
From first to worst. Following a 31-3 beatdown at the hands of the San Jose SaberCats, the Baltimore Hawks entered the Season 1 offseason as the consensus worst team in the league. But neither that ranking nor traditional statistics reflect the quality of the Hawks receiving corps. From a volume perspective, the Hawks were so-so, ranking 4th in both touchdowns and yardage among the league’s six receiving groups. They were also back-of-the-pack when it came to making the most of catches, ranking dead-last in average yards-per-catch. However, these numbers made sense considering the Hawks only threw the ball 31 times a game, which was the lowest mark in the league. What they lacked in dynamism, they more than made up for in consistency, as the Hawks quarter posted a catch rate of 80.5% led by Gabriel Tanzini’s stellar 90% catch rate. When efficiency is taken into account, this unit shined, ranking well in each per-100 stat.
Colorado Yeti
![[Image: sfkjty.png]](http://i63.tinypic.com/sfkjty.png)
The Colorado Yeti were one of two teams in the NSFL not to roster a 1000-yard receiver and unlike the Outlaws, who had two receivers with more than 960 yards, the Yeti weren’t particularly close. The team’s leading receiver posted a total of 868 receiving yards, 8th in the league and only four touchdowns. And, on the whole, the Yeti’s quartet simply didn’t perform very well in either volume or efficiency. On the volume side, they were in a virtual tie for last place in yards-per-catch, two-tenths of a yard better than 6th place and they ranked dead-last in terms of total yardage. On the efficiency side, the quarter didn’t perform much better. They had the second-worst catch rate in the NSFL at 69.75% and the second-worst yards-per-100 average to boot. Simply put, the quartet struggled to catch the ball and didn’t do much with it when they did. However, their game-plan seemed unchanged despite the struggles, as the Yeti’s group had the third-most catchable targets in the NSFL with an average of 70.25
Orange County Otters
![[Image: 2wn38ft.png]](http://i67.tinypic.com/2wn38ft.png)
While the Otters quarterback carousel was the talk of the league, every player that lined up under center made a point to throw to wideout Robert Phelps. Phelps led the league in catchable targets with 113, one of two to break the 100-CT barrier, en route to placing second in total receiving yards behind Wraiths standout Josh Garden. It was no one-man band however, as Bradley Westfield chipped in with 983 yards himself and a catch rate of 75.31%, good for fourth among those with more than 70 targets. When factoring in efficiency, Westfield was the better of the duo, outproducing Phelps in catch-rate, yards per 100 and TD-rate. The Otters group led the entire league in receiving yards with 2569. And their success wasn’t solely a product of opportunity. Westfield’s sure-handedness was reflected across the entire Otters receiving group, which functionally tied for second in terms of catch-rate (73.36% to the Wraiths 73.56%). The group performed well through and through, posting very solid touchdown and yards per 100 rates. Typically, groups that have high volume numbers don’t perform as well on efficiency-based measures, but for the Orange County Otters quartet, that just wasn’t the case. Kudos to them.
San Jose SaberCats
![[Image: 2ep57on.png]](http://i63.tinypic.com/2ep57on.png)
To many, the SaberCats receiving group was less corps and more corporal and cadets. Star receiver Bailey Cook put together a terrific offensive season with 1062 receiving yards (3rd) and 14.75 yards per catch (5th). While Shane Weston had solid receiving numbers when viewed by totals, 704 yards and 3 touchdowns, his strong catch rate (73.68%) positioned him as a very strong per-100 target player. While Weston looked better when considering efficiency, tight end Break Bottles looked far, far worse. The combination of a meager 64.13% catch rate and an abysmal 6.78 yards-per-catch number led him to record the lowest yards-per-100-targets number in the entire NSFL. He also posted the lowest touchdown rate among players that caught a touchdown. When viewed as a whole, the SaberCats quartet just didn’t perform, they ranked last in the league in TD rate by a large margin and had a similar placement in yards-per-100.
Yellowknife Wraiths
![[Image: 16axnc6.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/16axnc6.png)
The final team left in the break-down is the Yellowknife Wraiths, home of one Joshua Garden. Garden led the NSFL in receiving yards, yards per 100 targets, was second in touchdowns, touchdown rate and yards-per-carry. No amount of numerical wizardry changes the fact that he was the best receiver in football this season. Like Tiger in his prime, the truer competition was for runner-up. While out-shone by his teammate, Alexandre LeClair also performed extraordinarily well, posting the best catch-rate of any player not on the Baltimore Hawks roster. That efficiency vaulted him into the club of receivers who were on pace to record over 1000 yards on 100 targets. The Wraiths receiving corps was not only steady-handed, ranking second in catch-rate behind the Hawks but dynamic, ranking second in yards-per-catch. This combination led them to lead the NSFL’s receiving groups in yards per 100 targets.
Ranking Methodology
In track, 1 second is not created equal across all events. An Olympic sprinter dropping an entire second from their 100m dash time would be, with absolutely no exaggeration, the most ground-breaking events in sports history. If the same thing happened in the 1600m? No one would even notice. The reason of course is that there is much more variance in 1600m times than there is in 100m times. At the Rio Olympics for instance, the 100m finalists were separated by two-tenths of a second. In order to adjust for this difference, we use Z-scores, which allow us to determine how far outside the norm a performance is (technically speaking, a Z-score is the number of standard deviations a value is from the mean). In short, a positive Z-score means the value is above the average and a negative Z-score means the value is below the average. Also, going from a Z-score of 2 to a Z-score of 3 is much more significant than going from 0 to 1 even though the numerical difference is the same.
Relating it back to these rankings, because a stat like TDs-per-100 is so tightly packed, a quartet scoring one more touchdown per 100 targets is more impressive than averaging one more yard per 100 targets. Also, because rankings don’t show the degree of difference (2nd by 1000 is not the same as 2nd by 1), they are more useful for qualitative data than quantitative. Rather than base the ultimate rankings on placement within the categories, I averaged the Z-scores in the 3 major efficiency categories and then ranked the teams based on that average.
The Rankings
![[Image: 350ovap.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/350ovap.png)
1. Baltimore Hawks
2. Arizona Outlaws
3. Yellowknife Wraiths
4. Orange County Otters
5. Colorado Yeti
6. San Jose SaberCats
GRADED
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - manicmav36 - 07-18-2017
Great read, well done!
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - Kcobb9 - 07-18-2017
This is a fantastic article. Most sports writers in the NFL don't go as in depth as this. Great job.
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - RainDelay - 07-18-2017
Great read, you know @Symmetrik , @Blake Bortles and I will be doing our bests to elevate the Sabercats up the ranks.
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - kckolbe - 07-18-2017
(07-18-2017, 03:33 PM)Kcobb9 Wrote:This is a fantastic article. Most sports writers in the NFL don't go as in depth as this. Great job.
Check out footballoutsiders.com You might be impressed.
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - SimmerDownBruhh - 07-18-2017
Thanks for the shoutout, my brotha! That had to take you a lot of time to run through EVERY SINGLE PLAY BY PLAY to get all of the drops counted, that and you added a fourth player in the mix too! Lol I'm loving every single bit of this. I love reading in-depth articles. Keep up the good work, if you keep this going, I do the same for my series and we keep on improving our craft, our bank is gonna explode! Looking forward to what you have in store next!
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - Noppadet - 07-18-2017
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - 124715 - 08-02-2017
@Deusolis let me know when this is finished and I will grade it.
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - 7hawk77 - 08-02-2017
Fantastic read.
Hopefully you get some extra $$$ for the extra effort for this article.
*Rating the Receivers: A look at quartets - Deusolis - 08-03-2017
@124715 It's finished, doesn't make sense to add to a retrospective article with the new season in full swing