George Pickens and DeVante Parker were discussed on the website this week. Both finished at the 2nd-most productive receivers on their teams last year, but both averaged over 2 more yards per pass play than their team’s No. 1 guys.
Treylon Burks, Rashid Shaheed, Darius Slayton and Terrace Marshall also fit this profile. None caught a ton of passes last year, but they mixed in a healthy number of impact plays. When we have such a player, is it an indication that the player is a breakout candidate? If a player is paying off with his chances, after it, it’s a sign he should perhaps be getting more use.
Or is it just the case of a guy being used primarily on deep routes; those players tend to finish with higher yards-per-target numbers, with them getting downfield on more of their routes?
We can look at previous such players. Below see the list of all wide receivers from the last 10 years who’ve been the 2nd-best receiver on their own team (using PPR scoring) but who averaged over 2 more yards per target than the No. 1 guy. (Not yards per catch but yards per target – including incompletions).
The overall track record hasn’t been great. Of the last 24 such players, only half the next year finished with top-50 numbers (again, using PPR scoring). Three moved up into the top 15, with only two others making the top 30. I see five who finished between 38th and 40th.
But 11 of these receivers (one short of half) didn’t even rank among the top 80 wide receivers the following season.
These are all different players and different situations, of course. A quarter of these players moved to new teams, and I’ve got those six tagged with black dots. (I remember Rishard Matthews getting a nice contract from the Titans after a productive year with the Dolphins.)
I don’t see YPT as a sneaky metric to tap into for fantasy purposes.
For our six 2023 guys, I see four who will be competing for playing time (with the possibility of not being used enough): Marshall, Slayton, Shaheed and Parker. I like the look of Burks (pictured); he’ll be Tennessee’s leading wide receiver. And Pickens has the potential to move up in his second year.
| EFFICIENT SECOND RECEIVERS (the next year) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2014 | Kenny Stills, N.O. | 63 | 931 | 14.8 | 3 | 173.9 | 39 |
| 2014 | Michael Floyd, Ariz. | 47 | 841 | 17.9 | 6 | 167.3 | 44 |
| 2014 | Terrance Williams, Dall. | 37 | 621 | 16.8 | 8 | 147.1 | 52 |
| 2015 | • Kenny Stills, Mia. | 27 | 440 | 16.3 | 3 | 89.0 | 82 |
| 2016 | • Rishard Matthews, Ten. | 65 | 945 | 14.5 | 9 | 213.5 | 21 |
| 2016 | Kenny Britt, LAR | 68 | 1002 | 14.7 | 5 | 198.2 | 28 |
| 2016 | Torrey Smith, S.F. | 20 | 267 | 13.4 | 3 | 64.7 | 100 |
| 2016 | • James Jones, Balt. | 1 | 14 | 14.0 | 0 | 2.4 | 210 |
| 2017 | Marqise Lee, Jac. | 56 | 702 | 12.5 | 3 | 147.9 | 40 |
| 2017 | Chris Hogan, N.E. | 34 | 439 | 12.9 | 5 | 109.6 | 63 |
| 2018 | JuJu Smith-Schuster, Pitt. | 111 | 1426 | 12.8 | 7 | 298.9 | 8 |
| 2018 | • Jordan Matthews, Phil. | 20 | 300 | 15.0 | 2 | 62.0 | 105 |
| 2018 | Ted Ginn, N.O. | 17 | 209 | 12.3 | 2 | 54.5 | 115 |
| 2019 | Christian Kirk, Ariz. | 68 | 709 | 10.4 | 3 | 168.2 | 38 |
| 2019 | Dante Pettis, S.F. | 11 | 109 | 9.9 | 2 | 34.7 | 133 |
| 2019 | Robert Foster, Buff. | 3 | 64 | 21.3 | 0 | 12.3 | 161 |
| 2020 | Mike Williams, LAC | 48 | 756 | 15.8 | 5 | 153.7 | 48 |
| 2021 | Mike Williams, LAC | 76 | 1146 | 15.1 | 9 | 246.6 | 13 |
| 2021 | Rashard Higgins, Cle. | 24 | 275 | 11.5 | 1 | 57.5 | 114 |
| 2021 | • Travis Fulgham, NYG | 8 | 101 | 12.6 | 0 | 18.1 | 143 |
| 2021 | • Will Fuller, Mia. | 4 | 26 | 6.5 | 0 | 8.6 | 184 |
| 2022 | Tyler Lockett, Sea. | 84 | 1033 | 12.3 | 9 | 241.3 | 13 |
| 2022 | Donovan Peoples-Jones, Cle. | 61 | 839 | 13.8 | 3 | 169.1 | 38 |
| 2022 | Kendrick Bourne, N.E. | 35 | 434 | 12.4 | 1 | 88.3 | 81 |
| 2023 | Terrace Marshall, Car. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2023 | Darius Slayton, NYG | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2023 | Rashid Shaheed, N.O. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2023 | Treylon Burks, Ten. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2023 | DeVante Parker, N.E. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2023 | George Pickens, Pitt. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan