The Bills signed Marquez Valdes-Scantling yesterday, which means it's time for my annual post expressing bafflement as to how this guy keeps getting new contracts. Seldom has there been a wide receiver to do less while continuing to see opportunities in favorable situations, year after year.
Valdes-Scantling is a nice deep threat. For his career he's averaged 17 yards per catch, which presumably helps open things up for offenses and enable other players to produce. And that's happened, it just usually doesn't involve him.
Over the past six seasons, MVS is one of 56 wide receivers to have had at least 360 targets -- 60 per year. He's done that while working exclusively with two first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. But in that time he's averaged just 34 yards per game. That's worse than all of those wide receivers but Zay Jones, whose quarterbacking (with the Bills, Raiders and Jaguars) hasn't been quite as good.
Table shows all those 60-target per year wide receivers, sorted by receiving yards per game. Data compiled using search tools at pro-football-reference.com.
WIDE RECEIVERS WITH 360 TARGETS, 2018-2023 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Player | Tgt | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | Y/G |
Justin Jefferson | 576 | 392 | 5899 | 15.0 | 30 | 98.3 |
Tyreek Hill | 861 | 581 | 8363 | 14.4 | 63 | 89.9 |
Davante Adams | 969 | 635 | 7970 | 12.6 | 69 | 87.6 |
Ja'Marr Chase | 407 | 268 | 3717 | 13.9 | 29 | 82.6 |
Michael Thomas | 473 | 369 | 4187 | 11.3 | 22 | 80.5 |
Cooper Kupp | 697 | 505 | 6197 | 12.3 | 46 | 80.5 |
Stefon Diggs | 887 | 610 | 7523 | 12.3 | 52 | 78.4 |
DeAndre Hopkins | 770 | 515 | 6490 | 12.6 | 42 | 78.2 |
CeeDee Lamb | 568 | 395 | 5145 | 13.0 | 32 | 78.0 |
A.J. Brown | 598 | 379 | 5947 | 15.7 | 42 | 77.2 |
Keenan Allen | 828 | 581 | 6520 | 11.2 | 37 | 76.7 |
Mike Evans | 742 | 453 | 7101 | 15.7 | 62 | 76.4 |
Amon-Ra St. Brown | 429 | 315 | 3588 | 11.4 | 21 | 73.2 |
Jaylen Waddle | 361 | 251 | 3385 | 13.5 | 18 | 72.0 |
Chris Godwin | 699 | 495 | 6165 | 12.5 | 33 | 70.1 |
Amari Cooper | 720 | 464 | 6583 | 14.2 | 42 | 70.0 |
D.J. Moore | 752 | 460 | 6565 | 14.3 | 29 | 67.7 |
Terry McLaurin | 609 | 378 | 5283 | 14.0 | 25 | 66.0 |
Calvin Ridley | 516 | 324 | 4358 | 13.5 | 36 | 66.0 |
Julio Jones | 505 | 329 | 4649 | 14.1 | 23 | 65.5 |
D.K. Metcalf | 618 | 372 | 5332 | 14.3 | 43 | 65.0 |
Tyler Lockett | 658 | 475 | 6178 | 13.0 | 50 | 63.7 |
Tee Higgins | 403 | 257 | 3684 | 14.3 | 24 | 63.5 |
Brandon Aiyuk | 399 | 269 | 3931 | 14.6 | 25 | 63.4 |
Deebo Samuel | 429 | 283 | 4122 | 14.6 | 19 | 62.5 |
Mike Williams | 489 | 298 | 4711 | 15.8 | 31 | 60.4 |
Brandin Cooks | 616 | 404 | 5330 | 13.2 | 30 | 59.2 |
Michael Pittman Jr. | 487 | 336 | 3662 | 10.9 | 15 | 59.1 |
Adam Thielen | 648 | 457 | 5172 | 11.3 | 49 | 58.8 |
Diontae Johnson | 639 | 391 | 4363 | 11.2 | 25 | 56.7 |
Christian Kirk | 576 | 377 | 4797 | 12.7 | 28 | 56.4 |
Jarvis Landry | 514 | 313 | 3832 | 12.2 | 16 | 56.4 |
Odell Beckham Jr. | 446 | 253 | 3508 | 13.9 | 21 | 55.7 |
Robert Woods | 633 | 404 | 4798 | 11.9 | 21 | 55.1 |
Tyler Boyd | 640 | 437 | 5172 | 11.8 | 28 | 55.0 |
JuJu Smith-Schuster | 540 | 372 | 4131 | 11.1 | 23 | 54.4 |
Courtland Sutton | 511 | 298 | 4259 | 14.3 | 24 | 52.6 |
Kenny Golladay | 360 | 198 | 3193 | 16.1 | 19 | 51.5 |
Marquise Brown | 525 | 313 | 3644 | 11.6 | 28 | 50.6 |
Allen Robinson | 566 | 360 | 4180 | 11.6 | 21 | 49.8 |
DeVante Parker | 453 | 263 | 3752 | 14.3 | 19 | 48.7 |
Cole Beasley | 419 | 302 | 3145 | 10.4 | 14 | 47.7 |
Marvin Jones | 479 | 297 | 3661 | 12.3 | 30 | 47.5 |
Jakobi Meyers | 450 | 306 | 3565 | 11.7 | 16 | 46.9 |
DJ Chark | 383 | 212 | 3069 | 14.5 | 23 | 44.5 |
Darius Slayton | 388 | 220 | 3324 | 15.1 | 19 | 43.7 |
Michael Gallup | 479 | 266 | 3744 | 14.1 | 21 | 43.5 |
Darnell Mooney | 360 | 213 | 2593 | 12.2 | 11 | 43.2 |
Sterling Shepard | 379 | 248 | 2681 | 10.8 | 13 | 42.6 |
Robbie Chosen | 486 | 274 | 3554 | 13.0 | 21 | 40.4 |
Curtis Samuel | 459 | 302 | 3268 | 10.8 | 22 | 39.9 |
Hunter Renfrow | 363 | 269 | 2884 | 10.7 | 17 | 39.5 |
Jamison Crowder | 364 | 239 | 2586 | 10.8 | 17 | 36.9 |
Nelson Agholor | 410 | 254 | 3211 | 12.6 | 24 | 35.3 |
Marquez Valdes-Scantling | 370 | 186 | 3155 | 17.0 | 16 | 34.3 |
Zay Jones | 422 | 260 | 2712 | 10.4 | 16 | 30.5 |
One takeaway from this is that Valdes-Scantling signing with Buffalo should essentially have zero negative effect on Buffalo's other pass catchers -- Curtis Samuel, Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman, Dalton Kincaid. They'll put MVS out there to run a few fly patterns, most of those throws will fall incomplete, and things will be opened up underneath for Samuel-Shakir et al to eat. Valdes-Scantling will collect his "up to" $4.5 million and generate very little in the way of stats while doing so.
Please do not consider drafting him. It may not be certain who the Bills' top receiver will be, but it won't be him.
--Andy Richardson