Air Yards Report, Week 5: Hop To The Top

Air Yards are the Gordon Ramsey of fantasy receiving stats. They tell us exactly what was right and clearly what was wrong with how a receiver performed in a given week. Often, it’s not easy to hear. But you as a fantasy manager need to pay attention to the under-the-hood numbers from your receivers instead of just blindly trusting the box score results, you donkey. 

Each week, this column will dissect air yards for actionable info in the weeks to come. For Week 6, we will do a quick analysis of the list of the 84 wide receivers who finished last week with at least 30 air yards.

Market Share of Air Yards: Top 5 in Week 5

These players received the five highest percentage share of their team’s total air yards in Week 5.

DeAndre Hopkins (164 air yards, 75.6% ) – It’s very encouraging to see him back near the top of the leaderboards in targets, air yards, air yards share and target share, just where fantasy manager expected him to be. Now if we can just manage this Kyler Murray shoulder injury concern. 

Davante Adams (239 air yards, 71.8%) – This list never seems complete if Adams or Tyreek Hill are not on it. Hill was far off from the top in Week 5, but Adams had one of the best games of his career. Adams is now back on top of the season target share numbers and ranks fourth in air yards share. Expect that kind of dominance to remain all year.

Mike Williams (231 air yards, 61.1%) – The amazing thing about Williams’ dominant start to the season is that he ranks outside the top-12 wide receivers in target share and air yards share. The Chargers offense is just that loaded in 2021. Imagine if Keenan Allen or Austin Ekeler were to miss time. It would be hard to tell the difference between Williams and Davante Adams. 

Ja’Marr Chase (185 air yards, 60.9%) – WR1 in Dynasty formats moving forward? Maybe he’s not there yet, but he can certainly see the front of the line. Not even 22 years old until March, maybe Justin Jefferson and DK Metcalf would go ahead of Chase in Dynasty restarts, but I could be certainly sold on any at number one. 

Courtland Sutton (151 air yards, 48.4%) – The stock is certainly up and rising for Sutton, but we may be close to reaching peak value this season. With Jerry Jeudy expected back in the near future, the explosion games might become more rare. Sell high while you can. 

Market Share of Air Yards: Highlights from the Bottom 20

These are intriguing highlights from the bottom 20 wide receivers with at least 30 air yards.

Olamide Zaccheus (33 air yards, 9.8%) – Well this hot pickup for Week 5 was a major bust. With no Calvin Ridley or Russell Gage it was supposed to be Zaccheus and Kyle Pitts show through the air. Pitts did his part, but this performance for Zaccheus in a smash spot confirms he belongs nowhere near your rosters. 

Diontae Johnson (39 air yards, 20.2%) – Nothing to see here. Go look up “outlier game” in the fantasy dictionary and you will find Diontae Johnson’s Week 5 game. He had at least 10 targets in every game before this two-target dud. With Juju Smith-Schuster out, Johnson should see even more short to intermediate work for the balance of the season. 

Allen Robinson (42 air yards, 21.0%) – For me, he is officially benched everywhere now. Robinson still checks in with a health 24% target share (24th among wide receivers), but he is 41st in air yards share and 65th in receiving yards. A Robinson-Fields connection is going to have to prove it to me before I will trust him in lineups as anything more than a WR4 anymore.

Positive Regression Candidate

This will be the weekly place where we check how Cooper Kupp is breaking the air yards model.

Is Kupp evolving into a different type of receiver before our very eyes? In last week’s piece we looked at his increasing aDOT since Week 1, peaking at 8.8 yards in Week 4. Well in Week 5, that number sprung up to 12.4 yards per targets. In fact, among all receivers with at least 10 targets, Kupp’s aDOT was seventh-highest. 

That number was higher than Robert Woods, Tyreek Hill, Marquise Brown, and several other big play guys. 

Kupp is still drawing targets at an elite rate. At 11.2 per game, he ranks fourth in target share among all wide receivers. But he has flipped the switch in Week 5 with 124 air yards but 92 receiving yards. We were used to seeing lines like 91 air yards and 163 receiving yards like he produced in Week 2. 

This is a noticeable trend to watch moving forward. Kupp is at his best and is most efficient with shorter throws that give him room to operate in space. What we may gain in yards we would lose in receptions if his aDOT remains near the top of all high-volume receivers. 

Notable Players Under 30 Air Yards

KJ Osborn (9 air yards, 14 receiving yards) – Remember when this guy was a thing for a couple weeks? Over the last two weeks his target share is under 16% and he has a total of 40 receiving yards. The short stuff has shifted to Alexander Mattison and Tyler Conking, leaving Osborn with only 14% of the air yards in that span. 

Christian Kirk (15 air yards, 39 receiving yards) – For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At least that’s what I learned in ninth grade. Well, the trade off to DeAndre Hopkins getting back to the top of the receiver charts is players like Kirk and AJ Green trailing off. Kirk now was a TOTAL of 20 air yards the past two weeks after a strong 110 in Week 3. Now that I think about it, this might a leading indicator that something is, in fact, wrong with Murray’s shoulder. We should monitor if the Cardinals keep avoiding the deep targets. 

Odell Beckham (20 air yards, 20 receiving yards) – Last week it was Baker Mayfield missing Beckham for multiple wide open touchdowns. This week it was two targets and 20 yards for Beckham in a game that had almost 100 total points. We are quickly trending towards a patented Beckham meltdown on the sidelines or in the media. This is not looking good for the future.