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All of us nerds in our basements writing out fantasy football stats on the back of comic books will never be satisfied, will we? It’s not enough that we have receiving yards, target share, snap counts, aDOT, RACR, and WOPR for wide receivers and tight ends. Now we have to dissect and analyze how far a football was thrown in the air no matter whether the ball was caught or not? Does that even really matter? 

Well, whenever you get a stat that is as predictive and actionable as air yards, you bet your nerdy ass it matters. What in the name of Dungeons and Dragons is air yards? Glad you asked. Let’s dig in.

Air Yards: The New Kid on the Block

The concept and application of Air Yards was popularized in 2018 by Josh Hermsmeyer, although the concept has been around for a while longer. In terms of New Kids on the Block, it’s popularity now rivals Joey McIntyre or Donnie Wahlberg in fantasy circles. Air yards has blown way past whatever stat is that wannabe Danny Wood.

Essentially air yard measures how far downfield a target was thrown to its intended receiver, whether the pass was caught or not. It is a component of the uber-popular average depth of target (aDOT), serving as the numerator with total targets the denominator. 

It is meant to be a more holistic look at a receiver’s involvement and route tree than just targets. High air yards can mean one of two things. First, it could be a high volume of short- to intermediate-targets to a receiver. Or, it could mean a smaller number of much longer targets. But more on that later.

Knowing a receiver’s air yards and, subsequently, his aDOT can give you a quick, back-of-the-envelope look at how a receiver is used.

Sounds Fancy, So What?

Let’s take a peek at 2020 numbers with this context to see what stands out. Here you see the top-15 in receiving yards for wide receivers last year next to the top-15 leaders in air yards. 

Player Rec. Yards   Player Air Yards
Stefon Diggs 1535   Calvin Ridley 1918
DeAndre Hopkins 1407   Stefon Diggs 1700
Justin Jefferson 1400   DK Metcalf 1668
Davante Adams 1374   Tyreek Hill 1624
Calvin Ridley 1374   D.J. Moore 1577
DK Metcalf 1303   Jerry Jeudy 1541
Tyreek Hill 1276   Allen Robinson 1453
Allen Robinson 1250   Chase Claypool 1438
D.J. Moore 1193   Justin Jefferson 1421
Brandin Cooks 1143   Marvin Jones 1411
Terry McLaurin 1118   DeAndre Hopkins 1381
Amari Cooper 1114   Brandin Cooks 1347
Robby Anderson 1097   Darius Slayton 1328
A.J. Brown 1073   D.J. Chark 1326
Tyler Lockett 1054   Robby Anderson 1324

The first thing that will slap you in the face is that 10 of these 15 names overlap. So yes, there is a strong correlation between air yards and receiving yards. But look at those other names. Darius Slayton? DJ Chark? Marvin Jones? Jones finished 19th in receiving yards, but the rest all fell in the 30th-50th range for yards. 

It has been found in some recent research that average targeted air yards is one of, if not the most, predictive of receiver statistics. How we can use this for fantasy purposes is by comparing large air yard gainers to lower receiving yard totals, adjust for team context, and look for who might be a positive regression candidate. Beyond the five with wide gaps listed above, AJ Green, Nelson Agholor, and Marquise Brown all were top-20 in total air yards but didn’t come anywhere close to sniffing the top-20 in receiving yards. 

What I can do with these in fantasy terms is run through a simple logic check:

Marvin Jones: Changed teams, rookie quarterback, two other strong receivers with which to compete, he is the veteran presence. Verdict? Not sold on positive regression

DJ Chark: Similar to teammate Jones, but did not change teams, coming off minor injury, extremely high aDOT (14.1). Verdict? Positive regression candidate

Jerry Jeudy: new more accurate quarterback, Courtland Sutton coming off injury, in division with some banger offenses. Verdict? Positive regression candidate

Marquise Brown: Lamar Jackson accuracy issues in early part of 2020, added a new stud receiver teammate, running game could be a bit of a mess. Verdict? Positive regression candidate

AJ Green: old, new team, oft-injured, dynamic receiver teammates. Verdict? Hellz no

On a week-to-week basis, this air yards regression column will look to tell these micro-stories of how a player has done their past few games and try to determine if we can expect positive or negative regression in the weeks ahead. 

What To Do With a C-Kupp

It is true, however, that when we stat nerds see a C-Kupp right in front of us, we (or our models) don’t always know what to do. Cooper Kupp is one of a handful of players that can break the air yards matrix that we must consider as we draft or make weekly start-sit decisions. 

Consider Kupp’s 2020:

Rec. Yards Rank Air Yards Rank aDOT Rank YAC Rank
978 19th 805 54th 6.44 184th 514 4th

Abysmal finishes, relatively speaking in air yards and average depth of target. But elite production in total yards and yards after the catch.

But if watch any Cooper Kupp, you know that the deep ball is just not his game. He is primarily all short and underneath stuff, which should be particularly intriguing with a new quarterback like Matthew Stafford who excelled in those passes to players like Golden Tate and Danny Amendola in years past.

But for Kupp, he transformed into a YAC monster in the past couple years. In fact, both Kupp and teammate Robert Woods ranked top-seven in yards after the catch last year, surrounded by names like Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Stefon Diggs, Tyreek Hill and Robby Anderson. This clearly became a Sean McVey game-plan and we could see it in hyperdrive in 2021. 

Other players in this same mold are guys you might expect: Tyler Boyd, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Cole Beasley. Slot machine kings who rack up big plays after the catch, but are low on the air yards list. 

On the other side of the coin you have guys we could call the catch-and-fall maestros. Mike Evans (1241 air yards, only 258 YAC), Adam Thielen (1239, 243), and the previously-mentioned Marvin Jones (1411, 196). 

All of this will be factored in this season as we look towards helping you make better lineup and roster decisions based on a combination of targets, air yards, and average depth of target. 

How Will This All Work?

As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “if we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover.”

After two weeks of the 2020 NFL season, Chicago Bears fans were riding high. Their team was 2-0 after defeating the mighty (or not) Lions and Giants, and there was some (awful, misplaced) optimism that Mitch Trubisky was finally evolving into the high-end draft pick Chicago hoped he would be. 

In the end, that would go down about as well as a bad Chicago kielbasa, but there were some positive signs that could be taken away. After those first two games, Allen Robinson was ninth in the NFL in air yards among wide receivers (231). But the problem was he was only 39th in receiving yards (107). 

Once Nick Foles took over, things course-corrected and Robinson finished the season seventh in air yards (1,453) and eighth in receiving yards (1,250). Over time, if a player is getting the targets and the air yards, the receptions will come. If a quarterback is consistently missing the team’s best receiver (looking at you, Trubisky), he isn’t going to be the team’s signal-caller for long. 

Positive regression was unlocked for Robinson and air yards was our Doc Brown, guiding us to a future event we could have certainty would happen.

Air Supply 

Each week, I’ll supply the air yards data and recommendations for how to make that information actionable. If you ever have players you would like to see more in-depth or have thoughts on how to use air yards for useful fantasy decisions, my DMs are always open. I have found air yards to be one of the more useful fantasy tools in my tool belt and have no problem loaning them out for your own projects. 

Join me here next Thursday as we dig into the first week of games!