Air Yards Report, Week 3: Everybody Loves Raymond?

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 3, we will do a quick analysis of the list of the 75 wide receivers who finished the week with at least 30 air yards.

Market Share of Air Yards: Top 5 in Week 1

These players received the five highest percentage share of their team’s total air yards in Week 3.

Kalif Raymond (109 air yards, 92.4% ) – The Detroit Lions had some wacky air yards numbers on Sunday against the Ravens. Raymond at 92.4%? No one else above 18%. Hockenson at 7%? And how do they have an air yards share that adds up to more than 100%? Because Detroit had four players with a negative aDOT, including D’Andre Swift who had seven targets for negative-13 air yards. I’m not sure we will see another air yards share like this again from Raymond or anyone else, so we can likely dismiss this performance as an outlier.

Davante Adams (253 air yards, 71.5%) – The next two names on this list are going to start to look mighty familiar over the next 14 weeks, methinks. Marques Valdez-Scantling finally broke out after back-to-back massive air yard shares, but this pass offense is elite, efficient, and funneled primarily to Adams and Aaron Jones. Just enjoy the ride.

Brandin Cooks (125 air yards, 65.8%) – Likewise, Cooks has seen an air yards share of 44%, 68% and 65% in his first three games. There is simply no other legitimate talent to throw to in Houston, so even if the targets are offline or mistimed, Cooks is going to get all of them. The question is how many touchdowns will he end the year with. Smart money is on less than six.

Michael Pittman (125 air yards, 61.6%) – Pittman’s share of his team’s air yards is moving faster than Jerry Jones’ publicist after his “mother’s milk” comment. In his first three weeks, Pittman is at 16% < 52% < 62%, and he is now on a tw0-week stretch of games with more than 125 receiving yards. He will hit pay-dirt before too long with this kind of volume.

DK Metcalf (144 air yards, 61%) – Tyler Lockett had his two big games. This time, it was Metcalf. Can we ever have a game where they both go off? If that were to ever happen, Russell Wilson must be freed of the offensive handcuffs keeping him to 29 pass attempts per game. Here’s hoping. Until then, Lockett vs. Metcalf will be a tough choice for us all.

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.

DeAndre Hopkins (36 air yards, 13.7%) – This just about solidifies the rumors that Hopkins was truly banged up on Sunday. He will be back to a 25% target share and 35% air yards share when he is fully healthy, especially since rookie Rondale Moore is only seeing 5% of the air yards.

Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (32 air yards, 18.8%) – This is a name to watch this week as practice and injury reports for Julio Jones and AJ Brown roll in. If they are both out this week, Westbrook-Ikhine could immediately jump to the head of the line for Titans’ air yards share. They can’t give the ball to Derrick Henry on every play against the Jets. Right?

Brandon Aiyuk (44 air yards, 17.1%) – Aiyuk finally reclaimed his spot as a starting wide receiver opposite Deebo Samuel. He also jumped right back into excellent numbers with a 21% target share and 17% of air yards. Jauan Jennings and Trent Sherfield didn’t have a target between them on Sunday, so our prolonged nightmare with Aiyuk is over and the breakout can commence.

Positive Regression Candidate

Jakobi Meyers (173 air yards, 94 receiving yards) – One of the more incredible stats you will see this year made its way around the Twitterverse on Wednesday: Meyers found himself with 27% of the air yards share and a 27% target share on Sunday. With that type of involvement, it’s just a matter of time before he finds himself in the end zone, especially with a competent pocket passer like Mac Jones behind center.

It is early, but Meyers finds himself in the top-20 of all wide receivers in air yards this year. If he keeps getting this type of involvement, we will have to start considering him among the most elite target hogs in the league.

Negative Regression Candidate

AJ Green (106 air yards, 112 receiving yards) – Green saw an air yards share of around 20% the first two weeks of this season. That is an excellent number for him considering the competition, his age, and injury history. But in Week 3, that number spiked to 40.5% on just six targets. What happened?

Primarily it was due to the lack of involvement from DeAndre Hopkins as noted above. But Green also benefited from an outlier performance with a 17.7 yard aDOT in that game. That number more than doubled his aDOT from the first two games (8.75) and is five yards more than his total from 2020 (12.1 yards).

In years past, Green had the ability to make those kinds of plays consistently downfield, but that is just not his game at this stage of his career. That role is more suited to Christian Kirk (15.59 aDOT this season), and Green should regress back to his more modest role by Week 4.

Kupp Check

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

Kupp, of course, smashed again with his new BFF, MVP-front runner Matt Stafford, slinging it to him 12 times. Kupp racked up 12 targets for 96 yards (107 air yards) and two touchdowns. But for the first time this season Kupp looked like a mortal wide receiver.

His receiving yards didn’t far outpace his air yards for the first time this year, and his aDOT tells the tale of why. His depth of target has increased each week, from 7.1 yards in Week 1 to 8.92 in Week 3. This is not a problem for someone with Kupp’s talent. All it means is if he keeps getting deeper targets, he might start to resemble every other elite pass-catcher in the NFL.

This is something to monitor, but isn’t actionable necessarily. If Kupp can get open downfield with the same frequency he was catching short and intermediate passes, our fantasy squads certainly won’t mind those deep shots.

Notable Players Under 30 Air Yards

Robby Anderson (6 air yards, 8 receiving yards) – My finger is getting awfully close to the panic button on this one. They didn’t pay this guy $29.5 million to get one target per game, did they? I am willing to give it one more week to see how they game-plan the offense with no Christian McCaffrey.

KJ Osborn (11 air yards, 26 receiving yards) – With Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Tyler Conklin ahead of him in the pecking order, Osborn simply isn’t going to see many games like in Week 2. He burst out for six targets, 91 yards and a touchdown in that game, but we are going to see many contests end up like Week 3. Just be prepared if you grabbed him off waivers.

Tyler Lockett (13 air yards, 31 receiving yards) – See “Metcalf, DK” above. Lockett got the rock for two weeks and then deferred to Metcalf for a week. These two are much more friendly to roster in season-long fantasy than in DFS. When my money is on the line, they are two players I can never seem to get right.