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Welcome, football fans, to the Razzball Air Yards Report. This is the place where we look at thrown footballs (both caught and NOT caught) to try and predict which receivers might have some positive and negative regression coming their way. Week 12 was another wild week in the 2023 air yards season, as you will see below.
If you want a refresher on what air yards are and how to best use them, here are my takeaways from 2022 air yards data. In this iteration of the air yards primer, we will look ahead to Week 13 of the fantasy football season and see who might be due for some positive or negative regression. I hope you will join me each and every Thursday during the regular season for our breakdown of the week that was in air yards.
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Week 12 Air Yards and Air Yards% Data
Below we have air yards and receiving data courtesy of FTN.com. Air yards is a tool that is now freely accessible everywhere, and you can find the site or format that works best for you.Â
This list represents the top 65 wide receivers from most to least air yards. From Marquise Brown’s 189 air yards all the way down to Cooper Kupp’s 30. I color-coded this to make the referencing easier to identify. If a wide receiver was closer to the top of a category, the darker green the number would be. The bottom of the list is primarily orange into red.Â
Just an easy eye test from the colors on this chart gives us a significant number of takeaways from Week 12. We will dig into the five biggest things that jump out to me from this dataset.Â
Top 5 Takeaways From Week 12 Air Yards Data
Tyreek Small Hill
Something strange was afoot in the NFL’s first-ever Black Friday game last week when Tyreek Hill got his normal 12 targets and nine receptions. That ended up being enough for 102 receiving yards and a touchdown, but Tyreek basically had to do all of the work himself. His 3.7-yard average depth of target (aDOT) was half the number of his next-lowest game in 2023, and it’s clear this was in the game plan for Miami.
Not wanting Hill to get into battles with New York Jets’ cornerback Sauce Gardner downfield, the Dolphins gave Hill extremely short passes and let him rack up the yards after the catch. This is uncommon for Hill this year as he typically averages a 10.0-yard aDOT. You can likely expect more of the long bombs and 150-yard games even as soon as this weekend against the horrific Washington Commanders pass defense.Â
The Good Gabriel Davis
The Gabe Davis roller coaster ride continues this year after his latest explosion game against the Eagles last week. Just a hair behind Marquise Brown in air yards, Davis should have had an even bigger day than his 106 yards and a touchdown. Davis is always, ALWAYS going to be among the leaders in air yards, but his ability to secure the targets on a consistent basis is maddening. Among players with at least 40 targets this year, Davis is ninth with a 13.82 aDOT, but it hasn’t always led to fantasy production.Â
In half-PPR formats, Davis has four weeks where he finished inside the top 15 at the position, and five weeks where he is outside the top 65 wide receivers, including zero total points in Weeks 9 and 11. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but when he goes off for WR7 numbers like he did on Sunday, it’s just a painful reminder that the usage is always there. But the fantasy production isn’t.Â
No Moore Screens Plz
You saw the tweets and the memes on Monday night. You have heard by now that the Bears deployed the most screen passes in the NFL in their Monday night win (that included just four field goals as their points). I don’t know what Chicago was so afraid of, but they were one last-minute 36-yard pass to D.J. Moore from ruining another of his fantasy weeks.Â
Moore was among the league leaders in Week 12 in targets, receptions, and receiving yards. His 65% of air yards share was third-most at the position. But he only saw 53 total air yards on 13 targets, which is just the product of an “unserious” team, to borrow the words of Logan Roy. I guess in PPR leagues, you don’t care so much if Moore can catch 11 passes, but he was one long throw away from 10 catches for under 80 yards. Just an unheard-of lack of efficiency.Â
Sleepy in Seattle
It’s getting bad in Seattle, and I don’t mean the weather. D.K. Metcalf was targeted a strong nine times for a massive 161 air yards on Thanksgiving, but it resulted in just three catches for 32 yards against a 49ers team that allows over 8.5 yards per completion to opponents. Tyler Lockett saw just five targets and ended the game with 30 receiving yards. But the problem is not D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. It’s Geno Smith.Â
Smith is 24th among quarterbacks in clean pocket completion percentage, according to Player Profiler. He is also 32nd in red zone accuracy rating and 21st in true passer rating. Normally, when a player as talented as Metcalf puts up a crazy number like 161 air yards, he is an ideal candidate to bounce back with a big game if he didn’t produce it the week before. I just can’t get there with Metcalf now until we see Geno Smith make a substantial about-face.Â
Christian Watson is Back
The way to get Christian Watson back on track with 94 yards and a touchdown? It’s elementary for Watson. Pepper him in with deep targets over and over again and let his supernatural ball skills and high-point ability take over. Thirty-two wide receivers saw at least seven targets in Week 12, and Watson’s 20-yard aDOT was 1.9 yards higher than any of those other players. The emergence of Jordan Love over the past few weeks certainly hasn’t hurt his production either, but Watson has uncanny skills down the field when he has a man to beat.
According to Player Profiler, Watson’s yards per reception and average aDOT are both top-five at the position this year. Targets like that will often lead to these up-and-down type of weeks, but Watson is now finally fully healthy, has run more than 30 routes in four of his last five games, and has at least seven targets in three of those contests. With Aaron Jones and Luke Musgrave now banged up for the Packers, Watson seemingly has a path to fantasy success for the rest of the year.Â
