Week 14 Air Yards Report: Top 5 Takeaways

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 13 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 13 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. 

This list represents the top 66 wide receivers from most to least air yards. From Elijah Moore’s 255 air yards all the way down to Jalen Guyton’s 27. 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. 

Just an easy eye test from the colors on this chart gives us a significant number of takeaways from Week 13. We will dig into the five biggest things that jump out to me from this dataset. 

Top 5 Takeaways From Week 13 Air Yards Data

Moore Air Yards Plz

Elijah Moore got his old buddy back under center in Week 13, and the result was a whopping 12 targets and a league-leading 255 air yards. The four catches were a bit of a disappointment if you rolled the dice on him this week, but Joe Flacco’s YOLO play and laser-focus on Moore is a positive sign all around. P.J. Walker and Dorian Thompson-Robinson certainly weren’t getting guys 200+ air yards in a game. 

The other x-factor, of course, is the availability of Amari Cooper. He left after just 23 snaps on Sunday due to another injury, and his availability for future games is up in the air. If he misses, Moore would be shot to the moon for the weeks to come. More than 27% of his season’s air yards came in this Week 13 game, and more may be coming from Flacco. 

Gamble on Calvin Ridley?

Careful talking about gambling around Calvin Ridley, we don’t want him getting suspended again. But now may be the time to start deploying Ridley, as his roller-coaster season has been languishing on your bench. The injury to Trevor Lawrence seems much less severe than the one to Christian Kirk, and Lawrence may be out there by the fantasy playoffs. Ridley was targeted early and often once Kirk went down on Monday night, and only a few pieces of bad luck kept him from a massive game.

His 156 air yards represent long throws that went his way from both Lawrence and backup C.J. Beathard. What they don’t account for, however, is the 50-yard completion Ridley caught from Beathard late in the game because a ticky-tack offensive holding call was whistled on a lineman. With that play added in, Ridley is easily over 200 air yards and 75 receiving yards for the game. 

With Christian Kirk likely out for the rest of the fantasy season, it’s time for Ridley to step up and become the dominant threat he was in Atlanta. 

A Better Seattle Strategy

If you read my Week 13 air yards piece, you got a sense of my frustration with how the Seattle Seahawks were handling their passing game, particularly with D.K. Metcalf. In Week 12, he had 161 air yards but just three catches for 32 yards. That’s because Geno Smith – not the most accurate quarterback who has ever walked onto an NFL field – gave him an 18-yard average depth of target (aDOT) in that game. Sure, D.K. Metcalf can get to those balls, but that doesn’t make them more accurate throws. 

Fast forward to Week 13 against Dallas, and Metcalf had just 93 air yards but 134 receiving yards and three touchdowns. The quarterback didn’t change, so what did? His aDOT, that’s what. Metcalf saw his aDOT cut to 11.6 yards in that game, and Seattle gave him room to operate. His 75-yard touchdown run was a perfect example of how to use him. He is one of the fastest players on the planet, so make sure the ball accurately gets in his hands and let his speed and strength do the rest. Put him in the old Odell Beckham Jr. role with crossing patterns and slants all over the place, and Metcalf’s speed can do the rest. 

London Has Fallen

Poor Drake London. A healthy 20% target share and 34% of the air yards can only get him one catch for eight yards. The former eighth overall draft pick in 2022 has been relegated to WR3-4 duty in fantasy and has similar numbers to players like Josh Downs. Call it the Arthur Smith effect. Call it gross mismanagement. Whatever it is, London’s talents are being grossly underused in Atlanta and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. 

London has slightly more air yards than Tutu Atwell. He trails Rashid Shaheed and Jakobi Meyers. D.J. Chark and Nelson Agholor have more receiving touchdowns. The simple fact is I am now at the point until one of the horrific variables of Arthur Smith or Desmond Ridder changes, I can’t put Drake London one one of my fantasy teams. 

The Deebo Samuel Special

Not listed on the chart above is Deebo Samuel. He had 116 receiving yards on Sunday against the Eagles, so he must have had a healthy number of air yards, right? WRONG. He had one airyard. One. And 115 yards after the catch. As you probably know, Deebo had a massive game with more than 150 total yards and three touchdowns, and he has turned his healthy games into the steroid version of what he did in 2021. 

Throughout this column in 2022, there was a regular section each week dedicated to Deebo Samuel’s production, trying to prove what an outlier year 2021 was and that he would regress. Due to injury and a variety of other factors, I would say I was right, but Samuel is back to proving me wrong again this year. I just have to take the “L” here. He is a one-of-one and an absolute wizard with the ball after the catch. 

Look at it this way. Deebo Samuel is 12th among all wide receivers in total yards after the catch this season (369 yards). He has played 10 games. On that list, 10 of the remaining 11 have played at least 12 games, and one has played 11. He’s a freak.