Week 5 Air Yards

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 4 was another wild week in the 2023 air yards season, as you will see below.

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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 5 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.

Week 4 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 64 wide receivers from most to least air yards. From A.J. Brown’s 212 air yards all the way down to Colten Dowell’s 37. 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 4. We will dig into the five biggest things that jump out to me from this dataset.

Top 5 Takeaways From Week 4 Air Yards Data

Chris Olave is Inevitable

Chris Olave is basically the air yards paragon. He needs to tattoo the words “Air Yards King” somewhere on his body. Look at all that red around that bright green 146 air yards for Olave. Derek Carr was targeting him downfield on Sunday but just could not make the accurate throws to catch him for a big play.

Olave continues to be one of the best wide receivers in the NFL without a touchdown this season, but it is almost inevitable that things turn around for him. Carr can’t keep missing him forever, shoulder injury or not. Carr has a history, especially last year with Davante Adams last year, of making big plays with his receivers so that good times are coming. Every bit of the throw and target distance part of the equation is elite. We just need to make Carr’s balls more catchable.

Adam Thielen Gets Young Again

Bryce Young, that is. Those eight targets, seven catches, and 49% air yards are bordering on superstar numbers. But I think you can see where this is going. Just 49 air yards on eight targets is quite abysmal. Very Danny Amendola-esque. In fact, with Andy Dalton last week, Thielen’s average depth of target (aDOT) was 9.9 yards. With Bryce Young back under center? That number fell to 6.1 yards.

The fact that 49 air yards was 49% of the total air yards for the Panthers tells you all you need to know about this Carolina passing game. Guys like Adam Thielen are going to have to get there on volume alone with those short passes coming to them. I fear the window to sell high on Thielen has passed.

Joshua Palmer Ready for Primetime

In his first game as a featured player, Joshua Palmer proved he was ready to play the Mike Williams role with his team-leading eight targets and 149 air yards/51% air yards share. Those are incredible numbers, and we can throw the meager three receptions out the window going forward. The fact that Palmer was still able to generate 77 yards on just three receptions shows that he is going to continue to get high-value (but high-risk) targets downfield. Connecting on one or two of those per game should send Palmer’s value skyrocketing.

Even including what Mike Williams did in his 2.5 games this year, Palmer leads the team in aDOT (14.5 yards) and is tied for second in air yards share (24%). Surely Keenan Allen will get more targets than anyone in most games, but I look at this game against the Raiders as an absolute win for Palmer and exactly what we needed to see in his first starting gig.

Tyler Boyd Fills In

Tee Higgins – who suffered a fractured rib on Sunday and could be out a while – is currently sixth in the NFL in air yards share at 43.5%. After losing Higgins, Tyler Boyd tried to do his best Tee Higgins impression with seven targets and 56% of the Bengals’ air yards on Sunday. He was only able to manage 26 receiving yards in that game, but it’s just because he was unable to come down with the long passes from Joe Burrow.

Now, we believe Boyd can be a capable WR2 fill-in, so the real question is, how healthy is Joe Burrow? If we are to assume Burrow can be even close to his normal self and get the ball downfield, Boyd should be a very nice WR3/Flex play moving forward if these kinds of numbers continue.

Garrett Wilson Could Get There

We actually saw a semi-competent Zach Wilson against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night (I’m sure Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s mom being there had nothing to do with it), but perhaps the most competent thing he did was pepper his best wide receiver with 14 targets. He was only able to turn those 14 targets into 60 receiving yards, but it’s a start. If Zach Wilson isn’t going to create Garrett Wilson’s fantasy value by being accurate downfield, maybe he will generate it by overwhelming the second-year receiver with targets.

He ended up with 15.0 PPR points which you will absolutely take right now considering who is throwing him the ball. Garrett Wilson is up to third in the NFL in target share (32.7%), and he is seventh overall in air yards share (42.2%). How does the saying go? “Quality over quantity.” Not in Garrett Wilson’s case. For him to pay off ROI with Zach Wilson, we need to quantity.