Targets and receiving yards can only tell you so much about an NFL receiver’s performance.
Consider two wideouts who both finished a week with 12 targets each. Their receiving totals—89 and 56 yards, respectively—begin to tell a story but don’t illustrate the full picture. Where was a player targeted on the football field? How much of a receiver’s yardage came from the throw itself compared to yards after the catch? Were the deep shots where the receiver didn’t come down with the ball meaningful?
Enter air yards, first introduced to the fantasy community by Josh Hermsmeyer in 2016. Air yards are the amount of yards a pass travels in the air, and the metric can help identify how a receiver is being utilized. Ratchet up a receiver’s average depth of target (aDOT) and widen the range of outcomes:more deep shots but decrease the likelihood of those targets being caught. Tone down a receiver’s aDOT and generate more consistency: more short and intermediate looks and increase the chances the receiver can make good on those targets.
