Fantasy Football Quandary: Are Targets a Vital Statistic?

It seems the trendy statistic in the NFL is the number of targets a player receives. Quite simply, it’s the number of times the ball is thrown to a player. Obviously it’s important that a player gets thrown to in order to put up numbers, but is it being over-hyped?

Here are the top 12 targeted WRs:

Andre Johnson – 52
Nate Burleson – 49
Steve Smith (NYG) – 49
Randy Moss – 48
Reggie Wayne – 48
Chad Ochocinco – 46
T.J. Houshmandzadeh – 45
Steve Smith (CAR) – 43
Santonio Holmes – 41
Calvin Johnson – 41
Wes Welker – 41
Hines Ward – 40

Now here are the top 12 fantasy WRs (non-PPR leagues):

Steve Smith (NYG) – 72.1
Reggie Wayne – 69.9
Andre Johnson – 67.7
Brandon Marshall – 54.8
Chad Ochocinco – 53.0
Nate Burleson – 53.0
Mario Manningham – 52.2
Miles Austin – 51.1
Roddy White – 50.9
Larry Fitzgerald – 50.0
Vincent Jackson – 49.3
Hines Ward – 49.0

Notice that five of the top targeted wide receivers don’t show up.

The next four highest scoring receivers are DeSean Jackson, Mike Sims-Walker, Santana Moss, and Percy Harvin, which makes them the 13th-16th ranked fantasy receivers.

Jackson, Sims-Walker, and Harvin don’t rank among the top 30 targeted receivers. Santana Moss is 22nd.

Steve Smith (CAR), Wes Welker, Torry Holt, Anquan Boldin, Justin Gage, Eddie Royal, Mark Clayton, Mushin Muhammad, Bryant Johnson, Bernard Berrian, Louis Murphy, and Patrick Crayton are among the top 30 targeted receivers yet they aren’t among the top 30 fantasy scoring receivers. That’s a staggering 40 percent.

While it is a useful statistic, do not put too much stock in it. If the pass is incomplete or you have a meager gain, is it really worth having the same weight as a 40-yard reception? The most important statistic for a receiver is touchdowns. It is no coincidence that the top 10 scoring receivers all have three or four touchdowns so far.  Obviously a close second is yardage. That’s where the scoring comes from.

Point-per-reception leagues add one point per reception, but I am vehemently opposed to PPR leagues. It overvalues possession receivers and short-changes deep threats. For the life of me I can not figure out why someone would agree that three catches for 15 yards should be more valuable than one 30-yard catch. That’s a different discussion for a different day.

The bottom line is use targets as a guide, but don’t ignore the age-old indicators of fantasy production.