Anomaly or New Norm? What to Make of WR Outliers for 2024 (Fantasy Football)

In this article series, I’m looking back at outlier statistics from the 2023 season and attempting to answer the question, “Was this an anomaly, or is it the new norm for this player moving forward?” I’ve already covered quarterbacks and running backs. In this edition, I’ll be examining wide receivers. 

The Stats

This series uses efficiency numbers in an effort to eliminate volume-based stats and focus on player talent. For wide receivers, it makes the most sense to use per-route, per-target, and per-reception stats. I’ve filtered the stats to include only the wideouts who saw at least 50 targets last season because outlier plays can disproportionately affect averages when the sample size gets too small. The wideout stats featured in this article, and the average among those who saw 50+ targets last season, are shown in the table below.

Tyreek Hill: 3.82 Yards/RR

Hill put up historical yards/RR numbers in 2023. As I pointed out in my 25 WR Statistics from the 2023 Season article, his 3.82 yards/RR ranked second since 2006, behind only Steve Smith’s 3.87 in 2008. He more than doubled the league average for wideouts with 50+ targets in 2023.

Anomaly or New Norm?

In 2022, Hill logged 3.22 yards/RR, the third highest since PFF began tracking. He’s now the only receiver to top 3.20 yards/RR more than once. He maxed out at 2.54 yards/RR in his six years with the Chiefs but has led the league in consecutive seasons since taking his talents to South Beach. As long as he’s healthy and running routes designed by Mike McDaniel, he should remain among the league leaders in what many consider the ultimate wide receiver efficiency statistic.

George Pickens: 18.1 Yards/Rec

Pickens took a step forward in his second season, so much so that he led the entire league in yards/rec. He was the only wideout with 50+ targets to eclipse 18.0 yards/rec, though Brandon Aiyuk wasn’t far behind at 17.9. Twenty players have reached this benchmark over the last decade but if we raise the bar to 100+ targets, the list gets cut to seven. The table below shows those seven players with at least 100 targets and 18.0 yards/rec.

Anomaly or New Norm?

As you may have noticed in that table, no receiver with 100+ targets has topped 18.0 yards/rec more than once over the last decade. Pickens is highly unlikely to repeat the feat in 2024. This is not, however, a death knell for his upcoming fantasy season. As I wrote in his Path to WR1 Fantasy Season article, Pickens should see an increased target share as the clear alpha after the departure of Diontae Johnson. He also gets a reset at quarterback and offensive coordinator. Pickens probably won’t lead the league in yards/rec, but he is still a candidate to break out for fantasy football in 2024.

Brandon Aiyuk: 12.8 Yards/Target

Aiyuk narrowly trailed Pickens in yards/rec, but his 12.8 yards/target was arguably more impressive. Only 15 players with 50+ targets in a season have averaged 12.0 yards/target since the NFL started tracking the stat in 1992. Aiyuk is the only one ever to do it with 100+ targets. Nico Collins was close, but nearly a full yard/target behind Aiyuk at 11.9 yards/target in 2023. After him, we need to go all the way back to the year 2000, when Terry Holt averaged 11.8 yards/target.

Anomaly or New Norm?

When a player posts an NFL record season, it can’t be considered the norm moving forward. There are multiple factors when trying to project how much Aiyuk will decline in 2024. He averaged 8.8 yards/target over his first three seasons, which is respectable but nowhere near his record-setting 2023. Catching passes from the hyper-efficient Brock Purdy, whom I detailed in the quarterback edition of this article, certainly helps. Then again, now that Aiyuk has officially requested out of San Fransisco, even that is up in the air. 

Courtland Sutton: 9.0 Targets/TD

Not only did Sutton catch a career-high 10 touchdowns in 2023, he did so on the fourth fewest targets of the five healthy seasons played over his career. He was also the most efficient touchdown scorer on a per-reception (5.9) and per-yards (77.2) basis. He tied for the fourth most receiving touchdowns but it only translated to finishing as WR35 on the season.

Anomaly or New Norm?

Sutton was the only receiver in the NFL to catch touchdowns at a per-single-digit target rate. Jahan Dotson and Christian Watson were the two receivers who accomplished that feat in 2022. The table below shows how they performed in 2023.

Targets/TD

As you can see, Dotson’s touchdown efficiency plummeted, while Watson’s regressed slightly. Entering his seventh season, Sutton doesn’t profile as the same type of big play wideout as Dotson or Watson. Regardless, we can’t expect Sutton to score at such a high clip in 2024, especially considering he will likely be catching passes from rookie Bo Nix. 

Chris Godwin: 65.0 Targets/TD, 512.0 Yards/TD

On the other end of the touchdown efficiency spectrum, we find Chris Godwin. He wasn’t dead last in scoring rate among wide receivers, but the guys beneath him all had fewer than 85 targets and very low fantasy expectations (Wan’Dale Robinson, Jonathan Mingo, Demario Douglas, and DeVante Parker). At 27 years old and a season removed from his ACL recovery, Godwin should have been in the prime of his career in 2023, but despite going for 1,024 yards on 130 targets, he only found the end zone twice.

Anomaly or New Norm?

Godwin has never been a prolific touchdown scorer, but his last two seasons have been significantly worse than the beginning of his career. Over his first five seasons, Godwin averaged a touchdown every 16.6 targets and every 160.1 yards. Those rates have plummeted to every 54.4 targets and every 409.5 yards in the past two seasons combined. We could see some slightly positive regression for him in 2024, but with no noteworthy changes to Tampa Bay’s offensive skill group, don’t expect Godwin to turn into a touchdown machine.

Rashee Rice: 8.3 YAC/Rec

Rice was a YAC monster in his rookie season. The only player with a higher YAC/rec rate was Deebo Samuel (8.8) and by now, we should know that is the norm for him. Rice’s YAC/rec increased as Andy Reid and the Chiefs figured out how to utilize him best in the offense. He started the year averaging just 5.5 YAC/rec through the first five weeks, then saw that skyrocket to 9.0 YAC/rec over his final 11 games before sitting out Week 18.  

Anomaly or New Norm?

Rice averaged just 6.6 YAC/rec in his four collegiate seasons at SMU but that included posting 10.1 YAC/rec as a freshman in 2019. His rookie season puts him in elite company, tied with the aforementioned Deebo Samuel for the second-highest YAC/rec rate by a rookie in NFL history, just behind A.J. Brown (8.9). Kansas City brought in speedy wideouts Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy, presumably to stretch the field, but it’s hard to imagine them going away from the short to intermediate work that allowed Rice to rack up yards after the catch. He should remain among the league leaders in the statistic when he’s on the field.