Any time you are talking about passing, you are going to have a dependent relationship.

But the main point is that totals are very misleading. Teams may target a player more because of a lack of alternatives. Not because they are good.

Having more opportunities doesn't mean they did better with their opportunities. They can get more total catches being average if they are targeted enough to make up for the lack of ability.

For example, Brandon Marshall was targeted 192 times. He was probably about the 40th most productive WR per target. He just made up for his mediocrity with having twice the opportunities of James Jones, but put up fewer TDs.

Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister 

Which proves my point... it's better to go with the caught/dropped numbers because you knew the player had a chance at those balls. Where targets can be the QB just getting rid of the ball and the ball not being even close...

Using NFL.com for yards and catches numbers. And Zero2Cool numbers for dropped numbers.

Finley
Yards: 667
Catches: 61
Drops: 9

667 / (61+9) = 9.528571 yards per should of grabbed.

Graham
Yards: 982
Catches: 85
Drops: 15

982 / (85+15) = 9.82 yards per should of grabbed.


No idea what the standard deviation is for this kind of thing and there for hard to tell how close is close... but the less than 0.3 seems very close.

Originally Posted by: beast 

Again, yes and no.

If Finley presented a better target, was more open, had fewer passes defended and saved more bad passes, he would have a higher catches per target.

Where Graham could have been unable to get open, didn't win a fight for a ball or couldn't save a bad pass, his completions per target would be lower.

Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister 

That's adding speculation... and you can speculate ether way. If player A is a better target or is player B a better target... is player A or player B fighting harder to make a catch? Numbers are numbers.

Originally Posted by: beast 

The receiver can increase the catches per target rate if they are good.

Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister 

Using NFL.com for yards and catches numbers. And Zero2Cool numbers for dropped numbers.

Finley
Yards: 667
Catches: 61
Drops: 9

667 / (61+9) = 9.528571 yards per should of grabbed.

Graham
Yards: 982
Catches: 85
Drops: 15

982 / (85+15) = 9.82 yards per should of grabbed.


No idea what the standard deviation is for this kind of thing and there for hard to tell how close is close... but the less than 0.3 seems very close.

Originally Posted by: beast 

They're both starters in the NFL on pretty good offensive teams... so assume they're both good. But still targets count the passes that they don't even have a chance to catch.

Originally Posted by: beast 

Since the point is who is better, that assumption is contradictory.

Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister 

As is adding QB targets in the mix because that's the QB... not the receiver.

You pointed out the receiver can effect it some what but still it's more so QB and the question isn't about the QBs, so taking them out as much as possible it would make sense to look only at the ones you know they had a chance on which are the catches and the drops and messaging things that you can message such as yards and not how hard they did or didn't try because both were probably trying to make plays happen.

Originally Posted by: beast 

QUARLESS WILL MAKE FINLEY AN AFTERTHOUGHT THIS YEAR.

MARK IT DOWN!

Originally Posted by: nerdmann