Antonio Brown led the NFL in Adjusted Catch Yards per Team Pass Attempt, Too

by Chase Stuart on February 12, 2015

Brown was number one in 2014

On Monday, I noted that Pittsburgh wide receiver Antonio Brown led the NFL in True Receiving Yards for the second straight season. He also, by the slimmest of margins, your leader in Adjusted Catch Yards per Attempt, too.

On October 1st, I looked at the leaders in Adjusted Catch Yards per Team Pass Attempt; at the time, Jordy Nelson had a big lead on the rest of the NFL, although Brown was in second place. You can read the fine details of the system in that post, but the short version is:

Begin with each player’s number of receiving yards. Add 9 yards for every first down gained, other than first downs that resulted in touchdowns, to which we add 20 yards. For Brown, this gives him 2,624 Adjusted Catch Yards (1,698 receiving yards, 87 first downs, 13 touchdowns).

Divide that number by the number of team pass attempts, including sacks, by that player’s offense. Pittsburgh recorded 645 dropbacks in 2014, which means Brown averaged 4.07 ACY/TmAtt. Jordy Nelson (1519/71/13) had 2,301 Adjusted Catch Yards and the Packers had 566 team pass attempts. That translates to .. 4.07 ACY/TmAtt, too. But go to three decimal places, and Brown (4.068 to 4.065) becomes your winner.

I have also included a column for Adjusted Catch Yards per Estimated Team Dropback; here, we use the same formula, but multiply the numerator by 16, and the denominator by the number of games played by the receiver. Let’s use Odell Beckham as an example. The Giants wide receiver finished with 1,959 ACY (1305/58/12) and New York had 637 dropbacks, giving Beckham 3.08 ACY/TmAtt. But if we adjust for the fact that Beckham missed four games, he gets credited with 4.10 ACY/EstTmAtt, which is the highest rate in the NFL.

The table below shows the top 50 receivers in ACY/TmAtt:

Rk	Receiver	Tm	Rec	Yards	TD	FD	ACY	TmAtt	ACY/TmAtt	ACY/EstTmAtt
1	Antonio Brown	PIT	129	1698	13	87	2624	645	4.07	4.07
2	Jordy Nelson	GNB	98	1519	13	71	2301	566	4.07	4.07
3	Dez Bryant	DAL	88	1320	16	60	2036	506	4.02	4.02
4	Demaryius Thomas	DEN	111	1619	11	69	2361	624	3.78	3.78
5	Randall Cobb	GNB	91	1287	12	71	2058	566	3.64	3.64
6	Julio Jones	ATL	104	1593	6	76	2343	663	3.53	3.77
7	DeAndre Hopkins	HOU	76	1210	6	57	1789	511	3.5	3.5
8	Emmanuel Sanders	DEN	101	1404	9	69	2124	624	3.4	3.4
9	Odell Beckham	NYG	91	1305	12	58	1959	637	3.08	4.1
10	Anquan Boldin	SFO	83	1062	5	56	1621	539	3.01	3.01
11	Golden Tate	DET	99	1331	4	61	1924	649	2.96	2.96
12	Jeremy Maclin	PHI	85	1318	10	56	1932	653	2.96	2.96
13	T.Y. Hilton	IND	82	1345	7	64	1998	690	2.9	3.09
14	A.J. Green	CIN	69	1041	6	46	1521	526	2.89	3.56
15	Rob Gronkowski	NWE	82	1124	12	60	1796	635	2.83	3.02
16	Andre Johnson	HOU	85	936	3	50	1419	511	2.78	2.96
17	Alshon Jeffery	CHI	85	1133	10	60	1783	650	2.74	2.74
18	Mike Evans	TAM	68	1051	12	46	1597	583	2.74	2.92
19	Kelvin Benjamin	CAR	73	1008	9	52	1575	587	2.68	2.68
20	Steve Smith	BAL	79	1065	6	45	1536	573	2.68	2.68
21	Greg Olsen	CAR	84	1008	6	55	1569	587	2.67	2.67
22	Eric Decker	NYJ	74	962	5	47	1440	545	2.64	2.82
23	Calvin Johnson	DET	71	1077	8	59	1696	649	2.61	3.22
24	DeSean Jackson	WAS	56	1169	6	37	1568	605	2.59	2.76
25	Vincent Jackson	TAM	70	1002	2	50	1474	583	2.53	2.53
26	Doug Baldwin	SEA	66	825	3	43	1245	496	2.51	2.51
27	Travis Kelce	KAN	67	862	5	46	1331	542	2.46	2.46
28	Sammy Watkins	BUF	65	982	6	48	1480	618	2.39	2.39
29	Jason Witten	DAL	64	703	5	48	1190	506	2.35	2.35
30	Brandon LaFell	NWE	74	953	7	50	1480	635	2.33	2.33
31	Andrew Hawkins	CLE	63	824	2	44	1242	533	2.33	2.49
32	Julian Edelman	NWE	92	972	4	50	1466	635	2.31	2.64
33	Mohamed Sanu	CIN	56	790	5	38	1187	526	2.26	2.26
34	Roddy White	ATL	80	921	7	55	1493	663	2.25	2.57
35	Antonio Gates	SDG	69	821	12	44	1349	611	2.21	2.21
36	Rueben Randle	NYG	71	938	3	48	1403	637	2.2	2.2
37	Delanie Walker	TEN	63	890	4	34	1240	563	2.2	2.35
38	Mike Wallace	MIA	67	862	10	47	1395	641	2.18	2.18
39	Jimmy Graham	NOR	85	889	10	54	1485	689	2.16	2.16
40	Torrey Smith	BAL	49	767	11	38	1230	573	2.15	2.15
41	Martellus Bennett	CHI	90	916	6	43	1369	650	2.11	2.11
42	Dwayne Bowe	KAN	60	754	0	42	1132	542	2.09	2.23
43	Malcom Floyd	SDG	52	856	6	39	1273	611	2.08	2.08
44	Jordan Matthews	PHI	67	872	8	43	1347	653	2.06	2.06
45	Greg Jennings	MIN	59	742	6	40	1168	568	2.06	2.06
46	Michael Floyd	ARI	47	841	6	34	1213	596	2.04	2.04
47	Kenny Stills	NOR	63	931	3	47	1387	689	2.01	2.15
48	Marques Colston	NOR	59	902	5	45	1362	689	1.98	1.98
49	Eddie Royal	SDG	62	778	7	39	1206	611	1.97	1.97
50	Jarvis Landry	MIA	84	758	5	50	1263	641	1.97	1.97

Dez Bryant really stands out in this metric, coming in third place and not too far behind Brown and Nelson.

Eric Decker had 962 yards, 47 first downs, and 5 touchdowns for 1,440 ACY. The Jets had 545 attempts, which means Decker averaged 2.82 ACY/EstTmAtt (given that Decker missed one full game (and parts of more than one full game), I think it makes more sense to grade him on ACY/EstTmAtt). In 2013, Decker had 1,288 yards, 63 first downs, and 11 touchdowns. That gave him 1,976 ACY; given that the Broncos had 695 dropbacks, Decker averaged … 2.84 ACY/EstTmAtt. That’s pretty interesting, given the dropoff from Peyton Manning to Geno Smith.

Compared to the True Receiving Yards list, DeAndre Hopkins moves up a bit, from 10th to 7th; of course, we give a “full” adjustment to players on run-heavy offenses here, compared to just 50% of that adjustment in True Receiving Yards. Similarly, Doug Baldwin jumps from 36th on Monday to 26th today.

Antonio Brown caught a first down on 13.5% of Pittsburgh’s dropbacks, or one out of every 7.4 times the Steelers went back to pass. Wow.

Calvin Johnson fared well in this category (11.2% of estimated team dropbacks), while Golden Tate (9.4%) struggled. That’s kind of interesting, given how Tate edged Johnson in most other metrics.

Among the top receivers, Jeremy Maclin had by far the worst percentage of first downs per estimated team pass attempt. For whatever reason, just 8.6% of Eagles pass attempts wound up being a first down to Maclin. The rest of the top 12 receivers in ACY/TmAtt converted first downs on 11.6% of their team’s estimated number of pass attempts. Unsurprisingly, another big outlier in this metric was DeSean Jackson, who had a pitiful 6.5% rate.

Players who did better than you might think (based on their ACY/EstTmAtt) at converting first downs: Roddy White (9.5%), Jason Witten (9.5%), and Julian Edelman (9.0%).

What do you think of this metric as a way to analyze wide receiver production?

Tagged as: 2014 Receiving, WR Project, WR Ranking Systems

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