In the modern era, there are 32 teams playing 16 games each, so 512 total team games. In 1970, there were 364 team games. Consider that in 2015, the 512th-best receiving game produced 72 receiving yards; in 1970, the 364th-best receiving game produced 55 receiving yards.

One thing I like to do is to give receivers credit for yards above a certain baseline: this removes “junk” seasons or, in this case, games. Of course, the devil is in the details: i.e., how you define junk. And if you want to adjust for era, you need some baseline to measure against. One way to do it is to use the number of team games, as I explained above. For example, let’s look at Justin Blackmon’s 2012 season.

Now, in 2012, the 512th-best receiving game produced 68 receiving yards. Let’s call that using 1X of the number of team games in a season. If we want to use 2X, the 1024th-best receiving game of 2012 produced 46 receiving yards. What about 2.5X? That drops us to 38 receiving yards; 3X? That lowers the baseline to 31 receiving yards.

If we want to give receivers credit for yards above 1X — a very high baseline — Blackmon’s season would translate to 215 yards above the baseline.  Drop it to 2X, and he gets credit for 353 yards; at 2.5X, it rises to 419, and at 3X, it’s 483 yards.  Here’s how:

Which baseline do you like best? You might find the inclusion of a 2.5X line as a bit odd, and there’s a reason for that: I think that’s my preferred baseline. But I’d like to hear your thoughts.

You may also wonder how this baseline has changed throughout history. The graph below shows that since 1960:

And here’s that same information in table form. As you can see, the 2015 was a record season in basically all respects when it comes to receiving yards:

Which baseline do you prefer?