Which Receivers Played On The Most Efficient Passing Offenses (Through 2018)?

by Chase Stuart on May 11, 2019

Yesterday, inspired by Doug Baldwin leaving Seattle, I looked at the top 200 players in receiving yards and measured how pass-happy that player’s average pass offense was. For Baldwin, his teams were the 4th-most run-heavy teams of any player on that top 200 list, which obviously disadvantaged him from putting up big numbers.

One thing that helped him, of course, was playing with a great quarterback. Baldwin’s Seahawks were, on average, 0.65 ANY/A better than average. That ranks 57th among the 200 players.

Regular readers may recall that I used this methodology to grade receivers last year. So consider today’s post an update for 2018. Among players who were active in 2018, Rob Gronkowski (+1.50) and Jordy Nelson (+1.38) played on the best passing offenses, and DeAndre Hopkins (-0.39) and Larry Fitzgerald (-0.32) played on the worst passing offenses relative to league average. That isn’t going to be breaking news to anyone, but that’s not the point: yes, we know that the Patriots and Packers have had good passing offenses, and the Texans and Cardinals have not. But quantifying those terms is always helpful.

The full results, below:

entries per page

Search:

RANY/A Rk	Player	Rec Yards	Yds Rk	First Yr	Last Yr	RANY/A
7	Jerry Rice	22895	1	1985	2004	1.57
177	Larry Fitzgerald	16279	2	2004	2018	-0.32
43	Terrell Owens	15934	3	1996	2010	0.82
25	Randy Moss	15292	4	1998	2012	1.18
83	Isaac Bruce	15208	5	1994	2009	0.38
69	Tony Gonzalez	15127	6	1997	2013	0.52
79	Tim Brown	14934	7	1988	2004	0.41
160	Steve Smith	14731	8	2001	2016	-0.12
9	Marvin Harrison	14580	9	1996	2008	1.51
17	Reggie Wayne	14345	10	2001	2014	1.34

Showing 1 to 10 of 200 entries

One reason I always have been such a big Steve Smith fan is by looking at the results from yesterday’s post and today’s post. Smith is the only player in the top 20 in receiving yards who played on passing offenses that were below average in both quantity and quality. Take a look:

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

{ 1 comment }