In 2017, Julio Jones had 1,444 receiving yards playing for the Falcons. Last year, Atlanta had only 530 pass attempts (excluding sacks); this means Jones recorded 2.72 receiving yards per Atlanta team pass attempt. That was the most in the NFL last year, followed by DeAndre Hopkins (2.62) and Antonio Brown (2.60), although it’s worth noting that both Hopkins and Brown missed games.
This was the second season in a row that Jones led the NFL in receiving yards per team pass attempt. In 2016, he had 1,409 yards while Atlanta had 537 pass attempts; that’s a 2.62 RY/TPA average that is even more impressive when you consider that Jones missed two games that season. Jones is already in select company, and one more year would put him in exclusive territory: only four players have led the league in RY/TPA in more than two seasons. Don Hutson did it 7 times, Jerry Rice 4 times, and Steve Smith and Michael Irvin each did it three times.
I like this stat because it’s similar to yards per route run (one of my favorite stats) but it’s able to be calculated historically. The table below shows the yearly leaders in this statistic:
