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In December, I noted that Antonio Brown was leading the NFL in Adjusted Catch Yards per Team Attempt. Now that the season is over, I wanted to update that post. Based on the end-of-year numbers, Brown once again led the NFL in that metric, just slightly edging Julio Jones.

ACY/TmAtt is pretty simple to calculate. Let’s use Brown as an example. He gained 1,834 yards, caught 10 touchdowns, and picked up 84 first downs. If we give 20 yards for each touchdown and 9 yards for each first down (excluding the ones that were touchdowns), you can see that Brown gained 2,700 Adjusted Catch Yards. By contrast, Julio Jones gained 1,871 receiving yards, 8 touchdowns, and had 93 first downs. That’s slightly more impressive — mostly based on the first downs total — and translates to 2,796 Adjusted Catch Yards.

But Jones played for the Falcons, who had 653 pass plays in 2015; Brown’s Steelers had only 623, which means Jones had more opportunities to pick up targets, receptions, first downs, and yards. On a per-team pass attempt basis, Brown gained 4.33 ACY/TPA, while Jones averaged 4.28. In other words, slight edge to Brown.

Bears receiver Alshon Jeffery had a sneaky good year. He was only on the field for 502 offensive snaps, which is about half that of the average star receiver (and about half of Chicago’s team snaps total). If you were to double his numbers, he’d have a 1600-yard, 86-first down season, which is even more impressive when you consider that the Bears were a run-heavy team. [1]Jeffery had monster games in Detroit and San Diego, though, so it’s unlikely that he would have kept up this pace over a full season. When calculating the ACY/TPA for players who played in fewer than 16 games, I used a straight line multiplier based on games played. For example, Jeffery had 1,238 Adjusted Catch Yards, and the Bears had 556 team pass attempts. That would give Jeffery 2.23 ACY/TPA, but we multiply that by 16/9 (since Jeffery only played in 9 games) to get at a 3.96 ACY/TPA number found in the table. Since Jeffery only played in about half of the games in St. Louis and in Minnesota, even that may understate things: if we used 8 games in the denominator instead of 9, he’d vault to number one on the list.

The table below shows the leaders in ACY/TPA this season. [2]Two notes to keep in mind. One is that sacks are included in team pass attempts. The other is that for players that missed games, we are not discounting his team’s pass attempts in those … Continue reading You can see the 2014 results here, although note that in that article, I labeled the pro-rated number as Adjusted Catch Yards per Estimated Team Attempts.

RkPlayerGPosTmRecYdsTDFDAdj Catch YdsTeam PAACY/TPA
1Antonio Brown*16WRPIT1361834108427006234.33
2Julio Jones*16WRATL136187189327966534.28
3Alshon Jeffery9wrCHI5480744312385563.96
4Brandon Marshall*16WRNYJ1091502147623406263.74
5Sammy Watkins13WRBUF60104794115155073.68
6A.J. Green*16WRCIN861297106319745373.68
7DeAndre Hopkins*16WRHOU1111521118323896553.65
8Odell Beckham*15WRNYG961450136721966503.60
9Mike Evans15WRTAM74120636318065623.43
10Jeremy Maclin15WRKAN87108884916175193.32
11Larry Fitzgerald*16WRARI109121596518995893.22
12Allen Robinson*16WRJAX801400146121036583.20
13Steve Smith7wrBAL466703289557003.12
14Greg Olsen*16TECAR77110475216495353.08
15Doug Baldwin16WRSEA781069144716465353.08
16Jordan Reed14teWAS87952115415595823.06
17Keenan Allen8wrSDG6772543410757073.04
18Demaryius Thomas16WRDEN105130466319376453.00
19Julian Edelman9wrNWE6169273711026672.94
20Eric Decker15WRNYJ801027126016996262.89
21Delanie Walker*15TETEN94108865216226052.86
22Rob Gronkowski*15TENWE721176115217656672.82
23Calvin Johnson*16WRDET88121496518986762.81
24John Brown15WRARI65100374915215892.75
25Jarvis Landry*16WRMIA110115746017416332.75
26Emmanuel Sanders15WRDEN76113565116606452.75
27Stefon Diggs13wrMIN5272043110434992.57
28Allen Hurns15WRJAX641031104815736582.55
29Tyler Eifert*13TECIN52615133811005372.52
30Travis Kelce*16TEKAN7287554012905192.49
31T.Y. Hilton*16WRIND69112454916206562.47
32Martavis Bryant11wrPIT5076562510566232.47
33Gary Barnidge*16TECLE79104395216106622.43
34Jimmy Graham11TESEA486052298885352.41
35Amari Cooper*16WROAK72107064515416392.41
36Vincent Jackson10wrTAM335433288285622.36
37Brandin Cooks16WRNOR84113894516426992.35
38Ted Ginn15WRCAR44739103611735352.34
39Michael Floyd15wrARI5284964012755892.31
40Anquan Boldin14WRSFO6978943511485792.27
41Rishard Matthews11WRMIA436624319856332.26
42Jordan Matthews16WRPHI8599784414816602.24
43Michael Crabtree16WROAK8592294514266392.23
44Willie Snead15wrNOR6998434414136992.16
45Marvin Jones16WRCIN6581643311575372.15
46James Jones16WRGNB5089083913296202.14
47Terrance Williams16WRDAL5284033611975622.13
48Pierre Garcon16WRWAS7277764312305822.11
49Kamar Aiken16WRBAL7594455314767002.11
50Travis Benjamin16WRCLE6896653913726622.07
51Randall Cobb16WRGNB7982964212736202.05
52Antonio Gates11teSDG566305339827072.02
53Kenny Britt16WRSTL366813299754911.99
54Zach Ertz15tePHI7585323912266601.98
55Golden Tate16WRDET9081365013296761.97
56DeSean Jackson10wrWAS305284157075821.94
57Charles Clay13TEBUF515283267955071.93
58Jermaine Kearse16WRSEA4968553210285351.92
59Jason Witten16TEDAL7771333610705621.90
60Tyler Lockett*16wrSEA5166463110095351.89
61Robert Woods14wrBUF475523278285071.87
62Rueben Randle16WRNYG5779783512006501.85
63Ben Watson16TENOR7482564212696991.82
64Martellus Bennett11TECHI534393246885561.80
65Steve Johnson10wrSDG454973297917071.79
66Donte Moncrief16WRIND6473364011596561.77
67Markus Wheaton16wrPIT4474953210926231.75
68Nate Washington14WRHOU476584339996551.74
69Marquess Wilson11wrCHI284641206555561.71
70Cecil Shorts11wrHOU424842277496551.66
71Danny Amendola14wrNWE656483329696671.66
72Danny Woodhead16rbSDG8075563911727071.66
73Brian Hartline12wrCLE465232308156621.64
74Jerricho Cotchery14wrCAR394853267525351.61
75Jamison Crowder16wrWAS596042349325821.60

Please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments.

References

References
1 Jeffery had monster games in Detroit and San Diego, though, so it’s unlikely that he would have kept up this pace over a full season.
2 Two notes to keep in mind. One is that sacks are included in team pass attempts. The other is that for players that missed games, we are not discounting his team’s pass attempts in those particular missed games, but just using the straight line proration method described above.
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