Steve Smith Played On Teams That Didn’t Pass Often or Pass Well

by Chase Stuart on May 12, 2019

in Receiving

One of the greatest receivers ever

As noted yesterday, Steve Smith played on teams that didn’t pass very often (just 94% as often as the average team) or pass well (his average team’s passing offense produced a -0.12 Relative ANY/A). He’s the only player in the top 20 in career receiving yards who played on teams that were below average in both categories; Muhsin Muhammad and Joey Galloway are the only other such players in the top 40, and Eric Moulds (who ranks 49th) is the only other such player in the top 75 in career receiving yards. There’s a reason that Smith has long been a Football Perspective favorite.

Using the results from Friday’s post and Saturday’s post, we can sum the results to see which receivers really played in the most disadvantageous environments. To do that we need to convert each player’s results in both Pass Ratio and Relative ANY/A into Z-scores.

For Pass Ratio, the average for this group of 200 players was 102.5%, and the standard deviation was 6.7%. So for Smith, whose teams passed on 93.6% of plays, he has a Z-Score in the Pass Ratio variable of -1.33, since his teams were 1.33 standard deviations below average (102.5% minus 93.6% is 8.9%, and 8.9% divided by 6.7% is 1.33). For Relative ANY/A, the average was +0.35 and the standard deviation was 0.63. For Smith, he has a Z-Score in pass efficiency of -0.74, since his teams were 0.12 ANY/A below average (+0.35 minus -0.12 is 0.47, and 0.47 divided by 0.63 gives us how many standard deviations his teams were below average).

Note that the averages here for both pass quantity and quality are above average. That’s not surprising, but it is noteworthy. One, the players with the most receiving yards tended to play on better passing offenses, but we also give more weight to a player’s best seasons, which tend to come when they play with good quarterbacks who frequently pass.

The table below shows the full results for all 200 players. Here’s how to read the Jerry Rice line. He is the career leader in receiving yards with 22,895, and he played from 1985 to 2004. His average team had a RANY/A of +1.57, which was 1.91 standard deviations above average. His average team also had a Pass Ratio of 105.8% of league average, which was 0.51 standard deviations above average. Add those numbers together, and he has a Z-Score total of 2.42.

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Yds Rk	Player	Yards	FYr	LYr	RANY/A	Z-RANY/A	Pass Ratio	Z-PR%	Z-Score Total
1	Jerry Rice	22895	1985	2004	1.57	1.91	105.8%	0.51	2.42
2	Larry Fitzgerald	16279	2004	2018	-0.32	-1.06	108.7%	0.94	-0.12
3	Terrell Owens	15934	1996	2010	0.82	0.74	102.4%	-0.02	0.72
4	Randy Moss	15292	1998	2012	1.18	1.31	102.9%	0.07	1.37
5	Isaac Bruce	15208	1994	2009	0.38	0.03	107.7%	0.78	0.82
6	Tony Gonzalez	15127	1997	2013	0.52	0.26	103.8%	0.2	0.46
7	Tim Brown	14934	1988	2004	0.41	0.09	97.8%	-0.7	-0.61
8	Steve Smith	14731	2001	2016	-0.12	-0.74	93.6%	-1.33	-2.07
9	Marvin Harrison	14580	1996	2008	1.51	1.81	106%	0.53	2.34
10	Reggie Wayne	14345	2001	2014	1.34	1.55	109.5%	1.05	2.60
11	Andre Johnson	14185	2003	2016	0.14	-0.34	99.8%	-0.4	-0.74
12	James Lofton	14004	1978	1993	0.14	-0.34	99.5%	-0.44	-0.78
13	Cris Carter	13899	1987	2002	0.54	0.29	105.1%	0.4	0.69
14	Anquan Boldin	13779	2003	2016	0.03	-0.52	103.3%	0.13	-0.39
15	Henry Ellard	13777	1983	1998	0.24	-0.17	96.9%	-0.83	-1.01
16	Torry Holt	13382	1999	2009	0.56	0.32	110.6%	1.23	1.55
17	Andre Reed	13198	1985	2000	0.34	-0.02	97.1%	-0.81	-0.83
18	Steve Largent	13089	1976	1989	0.21	-0.23	103.2%	0.11	-0.12
19	Irving Fryar	12785	1984	2000	-0.05	-0.64	104.2%	0.26	-0.38
20	Art Monk	12721	1980	1995	0.63	0.43	101.6%	-0.13	0.30

Showing 1 to 20 of 200 entries

Lee Evans had the most unfortunate situation, at least by these measures, of any player in the top 200 career receiving yards. His teams were 1.69 standard deviations below average in RANY/A and 2.14 standard deviations below average in Pass Ratio, for a total Z-Score grade of -3.84.

Tagged as: Steve Smith

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