NFL Air Yards

NFL air yards, target share and aDOT

Receiving opportunity for every wide receiver, tight end and pass-catching back, broken into the parts that actually predict future production. Targets, total air yards, average depth of target, receptions, receiving yards and yards after catch, filterable by week and position.

Why air yards predict better than receiving yards

Receiving yards tell you what already happened. Air yards tell you what the offence keeps trying to do. A receiver can post a quiet 30-yard week on eight targets thrown 15 yards downfield, and that player is far more likely to break out than one who posted 60 yards on four screens.

Average depth of target separates two very different jobs that show up identically in a box score. A receiver with a 14-yard aDOT is a boom-or-bust tournament asset whose weeks swing on two or three deep balls. A receiver with a 6-yard aDOT and the same target count has a much narrower range and is a better cash play.

Yards after catch is the piece that tends to regress hardest. A receiver carried by an outlier YAC week is usually not going to repeat it, while a receiver with a large air yards share and poor YAC luck usually gets his production back.

Finding breakouts before the market does

The signal worth hunting is a gap between opportunity and production. A player near the top of his team in target share and air yards, but outside the top thirty in fantasy points, is being held back by touchdown variance or catch rate, and both of those move back toward normal.

The reverse is a fade. A receiver scoring well on a small share of his team's air yards is living on touchdowns, and touchdown rate is the least sticky part of a receiving profile.

Frequently asked questions