Over the past week, we took a deep dive into the Advanced Stats Explorer in preparation for the 2024 season. Using the five years of data available in the tool, we created a sample and looked at trends from 2019 to 2023 regarding targets and routes, intended air yards, yards after the catch and evasion, and finally catchable targets, drops, first downs, and touchdowns.
There will be a considerable amount of referencing the percentile thresholds from the five-year sample in this article. For reference, the 90th-percentile outcome and above will generally consist of the majority of the top-24 WRs in any given metric on per-season basis. The 75th percentile and above will encompass the top 55-60 WRs in any given season.
As one week of data isn’t much to go off when predicting how things will shake out in 2024, the best thing we can do is look at how player performances in the opening week of 2024 mesh with the numbers from the previous five seasons. After looking through the data, we should have a better idea of which performances may be sustainable, and which are probably be a mirage.
