GregR_2
Footballguy
Discussion of the Steelers WR situation made me remember how there was a lot of speculation before last year on how Ward would do without Plax. Though many people assumed Ward received the double teams and other team's #1 corner when Plax was on the Steelers, in reality it was Plax that got them and Ward would get moved around to make mistmaches, sometimes even getting linebackers covering him. So there was some room for speculation on how he would fare against the extra attention.
Here are Ward's stats for the last couple of years. He missed one game last year, but played 16 in all the others. To remove any bias by the one game he didn't play, I've normalized last season to 16 games at the pace he had for the 15 he played.
Year ... GS ..... Rec..... Yards .. Avg .... Lg ..... TD ..... 20+ .... 40+ .... FD...... Rec/20+. Rec/40+
2001.... 16...... 94...... 1003.... 10.7.... 34...... 4....... 13...... 0....... 52...... 7.23.... NA
2002.... 16...... 112..... 1329.... 11.9.... 72...... 12...... 19...... 2....... 66...... 5.89.... 56.0
2003.... 16...... 95...... 1163.... 12.2.... 50...... 10...... 18...... 2....... 60...... 5.28.... 47.5
2004.... 16...... 80...... 1004.... 12.6.... 58...... 4....... 15...... 2....... 52...... 5.33.... 40.0
2005.... 16(15). 73.6.. 1040.... 14.1.... 85...... 11.7... 10.7... 3.2..... 56.5.... 6.9..... 23.0
The most noticeable thing at first glance is that his receptions fell over his previous 4 year average... by 22% to be exact. However the fall from just the previous year wasn't nearly as much. Two thoughts there... first, the Steelers went back to a run-first game in 2004 after having gotten a little pass-happy with Maddox. Second, we're looking at this to see how Plaxico being gone affected Ward, and Plaxico was gone for 1/3 of the season in 2004 at the same time that Ward saw his biggest drop in receptions. So the evidence would seem to support Ward seeing a drop in catches with Plax out, though how much is due to that and how much is due to the change in offensive philosophy is unclear.
The next thing that jumped out at me was that his yards per reception increased. But his number of 20+ yard receptions decreased, and by a larger percentage than did his number of receptions. I calculated the last 2 columns to see how many receptions on average he caught before he broke one for 20+ or 40+ yards. Despite his yards per reception being higher than in the past, it took him more catches (6.9) to get a big catch than it did in most of his previous years. So in addition to catching fewer balls, he wasn't getting as many long runs out of them, but he was still managing more yards per catch despite that.
The picture that the numbers seem to paint for me is that Ward is seeing a loss of production in the short dump offs which he used to get while Plax got the double teams, and that is cutting into his receptions. But he's possibly running some deeper patterns that might have gone to Plax before, and so last year at least he was able to make up the yardage with probably more yards on an "average" length catch.
So no earth-shattering conclusions to draw. I'd say Ward handled the increased defensive efforts he drew pretty well, though it did seem to impact his stats. That said, he was still effective both in an NFL and a Fantasy sense (especially with those 12 TDs).
Here are Ward's stats for the last couple of years. He missed one game last year, but played 16 in all the others. To remove any bias by the one game he didn't play, I've normalized last season to 16 games at the pace he had for the 15 he played.
Year ... GS ..... Rec..... Yards .. Avg .... Lg ..... TD ..... 20+ .... 40+ .... FD...... Rec/20+. Rec/40+
2001.... 16...... 94...... 1003.... 10.7.... 34...... 4....... 13...... 0....... 52...... 7.23.... NA
2002.... 16...... 112..... 1329.... 11.9.... 72...... 12...... 19...... 2....... 66...... 5.89.... 56.0
2003.... 16...... 95...... 1163.... 12.2.... 50...... 10...... 18...... 2....... 60...... 5.28.... 47.5
2004.... 16...... 80...... 1004.... 12.6.... 58...... 4....... 15...... 2....... 52...... 5.33.... 40.0
2005.... 16(15). 73.6.. 1040.... 14.1.... 85...... 11.7... 10.7... 3.2..... 56.5.... 6.9..... 23.0
The most noticeable thing at first glance is that his receptions fell over his previous 4 year average... by 22% to be exact. However the fall from just the previous year wasn't nearly as much. Two thoughts there... first, the Steelers went back to a run-first game in 2004 after having gotten a little pass-happy with Maddox. Second, we're looking at this to see how Plaxico being gone affected Ward, and Plaxico was gone for 1/3 of the season in 2004 at the same time that Ward saw his biggest drop in receptions. So the evidence would seem to support Ward seeing a drop in catches with Plax out, though how much is due to that and how much is due to the change in offensive philosophy is unclear.
The next thing that jumped out at me was that his yards per reception increased. But his number of 20+ yard receptions decreased, and by a larger percentage than did his number of receptions. I calculated the last 2 columns to see how many receptions on average he caught before he broke one for 20+ or 40+ yards. Despite his yards per reception being higher than in the past, it took him more catches (6.9) to get a big catch than it did in most of his previous years. So in addition to catching fewer balls, he wasn't getting as many long runs out of them, but he was still managing more yards per catch despite that.
The picture that the numbers seem to paint for me is that Ward is seeing a loss of production in the short dump offs which he used to get while Plax got the double teams, and that is cutting into his receptions. But he's possibly running some deeper patterns that might have gone to Plax before, and so last year at least he was able to make up the yardage with probably more yards on an "average" length catch.
So no earth-shattering conclusions to draw. I'd say Ward handled the increased defensive efforts he drew pretty well, though it did seem to impact his stats. That said, he was still effective both in an NFL and a Fantasy sense (especially with those 12 TDs).
