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Mike Clay's 2020 NFL Projection Guide + FBG projections (1 Viewer)

Bracie Smathers

Bracie Smathers

Footballguy
This is free and FANTASTIC!

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Mike Clay@MikeClayNFL

Big news! The 2020 #ClayProjections PDF is here! Free access to every team's projection sheet, stat leaderboards, win totals, strength of schedule, unit grades, etc. all in one handy, regular-updated document: ]

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EDIT:  Reminder from Joe:

Thanks Folks.

Mike is a good friend and does excellent work. 

I'm of course partial to our guys.

All our projections are free at this time too of course.

Would love to hear feedback on what you think we can improve and how they can be better. Thanks. 

 
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Fantastic work by Clay I love the new format that gives you everything all in one place.

I am sure I differ on some things here or there but this is great.

 
Took a look at his Chargers projections.

He projects Tyrod Taylor for 71/111 (64%) for 823 yards (7.4 YPR), 5 TDs (4.5%), and 2 interceptions (1.8%) passing with 10 sacks (8.3%) and 16/84/1 rushing (5.3 ypc). That is a passer rating of 93.8. I would think this level of performance would be good enough for the Chargers to stick with Tyrod, but Clay seems to show Herbert taking over during the 4th game. This despite that he shows the Chargers 2-1 entering the 4th game, with the only loss to KC.

Overall, he projects 31 offensive TDs, 26 FGs, and 31 XPs. He projects 33 XP attempts, so 2 non-offensive TDs. That is 307 points, which would have ranked #25 last season. Seems about right, maybe slightly optimistic unless there are more non-offensive TDs.

He has Ekeler as RB10, which seems a bit optimistic to me. He has Allen as WR19 and Williams as WR51, which seems reasonable. He has Henry as TE10, which also seems about right.

 
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Reactions: TLK
Joe Bryant said:
Thanks Folks.

Mike is a good friend and does excellent work. 

I'm of course partial to our guys.

All our projections are free at this time too of course. https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections.php?projforwhat=qb&projector=41&profile=0

Would love to hear feedback on what you think we can improve and how they can be better. Thanks. 
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Well do you see how Mike Clay has his team projections all on one page so you can see the whole picture of how the projections fit together?

I think that is a lot more useful than the running list of players by position that can be extracted from it.

If that is on the website but I just don't see how to view the projections by team, please let me know. I am not seeing that from your link.

 
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Joe Bryant said:
All our projections are free at this time too of course. https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections.php?projforwhat=qb&projector=41&profile=0

Would love to hear feedback on what you think we can improve and how they can be better. Thanks. 
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Comments/questions:

  1. Do the guys at FBG who do projections start by projecting the team, then use those to feed the complete projections by position, or do they start with the individual projections and then just gather them into the team view you linked here?
  2. Given that there are sometimes considerable disparities between the projections, it would be helpful if there was at least a short intro/rationale for each team. I know there are team summary pages, but those don't reconcile with these individual team projections.
  3. It would be helpful to include the number of games played in these projections.
For example, looking at the Chargers projections, it isn't clear if they have been made in consideration of the likely change in offensive philosophy. Looking at a couple projections of 571 and 572 passing attempts makes me skeptical of that.

 
Biabreakable said:
Well do you see how Mike Clay has his team projections all on one page so you can see the whole picture of how the projections fit together?

I think that is a lot more useful than the running list of players by position that can be extracted from it.

If that is on the website but I just don't see how to view the projections by team, please let me know. I am not seeing that from your link.
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It is in the second link Joe posted.

 
Biabreakable said:
Thanks figured I was missing something.

So maybe a navigation tab so you can change from team to positional projections would help?

I thought I had viewed them that way here before.
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Thanks @Biabreakable  We are looking for sure for ways to make things easier to see and discover. I love the way we break it down by team https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections-team.php?team=kan&projector=2&profile=0 and we want to make sure people can more easily see. The very fact you had to ask the question is proof that I've failed there. Our guys doing the work is the hard part. Making sure people can see what we've created is relatively easy in comparison.

I'm not sure it'll be ready in time to benefit everyone this year but that's definitely in the works for the future. 

 
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Joe Bryant said:
Thanks @Biabreakable  We are looking for sure for ways to make things easier to see and discover. I love the way we break it down by team https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections-team.php?team=kan&projector=2&profile=0 and we want to make sure people can more easily see. The very fact you had to ask the question is proof that I've failed there. Our guys doing the work is the hard part. Making sure people can see what we've created is relatively easy in comparison.

I'm not sure it'll be ready in time to benefit everyone this year but that's definitely in the works for the future. 
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I dont know how practical this is, but I was just thinking about what do I like about Clays presentation compared to what I see on the site?

I think Clays presentation is easier on the eyes.  The use of color for the headers and things like that make it easier to read. My eyes are not what they once were sadly. Ascetics do matter.

I love your guys work and I think your prognosticators are some of the best in the business. I would also like to take this opportunity to say thanks to you for opening my eyes to VBD and this whole world of educated guessing that goes on here.

 
Biabreakable said:
I dont know how practical this is, but I was just thinking about what do I like about Clays presentation compared to what I see on the site?

I think Clays presentation is easier on the eyes.  The use of color for the headers and things like that make it easier to read. My eyes are not what they once were sadly. Ascetics do matter.

I love your guys work and I think your prognosticators are some of the best in the business. I would also like to take this opportunity to say thanks to you for opening my eyes to VBD and this whole world of educated guessing that goes on here.
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Thanks @Biabreakable   I appreciate the kind words. I too think our guys are the best out there. Let me ask our guys to take a look at doing something with a nice looking format more like this. As you well know, projecting is the hard part. Taking that data and making it look nice is the easy part. Let me see what we can do there and we may even do a pdf like this. I personally vastly prefer the interactivity of the web page, but for introducing someone to what we do, a pdf is an easy to understand and familiar way. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
Thanks @Biabreakable  We are looking for sure for ways to make things easier to see and discover. I love the way we break it down by team https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections-team.php?team=kan&projector=2&profile=0 and we want to make sure people can more easily see. The very fact you had to ask the question is proof that I've failed there. Our guys doing the work is the hard part. Making sure people can see what we've created is relatively easy in comparison.

I'm not sure it'll be ready in time to benefit everyone this year but that's definitely in the works for the future. 
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Hey Joe,

I like and have used those team projections.  They seem great.  Few thoughts:

1) I always have to search and search for them until I remember to just click on the team name.  Duh, but also seems something you want to address.

2) I don't know if this is feasible, but there are some situations I'd like to see the totals.  Total yards, total plays, etc, for the team rather than by position or total passing yards

3) Most useful for me would be a way to separate the IDP projections similar to the offense.  They're ranked in order of tackles, which is fine, but it is easier to see all the, say, DE or CB lumped together.

Thanks for all the good work

 
Joe Bryant said:
Thanks Folks.

Mike is a good friend and does excellent work. 

I'm of course partial to our guys.

All our projections are free at this time too of course. https://subscribers.footballguys.com/myfbg/myviewprojections.php?projforwhat=qb&projector=41&profile=0

Would love to hear feedback on what you think we can improve and how they can be better. Thanks. 
Click to expand...
1. I wish there was an easy way to see the average projection, so that it would show the average of the Dodds, Henry, Tremblay, and Wood projections for all the players (in a layout similar to the one you linked here) instead of just one person's projections

2. Changing the scoring rules is tricky. I know I've done it before because some of my league-specific scoring rules are in the dropdown menu, but the other day I spent a few minutes trying to add a new league and couldn't figure out how to do it

3. I'd prefer if there was an option to see all players at once (rather than selecting by position with a couple multi-position options), and if options which showed multiple positions included a Position column

For some of my leauges I start making my draft board by copying your projections into a spreadsheet, and I wind up needing to do more things by hand (or just skipping some things which it would help to do) because of these issues.

 
@Joe Bryant I found another thing to suggest.

In the FBG projections targets are not a listed stat.

I am assuming that targets are used to project things like receptions, but maybe not?

By listing the targets it allows me to cross check things like market share of team targets, catch rate and yards per target, which are all stats I am interested in looking at from a team perspective and also historically.

Having the 3 previous years of data is a great resource to provide with the projections as well. It would be iuseful to me to have the target data there as well.

While I am wishing for things to all be in the same place I might as well mention snap counts as well. Having that with the rest of the data can be useful for other types of analysis such as opportunities per snap, yards per snap and so on. Mike Clay doesn't present this either and perhaps snaps are not a good data point to project from as a reason why it isn't included.

I know you guys have the data. Perhaps you want the presentation to be as simple as possible, and that has merits as well.

Just something that came to mind when looking at projections for Adam Thielen. I had to do some guess work on how many targets David Dodds has projected for Thielen and all players and that is a pain to try to reverse engineer.

 
Thanks for the feedback, Folks. Much appreciated. We're deep into the process now in projecting so I'm not sure how much additional we can add but we'll take a look there. The easiest thing for sure is doing something new in presenting the projections we're already doing. That doesn't involve adding anything in the process, it's just taking what we're already doing and displaying it another way. Let us see what we can do there. 

 
I was struck by Clay's SOS rating of division mates Jax and Indy, with Indy having the best schedule and Jax having the 26th. Other than playing each other twice, of course, the only other differences are: Miami and LAC for Jax vs LV and the NYJ for Indy. Are two games against Jax enough to account for the vast disparity? Comments?

 
Fear The Turtle said:
I was struck by Clay's SOS rating of division mates Jax and Indy, with Indy having the best schedule and Jax having the 26th. Other than playing each other twice, of course, the only other differences are: Miami and LAC for Jax vs LV and the NYJ for Indy. Are two games against Jax enough to account for the vast disparity? Comments?
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From what I have been reading, it looks like Jax and LV and NYJ are all supposed to be fairly weak teams this year. You figure the main difference between #1 and #32 is only about a 10% win percentage difference for your opponents (the range was 53.7% at the high end and 43.8% at the low end using last years numbers for this year) having 4 projected easy match-ups could absolutely swing it that amount. It is somewhat unfair, the last place team will always have a slightly stronger strength of schedule because they never play themselves. 

Quick glance at SOS from here: 

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2020-nfl-strength-of-schedule-rankings-ravens-and-steelers-have-it-easiest-patriots-face-roughest-ride/

Not the same measurement since it is just using last years data and not projecting for this year, but grabbed the % from there.

 
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Mike Clay is clueless.  He told everyone Jordan Wilkins was the man over Marlon Mack.  Now he is telling everyone Marlon Mack is the reason to not own Jonathan Taylor.  Miss me with that "Big name in the industry" BS.  He is awful.

 
BINGBING said:
Mike Clay is clueless.  He told everyone Jordan Wilkins was the man over Marlon Mack.  Now he is telling everyone Marlon Mack is the reason to not own Jonathan Taylor.  Miss me with that "Big name in the industry" BS.  He is awful.
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I mean, everybody gets some wrong now and again. I appreciate that there is logic to the rankings, even if it doesn't always work out.

One thing I do disagree with Clay on, isn't the fantasy portion, but the team power rankings. At the bottom each position is given a percentage of value for how important it is, and how it effects the rankings. I think QB is drastically undervalued at 24%, I think in today's game, it should be double that. On the flip side, edge rushers being 11%(the 2nd most valuable position) seems crazy high to me too. I can't see any case for edge rushers as the 2nd most valuable position anymore.

Off topic, but I have this idea that maybe teams should start treating edge rushers(and interior DL) like they do RB's, and just get a couple of cheap guys who can do various things well, but no big investments, and replace guys with rookies. I think the drop in production would be more than off set by the savings, allowing teams to invest more heavily at more important spots like WR or DB. 

There is a 56-44 offense to defense difference, and I'd make the case that should be much wider too. Possibly as high as 80-20 in my opinion. 

 
travdogg said:
I mean, everybody gets some wrong now and again. I appreciate that there is logic to the rankings, even if it doesn't always work out.

One thing I do disagree with Clay on, isn't the fantasy portion, but the team power rankings. At the bottom each position is given a percentage of value for how important it is, and how it effects the rankings. I think QB is drastically undervalued at 24%, I think in today's game, it should be double that. On the flip side, edge rushers being 11%(the 2nd most valuable position) seems crazy high to me too. I can't see any case for edge rushers as the 2nd most valuable position anymore.

Off topic, but I have this idea that maybe teams should start treating edge rushers(and interior DL) like they do RB's, and just get a couple of cheap guys who can do various things well, but no big investments, and replace guys with rookies. I think the drop in production would be more than off set by the savings, allowing teams to invest more heavily at more important spots like WR or DB. 

There is a 56-44 offense to defense difference, and I'd make the case that should be much wider too. Possibly as high as 80-20 in my opinion. 
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I saw an analysis by Peter Owen on Twitter which implies that the positional value breakdown should be something like:

25% QB (Clay has 24%)
3% RB (Clay has 4%)
15% WR (Clay has 10%)
5% TE (Clay has 5%)
15% OL (Clay has 13%)
7% DI (Clay has 9%)
8% EDGE (Clay has 11%)
7% LB (Clay has 7%)
8% CB (Clay has 10%)
6% S (Clay has 7%)

Which comes out to 25% QB, 38% the rest of the offense, 37% defense.

That agrees directionally with all three of your disagreements with Clay (QB, EDGE, Defense), but is not that far from Clay's numbers.

(This is taking his 50-50 blend which is column M or Q in his spreadsheet, and adjusting by my rough guess at the number of players at each position that are on the field on average. If you just use his PFF-based numbers from column G or O then it's even closer to your opinions, with QBs at 35%, EDGE at 6%, and a 70-30 offense defense split.)

 
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Interesting stuff about the SOS

I don't pay much attention to this and maybe it is a missing factor in some of these projections I am not considering.

 
BINGBING said:
Mike Clay is clueless.  He told everyone Jordan Wilkins was the man over Marlon Mack.  Now he is telling everyone Marlon Mack is the reason to not own Jonathan Taylor.  Miss me with that "Big name in the industry" BS.  He is awful.
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So what is your expectation for workshare for Taylor and Mack this season? If you are going to criticize his take, provide a counterpoint. 

 
BINGBING said:
Mike Clay is clueless.  He told everyone Jordan Wilkins was the man over Marlon Mack.  Now he is telling everyone Marlon Mack is the reason to not own Jonathan Taylor.  Miss me with that "Big name in the industry" BS.  He is awful.
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Hi @BINGBING  We all have different takes for sure. But I always want us to be cool when we discuss things here. Mike is a friend but even if he wasn't, please let's discuss here without calling people clueless. I'd much rather discuss what you guys think for a player and why you think it. Thanks. 

 
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Reactions: Ned
ZWK said:
I saw an analysis by Peter Owen on Twitter which implies that the positional value breakdown should be something like:

25% QB (Clay has 24%)
3% RB (Clay has 4%)
15% WR (Clay has 10%)
5% TE (Clay has 5%)
15% OL (Clay has 13%)
7% DI (Clay has 9%)
8% EDGE (Clay has 11%)
7% LB (Clay has 7%)
8% CB (Clay has 10%)
6% S (Clay has 7%)

Which comes out to 25% QB, 38% the rest of the offense, 37% defense.

That agrees directionally with all three of your disagreements with Clay (QB, EDGE, Defense), but is not that far from Clay's numbers.

(This is taking his 50-50 blend which is column M or Q in his spreadsheet, and adjusting by my rough guess at the number of players at each position that are on the field on average. If you just use his PFF-based numbers from column G or O then it's even closer to your opinions, with QBs at 35%, EDGE at 6%, and a 70-30 offense defense split.)
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Thanks, I hadn't seen that.

The mean in PFF WAR(column C) is probably closest to my valuations. 

51% QB 3% RB 9% WR 6% TE 9% OL(78% offense)

2% EDGE 2% DI 3% LB 7% CB 7% S(21% defense, which adds up to 99%, so allot the last 1% for ST)

I don't really have an exact valuation that I have plotted out in true numbers form, its more a thought exercise for me, but that is pretty close to me, with a leaning toward receiving RB's and TE's, pass blocking OL, pass rushing EDGE and DI, and coverage LB's and S's. Mobile QB is a also a bonus, though not a requirement, accuracy comes first.

 
ZWK said:
I saw an analysis by Peter Owen on Twitter which implies that the positional value breakdown should be something like:

25% QB (Clay has 24%)
3% RB (Clay has 4%)
15% WR (Clay has 10%)
5% TE (Clay has 5%)
15% OL (Clay has 13%)
7% DI (Clay has 9%)
8% EDGE (Clay has 11%)
7% LB (Clay has 7%)
8% CB (Clay has 10%)
6% S (Clay has 7%)

Which comes out to 25% QB, 38% the rest of the offense, 37% defense.

That agrees directionally with all three of your disagreements with Clay (QB, EDGE, Defense), but is not that far from Clay's numbers.

(This is taking his 50-50 blend which is column M or Q in his spreadsheet, and adjusting by my rough guess at the number of players at each position that are on the field on average. If you just use his PFF-based numbers from column G or O then it's even closer to your opinions, with QBs at 35%, EDGE at 6%, and a 70-30 offense defense split.)
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Thanks. That's super interesting. 

 
I thought it may be an interesting exercise to see positional value on the financial side.  From https://overthecap.com/positional-spending/ and for 2020 game day roster of 2 QB, 4 RB, 5 WR, 3 TE, 8 OL, 8 DL, 7 LB, 3 S, and 5 CB I get the folllowing percentages per player normalized (ex. QB/(QB+RB+...)).

QB: 22.8%  RB: 5.77%  WR 11.80%  TE 8.32%  OL 11.68%  DL 10.47% LB: 8.70% S: 11.28% CB: 9.19%

Normalizing for total # of players (All QBs/ (all RB + all WR+ ...):

QB: 18.17%  RB: 6.90%  WR: 11.76%  TE 9.94% OL 12.42%  DL:  11.13% LB: 10.40% S: 10.12% CB: 9.16%

The chart at overthecap is worth a look, some teams are far away from the average where massive change is coming (ex. Mahomes $$$).  Add in potential revenue drop from this year and we may see a lot more "Gurley" type financial decisions made next year.

 
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The rookie WR projections are laughable.  Am I allowed to say that here?  Only two rookies crack 700 yards? 

 
Just Win Baby said:
How many do you project to crack 700 yards, and which ones?
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Four cracked it last year, and Diontae and Slayton came close.  He barely even has  two cracking 700 yards (Jeudy at 706).  Rookie WR's cracking the 700 yard mark have a very good success rate.   The 2020 WR class dwarfs that class.  It's a totally dismissive projection of the talent in this class.

 
No rookie RB cracks 1,000 yards.  okay.

Diontae Johnson catches 7 more passes for 100 more yards.  Okay.

The Panthers throw for 20 TD's....with all those weapons and Joe Brady in a shootout division.  Okay.

 
BINGBING said:
Four cracked it last year, and Diontae and Slayton came close.  He barely even has  two cracking 700 yards (Jeudy at 706).  Rookie WR's cracking the 700 yard mark have a very good success rate.   The 2020 WR class dwarfs that class.  It's a totally dismissive projection of the talent in this class.
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I was curious about this.

I did a search on rookie WR seasons 1999 to 2019 so we have a 20 year sample at PFR

1 Anquan Boldin 2003 23 2-54 ARI NFL 16 16 165 101 1377 13.63 8 86.1 61.2% 8.35
2 Odell Beckham Jr. 2014 22 1-12 NYG NFL 12 11 130 91 1305 14.34 12 108.8 70.0% 10.04
3 Michael Clayton 2004 22 1-15 TAM NFL 16 13 122 80 1193 14.91 7 74.6 65.6% 9.78
4 Michael Thomas 2016 23 2-47 NOR NFL 15 12 121 92 1137 12.36 9 75.8 76.0% 9.40
5 Amari Cooper 2015 21 1-4 OAK NFL 16 15 130 72 1070 14.86 6 66.9 55.4% 8.23
6 A.J. Green 2011 23 1-4 CIN NFL 15 15 115 65 1057 16.26 7 70.5 56.5% 9.19
7 A.J. Brown 2019 22 2-51 TEN NFL 16 11 84 52 1051 20.21 8 65.7 61.9% 12.51
8 Mike Evans 2014 21 1-7 TAM NFL 15 15 122 68 1051 15.46 12 70.1 55.7% 8.61
9 Keenan Allen 2013 21 3-76 SDG NFL 15 14 105 71 1046 14.73 8 69.7 67.6% 9.96
10 Marques Colston 2006 23 7-252 NOR NFL 14 12 115 70 1038 14.83 8 74.1 60.9% 9.03
11 Kelvin Benjamin 2014 23 1-28 CAR NFL 16 15 145 73 1008 13.81 9 63.0 50.3% 6.95
12 Dwayne Bowe 2007 23 1-23 KAN NFL 16 15 116 70 995 14.21 5 62.2 60.3% 8.58
13 Kevin Johnson 1999 23 2-32 CLE NFL 16 16 137 66 986 14.94 8 61.6 48.2% 7.20
14 Sammy Watkins 2014 21 1-4 BUF NFL 16 16 128 65 982 15.11 6 61.4 50.8% 7.67
15 Eddie Royal 2008 22 2-42 DEN NFL 15 15 129 91 980 10.77 5 65.3 70.5% 7.60
16 Andre Johnson 2003 22 1-3 HOU NFL 16 16 119 66 976 14.79 4 61.0 55.5% 8.20
17 Mike Williams 2010 23 4-101 TAM NFL 16 16 129 65 964 14.83 11 60.3 50.4% 7.47
18 Julio Jones 2011 22 1-6 ATL NFL 13 13 95 54 959 17.76 8 73.8 56.8% 10.09
19 Terry McLaurin 2019 24 3-76 WAS NFL 14 14 93 58 919 15.84 7 65.6 62.4% 9.88
20 JuJu Smith-Schuster 2017 21 2-62 PIT NFL 14 7 79 58 917 15.81 7 65.5 73.4% 11.61
Rk Player Year Age Draft Tm Lg G GS Tgt Rec Yds Y/R TD Y/G Ctch% Y/Tgt
21 DeSean Jackson 2008 22 2-49 PHI NFL 16 15 120 62 912 14.71 2 57.0 51.7% 7.60
22 D.K. Metcalf 2019 22 2-64 SEA NFL 16 15 100 58 900 15.52 7 56.3 58.0% 9.00
23 Chris Chambers 2001 23 2-52 MIA NFL 16 7 90 48 883 18.40 7 55.2 53.3% 9.81
24 Jordan Matthews 2014 22 2-42 PHI NFL 16 10 103 67 872 13.01 8 54.5 65.0% 8.47
25 Anthony Armstrong 2010 27 WAS NFL 15 11 86 44 871 19.80 3 58.1 51.2% 10.13
26 Cooper Kupp 2017 24 3-69 LAR NFL 15 6 94 62 869 14.02 5 57.9 66.0% 9.24
27 Justin Blackmon 2012 22 1-5 JAX NFL 16 14 132 64 865 13.52 5 54.1 48.5% 6.55
28 T.Y. Hilton 2012 23 3-92 IND NFL 15 1 90 50 861 17.22 7 57.4 55.6% 9.57
29 Lee Evans 2004 23 1-13 BUF NFL 16 11 74 48 843 17.56 9 52.7 64.9% 11.39
30 Torrey Smith 2011 22 2-58 BAL NFL 16 14 95 50 841 16.82 7 52.6 52.6% 8.85
31 Santonio Holmes 2006 22 1-25 PIT NFL 16 4 86 49 824 16.82 2 51.5 57.0% 9.58
32 Calvin Ridley 2018 24 1-26 ATL NFL 16 5 92 64 821 12.83 10 51.3 69.6% 8.92
33 Roy Williams 2004 23 1-7 DET NFL 14 12 118 54 817 15.13 8 58.4 45.8% 6.92
34 Josh Gordon 2012 21 2-1 CLE NFL 16 13 96 50 805 16.10 5 50.3 52.1% 8.39
35 DeAndre Hopkins 2013 21 1-27 HOU NFL 16 16 91 52 802 15.42 2 50.1 57.1% 8.81
36 Deebo Samuel 2019 23 2-36 SFO NFL 15 11 81 57 802 14.07 3 53.5 70.4% 9.90
37 Percy Harvin 2009 21 1-22 MIN NFL 15 8 91 60 790 13.17 6 52.7 65.9% 8.68
38 Hakeem Nicks 2009 21 1-29 NYG NFL 14 6 74 47 790 16.81 6 56.4 63.5% 10.68
39 Doug Baldwin 2011 23 SEA NFL 16 1 85 51 788 15.45 4 49.3 60.0% 9.27
40 Torry Holt 1999 23 1-6 STL NFL 16 15 97 52 788 15.15 6 49.3 53.6% 8.12
Rk Player Year Age Draft Tm Lg G GS Tgt Rec Yds Y/R TD Y/G Ctch% Y/Tgt
41 D.J. Moore 2018 21 1-24 CAR NFL 16 10 82 55 788 14.33 2 49.3 67.1% 9.61
42 Larry Fitzgerald 2004 21 1-3 ARI NFL 16 16 115 58 780 13.45 8 48.8 50.4% 6.78
43 Jeremy Maclin 2009 21 1-19 PHI NFL 15 13 91 56 773 13.80 4 51.5 61.5% 8.49
44 Jarvis Landry 2014 22 2-63 MIA NFL 16 11 112 84 758 9.02 5 47.4 75.0% 6.77
45 Calvin Johnson 2007 22 1-2 DET NFL 15 10 93 48 756 15.75 4 50.4 51.6% 8.13
46 Mike Wallace 2009 23 3-84 PIT NFL 16 4 72 39 756 19.38 6 47.3 54.2% 10.50
47 Keary Colbert 2004 22 2-62 CAR NFL 15 15 92 47 754 16.04 5 50.3 51.1% 8.20
48 Keelan Cole 2017 24 JAX NFL 16 6 83 42 748 17.81 3 46.8 50.6% 9.01
49 Rod Gardner 2001 24 1-15 WAS NFL 16 16 101 46 741 16.11 4 46.3 45.5% 7.34
50 Darius Slayton 2019 22 5-171 NYG NFL 14 9 84 48 740 15.42 8 52.9 57.1% 8.81
51 Terrance Williams 2013 24 3-74 DAL NFL 16 8 74 44 736 16.73 5 46.0 59.5% 9.95
52 Antonio Bryant 2002 21 2-63 DAL NFL 16 15 93 44 733 16.66 6 45.8 47.3% 7.88
53 Stefon Diggs 2015 22 5-146 MIN NFL 13 9 84 52 720 13.85 4 55.4 61.9% 8.57
54 Troy Edwards 1999 22 1-13 PIT NFL 16 6 118 61 714 11.70 5 44.6 51.7% 6.05
55 Darrell Jackson 2000 22 3-80 SEA NFL 16 9 93 53 713 13.45 6 44.6 57.0% 7.67
56 Greg Little 2011 22 2-59 CLE NFL 16 12 119 61 709 11.62 2 44.3 51.3% 5.96
57 Courtland Sutton 2018 23 2-40 DEN NFL 16 9 84 42 704 16.76 4 44.0 50.0% 8.38
58 Kenny Britt 2009 21 1-30 TEN NFL 16 6 75 42 701 16.69 3 43.8 56.0% 9.35


58 times a rookie WR had 700 or more receiving yards.

This is an average of 2.9 players doing this per season.

Knowing this and also with consideration for the quality of WR in the 2020 draft class I would agree that one more WR could have over 700 yards based on this average.

Generally I am on conservative side of expecting great things from rookie players, Maybe I just like to be pleasantly surprised.

I think Lamb and Juedy can achieve this threshold as rookies. Who else do you think could?

 
travdogg said:
Thanks, I hadn't seen that.

The mean in PFF WAR(column C) is probably closest to my valuations. 

51% QB 3% RB 9% WR 6% TE 9% OL(78% offense)

2% EDGE 2% DI 3% LB 7% CB 7% S(21% defense, which adds up to 99%, so allot the last 1% for ST)

I don't really have an exact valuation that I have plotted out in true numbers form, its more a thought exercise for me, but that is pretty close to me, with a leaning toward receiving RB's and TE's, pass blocking OL, pass rushing EDGE and DI, and coverage LB's and S's. Mobile QB is a also a bonus, though not a requirement, accuracy comes first.
Click to expand...
The numbers in the spreadsheet are for a single player at that position, so if you're looking at whole teams you need to multiply by the number of each on the field. That brings QBs down.

Also, the reasoning behind the analysis is that column G better reflects the PFF numbers. WAR is a backwards-looking stat which looks at how much value a player added last year, but some of that apparent value-added is just randomness (e.g., a CB looks better if a couple QBs happened to miss on their throws when he was beat deep) so he adjusts by the year-to-year stability to get the numbers in column G. His tweets go into more detail on this, with a comparison to a "Coinflipper" position.

 
Being curious about this 700 yard rookie season point brought up by BB what do the other prognosticators at FBG have for 2020 rookie WR?

David Dodds

37    Jerry Jeudy    DEN/8    21    16.0    1.0    6    0.0    60.0    768    12.8    5.3    109.20
42    CeeDee Lamb     DAL/10    21    16.0    2.0    7    0.0    56.0    773    13.8    4.8    106.80
50    Henry Ruggs III     LV/6    21    16.0    2.0    9    0.0    49.0    691    14.1    4.8    98.80
58    Justin Jefferson     MIN/7    21    16.0    1.0    3    0.0    46.0    593    12.9    4.0    83.60
66    Michael Pittman Jr     IND/7    23    16.0    1.0    3    0.0    43.0    563    13.1    3.7    78.80
68    Brandon Aiyuk     SF/11    22    16.0    1.0    3    0.0    41.0    537    13.1    3.8    76.80
72    Jalen Reagor     PHI/9    21    16.0    6.0    30    0.3    39.0    499    12.8    3.3    74.50
73    Denzel Mims     NYJ/11    23    16.0    1.0    4    0.0    41.0    521    12.7    3.4    72.90
89    Laviska Shenault Jr     JAX/7    22    16.0    2.0    10    0.0    28.0    367    13.1    2.4    52.10

Bob Henry

32    CeeDee Lamb     DAL/10    21    16.0    1.0    10    0.0    62.0    950    15.3    6.0    132.00
33    Jerry Jeudy    DEN/8    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    68.0    920    13.5    6.3    129.80
51    Henry Ruggs III     LV/6    21    15.0    3.0    30    0.0    43.0    690    16.0    5.0    102.00
52    Michael Pittman Jr     IND/7    23    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    48.0    700    14.6    5.0    100.00
60    Jalen Reagor     PHI/9    21    15.0    15.0    90    0.3    41.0    550    13.4    4.0    89.80
62    Denzel Mims     NYJ/11    23    16.0    1.0    5    0.0    47.0    640    13.6    4.0    88.50
63    Justin Jefferson     MIN/7    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    50.0    630    12.6    4.0    87.00
64    Laviska Shenault Jr     JAX/7    22    14.0    6.0    40    0.0    42.0    530    12.6    5.0    87.00
74    Brandon Aiyuk     SF/11    22    16.0    3.0    20    0.0    36.0    480    13.3    3.5    71.00

Maurile Tremblay

41    Jerry Jeudy    DEN/8    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    59.5    784    13.2    4.6    106.00
46    CeeDee Lamb     DAL/10    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    55.3    742    13.4    4.3    100.00
62    Henry Ruggs III     LV/6    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    38.3    522    13.6    3.0    70.20
71    Justin Jefferson     MIN/7    21    16.0    3.0    19    0.0    33.4    470    14.1    2.7    65.10
73    Denzel Mims     NYJ/11    23    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    34.9    468    13.4    2.8    63.60
76    Jalen Reagor     PHI/9    21    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    34.7    453    13.1    2.7    61.50
88    Michael Pittman Jr     IND/7    23    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    26.5    380    14.3    2.0    50.00
90    Brandon Aiyuk     SF/11    22    16.0    1.0    6    0.0    25.1    340    13.5    2.3    48.40
91    Laviska Shenault Jr     JAX/7    22    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    28.1    376    13.4    1.8    48.40

Jason Wood

39    Jerry Jeudy    DEN/8    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    63.0    800    12.7    5.0    110.00
49    CeeDee Lamb     DAL/10    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    56.0    720    12.9    5.0    102.00
64    Tee Higgins     CIN/9    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    44.0    615    14.0    3.0    79.50
68    Michael Pittman Jr     IND/7    23    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    35.0    495    14.1    4.0    73.50
71    Denzel Mims     NYJ/11    23    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    39.0    525    13.5    3.0    70.50
74    Justin Jefferson     MIN/7    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    37.0    500    13.5    3.0    68.00
77    Henry Ruggs III     LV/6    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    32.0    445    13.9    3.0    62.50
78    Jalen Reagor     PHI/9    21    15.0    0.0    0    0.0    37.0    505    13.6    2.0    62.50
81    Brandon Aiyuk     SF/11    22    16.0    0.0    0    0.0    31.0    355    11.5    4.0    59.50
83    Laviska Shenault Jr     JAX/7    22    14.0    0.0    0    0.0    27.0    400    14.8    3.0    58.00

 
@ZWK

Curious to hear your thoughts on projections for the rookie WR of 2020 and from a historical perspective.

Just looking at the 2.9 average of rookie WR meeting the 700 yard threshold, I note that DD is right on the money here with 2 over 700 yards and one at 690 yards for your .9

Bob Henry more bullish on the rookie WR with 3.9 he also has Ruggs with 690 yards same as DD

MT and Wood are lower on the rookies in general.

Biggest surprise to me from all of these projections is how low peoples expectations are for Jalen Reagor

I am pretty certain than Justin Jefferson will have more than 40 receptions.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Biabreakable said:
@ZWK

Curious to hear your thoughts on projections for the rookie WR of 2020 and from a historical perspective.

Just looking at the 2.9 average of rookie WR meeting the 700 yard threshold, I note that DD is right on the money here with 2 over 700 yards and one at 690 yards for your .9

Bob Henry more bullish on the rookie WR with 3.9 he also has Ruggs with 690 yards same as DD

MT and Wood are lower on the rookies in general.

Biggest surprise to me from all of these projections is how low peoples expectations are for Jalen Reagor

I am pretty certain than Justin Jefferson will have more than 40 receptions.
Click to expand...
The distribution of projections isn't supposed to match the distribution of outcomes. Every player has a range of possible outcomes and the projection is an average of these possibilities. So the projections are going to be less extreme than the actual outcomes.

It looks like a rookie WR goes for 1000 yards about every other year, but I don't think any rookie WR was so overwhelmingly promising that it made sense to expect that kind of production in advance (especially not in June). The guys who hit that mark were at the upper end of their range of possibilities.

700 receiving yards is less extreme so it does make sense to project some rookies over that mark, but still the same pattern applies where the number of guys who hit that mark should be higher than the number of guys who you could expect in advance to hit that mark.

 
Yeah always good to keep in mind that the projected number is meant to represent the median of the range of outcomes.

There is upside and downside from that.

Or another way to look at it is if you did1000 simulations of that combination of factors this is the average result.

 
BINGBING said:
Mike Clay is clueless.  He told everyone Jordan Wilkins was the man over Marlon Mack.  Now he is telling everyone Marlon Mack is the reason to not own Jonathan Taylor.  Miss me with that "Big name in the industry" BS.  He is awful.
Click to expand...
His lack of perfection is totally inexcusable.  How dare he get one wrong when millions of FF players are literally making the entirety of their management decisions based on what he says.  I just gave him my MFL login info so he could save me the time of having to actually click the buttons myself. 

I plan a civil suit.

 
Jefferson and Pittman are perfect candidates to get volume and go over 700. Reagor and Jeudy as well. Lamb seems least likely of the 5 considering his competition for targets. Mims seems as likely as Lamb.

 
IHEARTFF said:
Jefferson and Pittman are perfect candidates to get volume and go over 700. Reagor and Jeudy as well. Lamb seems least likely of the 5 considering his competition for targets. Mims seems as likely as Lamb.
Click to expand...
I don't see Pittman reaching 700 yards unless Hilton gets hurt. The Colts 3rd and 4th WRs (Campbell and Pascal) are very good, and there will be a lot of targets and production for the TEs and RBs.

 
It should be noted that these are projections for 15 games. I don't know if that is a sort of built in injury likelihood modifier of sorts, as some people are projected for fewer, but nobody is at more than 15. 

If you take the average YPG numbers, and add a 16th game, it pushes both Jefferson and Lamb over 700 yards.

 
I wouldn't be surprised if zero rookie WRs hit that threshold this season.  These guys have lost 2+ months of time that rookies typically would have to work with their teams and QBs.  It's going to be very sloppy for a while, and the rookies are generally not going to hit the ground running.

 
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