Understanding how brief NFL peaks are will unlock everything
Seasons are chaos, and so are careers
It’s been really cool to see a lot of new faces around here this offseason, and I’ve tried to do a good job of linking back to past foundational work to try to get us all on the same page. One of the things I absolutely love about the work we do here is the multiyear subscribers who so obviously get better, including those that have messaged to say, “Hey, I read all the theory stuff, but it didn’t really click until I ran into such-and-such situation last year,” or, “I don’t know why, but everything you’re writing this year is just helping me so much more.”
Just like anything, when you’re trained to think a certain way, it takes time to learn an entirely new way of thinking; that second quote came from an old college roommate who has read my stuff for years, and based on our conversations I’m pretty sure it was just getting foundational principles rewired where he could start thinking multiple levels deep without questioning all the base level stuff. I speak about this in a certain way because I absolutely experienced this same multi-year awakening some time last decade, in the later 2010s. I had a couple frustrating years where my results actually got worse, because I wasn’t employing strategies like Zero RB correctly (which ultimately led to my RB Dead Zone research, because I recognized how those RBs were not the answer), but I could still see things making more sense, and it just became clearer every year I went down that rabbit hole.
I’ve written about antifragility, but that was a concept I didn’t really get until years after it was introduced to me. At least not in the fantasy football sense; I think I understood it theoretically, but it took more time for it to feel obvious to spot and act on.
I think a big part of all of it, for me, comes back to really understanding how hard it is for NFL players to sustain a certain statistical peak. I still remember an article, written by erstwhile RotoViz author “14TeamMocker,” that was discussing the late, great Demaryius Thomas. I’ve looked it up to quote the part that stuck with me, but keep in mind this was written in 2016:
In league history, only five players (Thomas, Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt, and Larry Fitzgerald) have had 90 receptions for four consecutive years, with only two managing a fifth year, and only Holt achieving the mark six straight times, where his streak ended in 2007. Even 80 receptions in five straight years is exceptionally rare, with only thirteen players ever pulling that off.
Three. That’s how many players in league history have ever had 1,300 yards four years in a row. Thomas, Harrison, and Holt. That’s it. Ever.
Again, Holt is the lone exception to pull it off five times in a row, ending his streak after six years. Only sixteen players have had even 1,100 receiving yards four seasons in a row, and only eleven of them were successful making it five.
At the time, Thomas was heading into the 2016 season as a 29-year-old WR the fantasy landscape was very much still buying, after four straight years with at least 90 receptions and 1,300 yards. He’d hit 90 catches again in 2016, but fall to 1,083 yards.
My immediate response is this has probably happened a bunch since then. I don’t know an easy way to look this up, but I immediately went to look at Mike Evans, who we know has had 1,000 yards every year of his career, which began in 2014. He’s only hit 1,300 yards twice in his career, and they were nonconsecutive seasons. The 1,255 he posted last year were his most since 2018, a reason I think he’s a bit overvalued this season (along with his 13 TDs, despite the fact he’s had 12+ in five different seasons).
Justin Jefferson could have done it but missed time last year. That’s part of why we see this type of issue; every reliable players become unreliable in a sport like football.
Antonio Brown was the defining WR of his era, in part because of the longevity. He got really close but missed the 1,300 in four seasons mark, hitting 1,280 in six straight, with 100+ receptions in all six. But for as great as he was, that was it; a six-season peak, and nothing else in his career is close.
His contemporary Julio Jones did do it, for the record. Jones went 1,300+ for six straight years, with 80+ catches in each. But like Brown, nothing else in his career was particularly close; he did have a great Year 2, as well, but both of these guys had clear six-season peaks, and they are remembered for the consistency and longevity of those peaks. People chased that Julio peak into 2022 when he signed with the Bucs — two seasons removed from his last 800-yard year — not understanding that he’d already shattered history with his consistent production, and how improbable it would have been if he got back anywhere close to those types of numbers for another year.
What about Michael Thomas, who broke the NFL record for receptions at age 26 in 2019, and it seems might catch fewer than 100 balls over the rest of his career, since he has 95 in four seasons since? Or Cooper Kupp, who had the best WR season in NFL history in 2021 and then has missed huge parts of both seasons since? Or Jefferson, and his historic run cut short last year, or guys like JuJu Smith-Schuster with the elite early-career production at ages 21 and 22 but a peak that ended by his age-23 season?
This is way more pronounced at RB. If you were playing fantasy football 20 years ago, you probably have a soft spot for LaDainian Tomlinson. I’d suggest that’s because of the consistency. Even then, we knew that it was extremely difficult for an elite RB to be great over multiple years. Other guys who went No. 1 in that era were shorter-lived stars. Priest Holmes had a three-year peak, then got hurt the fourth season and that was it. He “only” scored 10 TDs the first season (he’d score 24+ the next two), and if I remember correctly he was more like a Round 2 pick after that first great season. So by the time people fully bought in, you got one year, then the cliff. That’s a guy people remember extremely fondly, as well.
Shaun Alexander won league MVP in 2005 and went No. 1 overall the next year in my home league up in Seattle. He never totaled 1,000 yards from scrimmage in a season again. But Tomlinson gave fantasy players eight straight years of 1,500+ yards from scrimmage and double-digit TDs from his rookie season through age 29. Remarkable.
The point is the Tomlinsons are the unicorns. Being great for six or eight consecutive seasons is almost impossible in the NFL. I remember upon reading that 14TeamMocker passage years ago being completely taken aback that Jerry Rice, known as the ultimate consistency and longevity player, never had 1,300 over four straight seasons.
That’s not to say he didn’t get close. Rice did that in three straight seasons, two different times. But in the years between, his production was down a bit, around 80 catches and 1,200 yards. Even that is a really interesting part of the takeaways from this piece. We know in hindsight that Jerry Rice was a superstar, but if you were playing fantasy in those seasons, between two elite three-year runs on either side of his career — so squarely in his prime — the circumstances on those particular 49ers’ teams meant he didn’t give you the kind of year you were probably expecting. After basically 1,500 in both 1989 and 1990, he was at 1,206 in 1991 (he did still lead the league in receiving TDs, to be fair).
Let’s talk about some more recent names. I could do an aggregate thing and tell you how many of the top-10 RBs each season return to the top 10 the next year, but that’s impersonal, and in my opinion doesn’t drive home the point particularly well. It’s a lot more helpful to understand the point if I say that Todd Gurley defined fantasy football over multiple seasons, and then also note that what that meant was he truly broke out as a Year 3 league-winner in his age-23 season in 2017, and he retired after playing his age-26 season in Atlanta. We learned in 2017 he was a true superstar (he was drafted about RB10 that year), then got basically one more peak season. Your mileage may vary on that final year with the Rams, where he did still score 14 TDs. Call it 1.5 after we knew what he was.
You’ll go broke in this game chasing last year’s stars. “Don’t pay for past production” has been my motto for years. I wrote yesterday that people are asking a lot about Saquon Barkley, and setting aside all the situational stuff that’s scary, how do you feel about a guy entering his age-27 season whose best season is still clearly his rookie year in 2018? Do you really want to bet that declining peripherals are the Giants’ fault, as we talked about yesterday?
Speaking of 2018, you know another RB that was a top-three guy that year? Gurley. That was also the final year of a three-year peak where Ezekiel Elliott led the league in rushing yards per game all three years to start his career. He’d fall more than 10 yards per game the next year, then nearly 20 more the year after that, and he’s declined every year since. During that whole decline, people looked back at the start of his career and wondered if he could get back to being a player he no longer was.
The other player we talked about yesterday is Stefon Diggs, and those of you who have been out on him should be shouting through your screens at me that this whole column was the point. And it’s fair, don’t get me wrong. My only counter would be to argue that it’s baked into price, when we consider that C.J. Stroud is just entering his peak, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not worried about my Diggs bags today, as I write this. He’s posted 100 catches four years in a row; a lotta great players have not been able to do it five.
But you can go through the 2024 rankings and envision how this could apply to literally every player. Puka Nacua is one it shouldn’t apply to — he’s coming off the greatest rookie WR season ever — but if you know your history, you can understand why I’ve talked about how there’s a solid chance that goes down as the best season of his career. Almost certainly one of the top three.
Look at some of my fades. I got asked about Calvin Ridley this morning. I wrote in Offseason Stealing Signals how DeAndre Hopkins is only two years older but has eight seasons better than Ridley’s second best (among other ways of saying this, I wrote “Ridley has posted a YPRR over 1.80 just once in his career; Hopkins has done it eight times, including the past two seasons”). If even elite talents like prime Jerry Rice can have down statistical years in tougher situations — like the Titans face with Will Levis needing to develop significantly — why would I bet on an aging WR like Ridley whose talent is in question?
Or Rachaad White. What are we doing there? Betting on his ability to keep volume, even despite clear issues with his efficiency and talent as demonstrated by multiple metrics? I don’t mean to be crass, but even among the elites there are few who can be consistently great; do you know how many Rachaad Whites the NFL has chewed up and spit out, that I could reference? If I’m going to be wrong on something, let it be something like that.
The other side of this coin is the point of the piece today. There are two major actionable takeaways.