The 2024 TPRR posts — NFC East and NFC North

A.J. Brown, D.J. Moore, Sam LaPorta, and the rest of the NFC East and NFC North

Mar 06, 2024

∙ Paid

I wrote a long intro to this post last week, which doesn’t necessarily even cover everything (and instead went into some other topics on my mind), but if you’ve been around for any length of time, you know what this is. I go team by team and break down data from the 2023 season to get a better understanding of where the various players are in their careers.

For young players, that discussion centers on how to contextualize the limited NFL data we have, and we have to respect the bigger picture that includes collegiate profiles. For older players, we’re aware that nothing really stays consistent for long in the NFL (unless you’re Mike Evans), and we’re looking for evidence of decline, or perhaps even later-career growth, which can and does happen. As I wrote about in the introduction, the actual base data — the receptions, yards, and touchdowns — doesn’t always tell the whole picture about a player, and we should expect a good chunk of the league to be significantly impacted by variance and similar factors.

That idea is not to be confused with arbitrarily ignoring data we don’t want to believe. It instead means delicate but fair analysis does have an ability to move the needle, something I feel stronger about now than I ever have, as I’ve frankly displayed strong results in this regard over multiple years now.

As I go team by team in this post, I’m going to look at players who ran 100 or more routes last year, and everyone will be assigned to their 2023 teams as I’m analyzing this data in a descriptive way. Next to each player, I’ll list their TPRR, their weighted TPRR (which incorporates air yards), and then — in parenthesis — their total routes, which both provides important context around sample size and is also in its own right a key piece of data. It will look like this:

Player Name - TPRR, wTPRR (total routes)

In the 2022 regular season, Joshua Palmer, Mack Hollins, Parris Campbell, and K.J. Osborn were all among the top-15 players in the NFL in routes run. To varying degrees, they were fantasy relevant in 2022 and then on the redraft radar for 2023, but their 2022 utility was situational — there were strong reasons to believe none would match the same route volume, as two saw their teams hit WR in Round 1 of the draft, and the other two were free agents whose teams let them walk, and were thus on new rosters in 2023. The circumstances that led to the big 2022 routes volume were unlikely to repeat, and they had done nothing to show they could produce without the big routes numbers. I hit on how this type of profile led to inflated values in last year’s versions of these posts.

So this analysis is not just helpful in identifying good WRs, but also the not very good ones. The actual production is known, but using these relatively simple metrics we can do a good job of contextualizing where production came from or didn’t, and in a way that helps us understand what to expect production-wise in the future. For the examples I just gave, none of them was particularly expensive or a major miss in 2023, but all were drafted at times, and Osborn and Palmer were somewhat expensive in best ball throughout the summer. All were anchors on portfolios, and avoiding those types of late-round issues can be as helpful as nailing the Keenan Allens nearer to the top of drafts.

For TPRR, anything over 0.25 — meaning a target on 25% of routes — is very strong. But anything below about 18% gets to be pretty replaceable, and below 15% is essentially not fantasy-relevant. If that range feels tight, consider that on any given play there are five eligible pass-catchers, so in a perfectly equitable world where every pass attempt is targeted to a player, everyone would have a TPRR of 20%. (Of course, there are throwaways and routes where no one is targeted, and also eligible receivers pass block sometimes, so five players don’t run a route on every play. Those things don’t totally cancel out but essentially you wind up with this range of 15%-25% for most players, and then anything below or above that is especially notable.)

For wTPRR, the scale is higher and wider because of how it incorporates air yards, and what constitutes “good” or “interesting” will differ by position, but for a WR you’re essentially talking about 0.65 and above as the strong end.

In a second, I’ll provide a short list of every player who ran at least 150 routes (a slightly higher threshold than I’ll use as I go team-by-team) and hit that 25% TPRR threshold in 2023, sorted by TPRR. It should give a frame of reference of the high end of TPRR, but also how RBs and TEs can fit in, and what high TPRRs at those positions typically equate to in terms of wTPRRs (because the hierarchy of aDOTs goes WRs deepest — averaging around 11.0 yards, but there are different types obviously — then TEs around 7.5 on average, but same about types, then RBs basically being near the line of scrimmage so aDOTs of 0.0 or sometimes in the negative, and anything at 2.0 or higher being interesting in terms of providing some of those sweet, sweet RB air yards).

The other key note about the RB and TE positions is how they pass block some, so you’ll see smaller-sample players in terms of routes from those positions. What an elite route-volume season looks like is different for each position, but typically the very top WRs will reach or exceed 600, only a handful of TEs will exceed 500, and for RBs it’s 400 that’s an elite number.

As I wrote in my separate “intro,” there is necessary context all over within this stat. In this intro, I’m just trying to provide some benchmarks, so you can follow along with my commentary. Perhaps the most important note I have to hit on is we can’t just extrapolate smaller routes samples to larger roles and assume a player will maintain the same strong TPRR. There’s more variance in smaller samples, and importantly in certain profiles. I’ve used Rondale Moore’s rookie year in 2021 as an example here before, because he got a lot of designed touches on a limited number of routes, which helped him to a 24% TPRR that was obviously inflated, even when viewed by a former truther such as myself.

This sample issue, along with the nature of the RB position — they are often the outlet after other downfield reads, so they often don’t “earn” volume in the same way as other positions, and are instead more situationally-dependent (what the defense does, and whether their QB is mobile being two huge situational factors) — helps explain why I won’t write much about RB receiving skill in these pieces. I’ll include the numbers, but would recommend heavily regressing them, and largely just viewing them as interesting rather than predictive.

Here’s that list of high-end TPRRs for players who ran at least 150 routes that I referenced earlier. Note how the wTPRR profiles are different for TEs and RBs who make the list, because again their aDOTs are on a different scale:

Tyreek Hill - 0.35, 0.92 (471)
Javonte Williams - 0.32, 0.49 (170)
Alvin Kamara - 0.32, 0.54 (269)
Davante Adams - 0.29, 0.76 (582)
CeeDee Lamb - 0.28, 0.71 (629)
Jaylen Warren - 0.28, 0.43 (256)
Keenan Allen - 0.28, 0.69 (527)
Amon-Ra St. Brown - 0.27, 0.64 (576)
Jaylen Waddle - 0.27, 0.68 (385)
Stefon Diggs - 0.27, 0.69 (593)
Breece Hall - 0.27, 0.44 (336)
Puka Nacua - 0.27, 0.65 (574)
Justin Jefferson - 0.27, 0.74 (369)
Michael Pittman Jr. - 0.27, 0.62 (565)
A.J. Brown - 0.26, 0.71 (577)
DeAndre Hopkins - 0.26, 0.76 (505)
Nico Collins - 0.26, 0.68 (419)
Trey McBride - 0.26, 0.56 (406)
Rashee Rice - 0.26, 0.54 (392)
Chris Olave - 0.25, 0.72 (542)
Ezekiel Elliott - 0.25, 0.40 (247)

Notice how for the RBs on that list, the wTPRR numbers are typically in the 0.40 to 0.50 range (due to air yards), and the routes are far lower? Notice how for the only TE listed, Trey McBride, his wTPRR falls between those RB numbers and where most WRs are, at comparable TPRRs? (The glaring exception next to him is of course Rashee Rice, whose lower aDOT makes his profile look a little more like a TE’s.)

Now that I’ve tried to lay the foundation for how to look at these things, let’s run through the first eight teams, as I’ve decided to break this up into four columns this year to spend a little more time on it.

As a reminder, for the below teams, I’m including anyone who ran at least 100 routes in the regular season. All routes numbers are on PFF’s scale, and the data is regular season only (which isn’t the best way to look at the efficiency, but does normalize the routes volume for us, and we have a better immediate grasp of fantasy scoring in the regular season than regular plus postseason).

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys

CeeDee Lamb - 0.28, 0.71 (629)
Rico Dowdle - 0.20, 0.32 (107)
Jake Ferguson - 0.18, 0.40 (522)
Tony Pollard - 0.16, 0.28 (401)
Brandin Cooks - 0.16, 0.43 (529)
Michael Gallup - 0.14, 0.37 (394)
Luke Schoonmaker - 0.13, 0.29 (105)
Jalen Tolbert - 0.13, 0.36 (275)

Not to keep rehashing old predictions (versus making new ones) but there are few players this analysis has been more prescient about than CeeDee Lamb. After 2021, I talked about how there was room for him to gain in both his TPRR and his overall routes, while his efficiency was strong. Then after he did that in 2022, I wrote his gains did still “leave at least some more meat on the bone.” In both cases, the point was he could add in a variety of ways — routes, per-route volume, and that there was still room for an after-the-target efficiency spike season. Well, that all came in 2024, as his TPRR once again jumped multiple percentage points while he added significant routes to his previous career high, which is the difficult parlay to pull off. On top of that, his after-the-target efficiency was at a career-high level with a 9.7 YPT and a 6.6% TD rate. His YPRRs by year: 1.81, 2.06, 2.38, and then 2.78 this year, and his aDOT has stayed between 10.0 and 11.0 all four years, so the role is pretty consistent (his alignment has shifted some year to year, though it’s been fairly stable since a rookie year spent largely in the slot). He just looks like a very talented player who had a great prospect profile and has gotten better each season at the NFL level. Will it be easy to replicate all of these career-high numbers, from routes, to per-route volume, to per-target efficiency? No, this time there’s not a lot of meat left on the bone, and regression in some capacity — whether it be his TD rate or his ability to match the 181 targets — should probably be the expectation. But the way he’s built to these heights, Lamb is very clearly one of the best WRs in the NFL (and if you made me hunt for upside, I could argue he still has potential to post a 10.0+ YPT in some season, to offset some of the regression).

Beyond Lamb, there wasn’t much of note in Dallas. Michael Gallup has now given us way more evidence he’s not good than anything to support his brief flashes of success. Jake Ferguson was your run-of-the-mill TE where the 18% TPRR is solid, but much like Dalton Schultz before him, his value lies in the routes volume (which is a bit scary). In fact, if you hold up Ferguson’s 2023 against Schultz’s best Dallas season in 2021, it’s scary how identical they nearly are (1.47 to 1.46 YPRRs, matching 18.4% TPRRs, and the big difference is Schultz had 8 TDs to Ferguson’s 5 but then Ferguson had 3 in his playoff game, so the similarities just go deeper if we include postseason). What that means is this is a little more dependent on role and situation than on anything Ferguson is added to the equation.

Brandin Cooks posted very low numbers in TPRR and YPRR, and very much looks in the decline phase, although he had a similarly outlier-ish season in 2019 and then rebounded for a strong 2020. He’s been around for a long time but is still just 30, so while I can’t see myself wanting to draft him in almost any situation, I also don’t want to definitively say he’s dust and can never be productive again (shoutout Adam Thielen).

New York Giants

Darren Waller - 0.20, 0.47 (355)
Parris Campbell - 0.19, 0.37 (141)
Saquon Barkley - 0.19, 0.35 (306)
Wan'Dale Robinson - 0.19, 0.40 (402)
Darius Slayton - 0.14, 0.37 (558)
Matt Breida - 0.13, 0.22 (156)
Isaiah Hodgins - 0.12, 0.28 (275)
Jalin Hyatt - 0.10, 0.35 (388)
Daniel Bellinger - 0.10, 0.20 (286)

Some of these teams I’m going to move quickly through, and there’s probably no better candidate than the Giants. Darren Waller wasn’t healthy, but he had a tough 2022 as well, and he’s now a couple years removed from his peak seasons, which can make it more difficult to recapture.

Wan’Dale Robinson took a step back, but perhaps it’s fair to put small asterisks alongside all of these figures, given the overall atmosphere of the passing game last season. Jalin Hyatt had an uninspiring rookie season, but guys like Isaiah Hodgins and Darius Slayton underscore the environment issues (read: QB/OL situation), as both were way down from their earlier data as well. I’m not fully ignoring what Waller, Wan’Dale, or Hyatt put out there in 2023 — meaning how bad they were, relative to expectations — but I’m at least open to the possibility we didn’t get great information.

Philadelphia Eagles

A.J. Brown - 0.26, 0.71 (577)
DeVonta Smith - 0.19, 0.51 (597)
Dallas Goedert - 0.19, 0.39 (437)
D'Andre Swift - 0.17, 0.29 (279)
Kenneth Gainwell - 0.16, 0.29 (225)
Julio Jones - 0.12, 0.30 (157)
Quez Watkins - 0.11, 0.28 (193)
Olamide Zaccheaus - 0.06, 0.16 (311)
Jack Stoll - 0.06, 0.10 (144)

After a 2022 where A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were much closer in volume, but Brown was the clearly more efficient piece, their gap widened in 2023, though their efficiency was very similar. The net result was that Smith still posted his third straight strong season, as he’s now been over a 1.75 YPRR in all three years, but has yet to hit 2.0. Meanwhile, Brown continued his absolutely ludicrous run of five straight seasons with a 2.5 YPRR or better to start his career. Brown is a clear superstar WR, while Smith is very good but his ultimate upside is a little harder to place, and this small step back in Year 3 isn’t super promising.

Despite missing some time, Dallas Goedert actually ran a career-high 437 routes in 2023, his first year over 400. His TPRR wasn’t as much to blame for his poor production as his otherwise stellar after-the-target efficiency falling off, after back-to-back monster YPT years in 2021 and 2022. He’s a reasonable bounceback candidate where you could see the efficiency tick back up, and should probably expect another career high in routes if he can stay healthy.

D’Andre Swift had never posted a TPRR below 23.8% in Detroit, and his 16.8% in 2023 underscores how difficult it is for RBs to dictate receiving volume. We know a big part of this with the Eagles is Jalen Hurts’ mobility.

Washington Commanders

Curtis Samuel - 0.21, 0.48 (402)
Byron Pringle - 0.20, 0.56 (104)
Terry McLaurin - 0.20, 0.53 (643)
Brian Robinson - 0.18, 0.29 (219)
Antonio Gibson - 0.18, 0.29 (318)
Logan Thomas - 0.15, 0.33 (515)
Dyami Brown - 0.14, 0.43 (166)
John Bates - 0.13, 0.30 (203)
Jahan Dotson - 0.12, 0.31 (635)

In an offense without a ton of competition, Jahan Dotson’s 12.4% TPRR is one of the worst stat lines of 2023. In this column last year, I wrote about how he closed his rookie season well, and was efficient, despite only posting a 14.9% TPRR in 2022. I thought there was reasonable context for him as a rookie, but things got worse in 2023 despite massive route volume. And if we go back to his prospect profile, there were some concerns there as well, so Dotson’s a guy I would be firmly out on in early drafts at an ADP around the Round 10/11 turn, given there are interesting rookies to be targeted there, and better veteran profiles later as well. I’m not sure at what price I’d be willing to take swings on Dotson, but it’s at least multiple rounds cheaper.

One minor defense is the high Sam Howell sack rate, which led to a lot of routes that didn’t turn into targets, and no one posting high TPRRs. But both Curtis Samuel and Terry McLaurin were in a decent range, and even rotational WRs, both RBs, and both TEs were able to earn more volume per route than Dotson. For McLaurin, we continue to see something I highlighted years back when some saw him as a budding superstar — he’s good but not great, and specifically he doesn’t earn volume at the level of true elite WRs. Through five years, he has yet to post a season with a TPRR over 22%, though he’s also never been below 19.7%. It’s always in this good but not great range, typically with solid efficiency. That doesn’t mean he’s incapable of posting a career-high season, but I think we know he doesn’t have elite upside at this point. (That same point also drives home the Dotson concerns, because it’s not like he withered alongside a true alpha; I can make some concessions for DeVonta Smith given A.J. Brown’s profile, but the same can’t apply to Dotson vis-a-vis McLaurin.)

Samuel wound up being a good late-round WR target, though injuries prevented the routes from compiling. He’s a free agent now, but worth tracking.

NFC North

Chicago Bears

DJ Moore - 0.22, 0.59 (591)
Roschon Johnson - 0.22, 0.35 (190)
Cole Kmet - 0.21, 0.47 (425)
Khalil Herbert - 0.18, 0.32 (146)
Tyler Scott - 0.12, 0.33 (257)
Darnell Mooney - 0.12, 0.31 (466)
Robert Tonyan - 0.10, 0.25 (164)
Equanimeous St. Brown - 0.05, 0.13 (111)

It’s kind of shocking to see D.J. Moore at only a 22% TPRR, given all he accomplished in 2023. But similar to my notes with Washington in the last section, you have to account for Justin Fields’ double-digit sack rate, plus high scramble numbers, which mean a lot of plays (and routes) don’t have a targeted receiver.