The 2025 TPRR posts — NFC
Concluding my lengthy dive into the league's pass-catchers
I sent out Part 1 earlier this week, which included some thoughts on TPRR as a stat, what are the good and great ranges, and how I’m using it. It also included my thoughts on the pass-catching groups of all 16 AFC teams, with a specific look at how they did in 2024, what that meant in the larger scope of their careers dating to college, and what that means about their ability to be key fantasy football answers in the future.
Today, we’ll turn our attention to the NFC. As I go team by team in this post, I’m looking at players who ran 100 or more routes last year. Next to each player, I’ll list their TPRR, their weighted TPRR (which incorporates air yards), and then — in parenthesis — their total regular season 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)
Because there are differences in routes by different sources, note that I’m using PFF numbers. For players who changed teams, all data is their full season, and they will typically show up with their final team (though just to state that again, not all of their listed data will have been accumulated while on that team). For teams in the playoffs, their playoff data is not listed, but I will reference important results from those games.
If you read this at bengretch.substack.com, there’s a timeline on the left side of the screen, which allows you to easily click through the different teams. It looks like this (you need to click the bars on the left side of the below image to expand the list):
Let’s get into it.
NFC North
Chicago Bears
Keenan Allen - 0.21, 0.54 (546)
DJ Moore - 0.20, 0.47 (669)
Rome Odunze - 0.15, 0.44 (624)
D'Andre Swift - 0.14, 0.24 (353)
Roschon Johnson - 0.13, 0.21 (136)
Cole Kmet - 0.11, 0.24 (523)
Gerald Everett - 0.10, 0.19 (122)
I spun off some longer thoughts about Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze into a different post, but as part of that I argued it’s difficult to take too much from the Bears’ 2024 data. Caleb took a league-high 68 sacks — 16 more than any other QB — and also scrambled a good amount, which took a ton of pass attempts off the table on plays that were dropbacks and had routes. That negatively impacts the TPRRs across the board, much like Justin Fields’ similar tendencies did here in Chicago in the past. Odunze still had concerning numbers, and most of his production was largely due to running the eighth-most routes in the NFL, though that in itself is an exciting sign in some ways, too. Odunze’s 1.18 YPRR requires some context, but probably reduces the pure ceiling outcomes for his profile, which is a meaningful ding to how we should view him, though as I wrote at the above link, there’s also reason for optimism with Ben Johnson potentially being a massive coaching upgrade over a basement-level job done by Shane Waldron structuring the offense in 2024, and running it before he was fired.
D.J. Moore ran the third-most routes in the NFL, and Keenan Allen was the one who was a bit more rotational at times. In that other piece, I wrote about both of them and Cole Kmet, and how the weird year probably impacted their TPRR data, too:
I wrote a lot about how Cole Kmet was a super young TE when he came into the league and — like a lot of TEs — it took him a few years to break out, but that he seemed to in 2023. But then in 2024, Kmet’s TPRR fell to a ridiculously low 10.5%, and his YPRR to 0.91. His previous career low TPRR was 16.1%, across four seasons, even those early age-21 and age-22 years.
D.J. Moore had a 20.5% TPRR but at a 7.3-yard aDOT, which was 2.3 yards lower than his previous career low. That was from his rookie year, as well, and during his prime he’s typically been comfortably in double figures for aDOT. In 2023 with Chicago, he was at 11.9, and he was way up around 14 in both 2020 and 2022, two of his final three years in Carolina. With his TPRR dipping, that brought his wTPRR all the way down to 0.47 when his career low since his second season was 0.59. That’s a huge dip.
And then Keenan Allen has the age factor as a mitigating note, but his TPRR was down at 21.4% as well, coming off a 27.5% year in 2023. His 2024 was his lowest TPRR since his rookie year way back in 2013, and multiple percentage points below any of his prior seven or eight seasons (dating to before the lost 2016 season with the Week 1 ACL tear where he only ran 16 routes). His 1.36 YPRR was well below his previous career low, and a full yard lower than 2023.
As I noted, the target competition and the Caleb sack/scramble issues help us understand why everyone had poor TPRR stuff and it didn’t seem to benefit anyone else. It’s not a total free pass for any of them, but a bunch of good players having weirdly poor years in the same offense is more believable than it just negatively impacting one guy.
The notable part of Moore’s low aDOT was the quick-game stuff that was nice to see, but his 70% catch rate was more usage-based than something skill-related relative to Keenan’s 57.9% mark and Rome’s 53.5%. To me, there’s enough intriguing long view stuff in each of their profiles to be open to situational factors being positive enough to see major improvement for 2025, making them price-based propositions. Early Underdog ADP has Moore in the fourth round and Odunze in the fifth, which mostly seems fine, but not necessarily some huge opportunity. Keenan’s age and the possibility retirement might be on the table explains his much lower price.
Detroit Lions
Amon-Ra St. Brown - 0.25, 0.59 (551)
David Montgomery - 0.24, 0.39 (152)
Jahmyr Gibbs - 0.20, 0.33 (310)
Jameson Williams - 0.18, 0.49 (477)
Sam LaPorta - 0.17, 0.40 (452)
Kalif Raymond - 0.16, 0.37 (128)
Tim Patrick - 0.13, 0.34 (342)
Brock Wright - 0.09, 0.19 (174)
It remains to be seen what the loss of Ben Johnson could do to this offense, but there are a lot of very good players in it, so I’m optimistic.
Jameson Williams coming on impacted this passing game in 2025. Williams’ volume wasn’t massive at an 18.4% TPRR, but his aDOT drifted down from 16.0 in 2023 to 11.6 in 2024, and he took more looks in the shorter areas of the field. He was also awesome after the target with an 11.4 YPT and 8 total TDs, adding one as a rusher (he’d add a second rushing TD on a long playoff score against Washington). His 2.10 YPRR was strong, and he’s well-positioned to be an effective if not necessarily high-upside WR going forward, because of the volume. It’s possible that in some scenarios where teammate injuries strike, though, that his TPRR could really skyrocket.
Sam LaPorta was hit hardest, falling from a 23.3% TPRR as a rookie to 17.3% in Year 2, though his YPT spiked up to 9.3 and his YPRR didn’t fall a ton down to 1.61. There’s a class of TE that we have a strong indication is very good and would be efficient on big volume, but where we can’t be sure of the volume, which has included at times guys like George Kittle and Mark Andrews. LaPorta looks like he fits into that, and his skill floor will always keep him in the discussion, because volume can open up.
Amon-Ra St. Brown also took a step back, falling from TPRRs of 28.8% and 27.4% the past two years down to 25.0% in 2024. His YPT was still strong, but his YPRR fell to 2.29, down from back-to-back seasons over 2.4. That’s all very minor, and his aDOT actually rose a bit to a new career high of 8.3, so what we saw was with a little less work, a little more impactful targets on average. I’d suggest that sticking at 25% in an offense where a very strong Year 2 TE like LaPorta started lower and fell further is actually a positive note for ARSB, who made a number of plays and continues to look like a truly unique slot guy in that he’s a legitimate superstar.
The story of Jahmyr Gibbs’ rookie season receiving profile was a weirdly low YPT, and I made a convoluted case based on his collegiate profile that not only should we expect that to be an outlier, but our baseline for him should still be above average. Well, we got that in 2024. He was at 4.6 last regular season, the league average for RBs is typically around 6.0, and he blew past that to 8.2 in Year 2. That might be hard to repeat, but everything Gibbs did in 2024 was pretty exceptional, and the guy is just a star. One of the positive 2023 notes was a TPRR over 20%, which he also backed up, indicating clear intent to get this guy the ball in space.
David Montgomery’s TPRR spiked to 24.3% after sitting at just 13.6% in 2023, and his 9.2 YPT was even better than Gibbs’. That gave him a fantastic YPRR of 2.24, and that number is especially great for a RB, given he actually had a negative aDOT at -0.6 and all his yardage was after the catch. Still, he ran fewer than half as many routes (152) as Gibbs (310), and usage matters, in part because when you’re a situational guy, the targets you do see can often be better-positioned for big plays, schematically. In other words, defenses are less concerned about the RB in the passing game when Montgomery is on the field, and the Lions knew that and used it to their advantage well. Defenses could adjust, and it’s unlikely Montgomery would scale up in routes either way, unless Gibbs missed time going forward. All those caveats aside, the production is still very favorable for Montgomery both as a little bump to his overall profile and also a significant boost to his potential ceiling if indeed Gibbs does miss time. Because he’s the RB2 on his own team and his teammate is a superstar, he’s going to stay somewhat inexpensive, but there’s a solid floor here behind a very good offensive line and with his TD equity, and he does have contingent upside. He’s seemingly never the very best pick you can make, and yet also a guy you wind up happy to have exposure to.