WR/TE Stat Analysis: Catch Rate and Drawn Pass Interference

June 11, 2021

Antonio Losada looks at catch rate and defensive pass interference (DPI) as stats to consider when analyzing players at the wide receiver and tight end positions leading up to the 2021 fantasy football draft season.

When it comes to drafting stud wide receivers and tight ends, we all pursue the same stats: receptions, yards, and touchdowns. It makes sense. Those three stats are the ones that ultimately yield actual, tangible fantasy points in every fantasy league, no matter the format. The savviest fantasy GMs often focus on targets, as without targets, receivers have no chance to score points. That's a good approach to assess a very important non-fantasy stat. But targets are not the only non-fantasy number worth considering.

There are plenty of "artificially-built" numbers that help us understand football and player performance better, like yards per reception, yards per target, and others like fantasy points per target that do the same thing only with a fantasy twist. Today, I'm here to explore two stats that usually go under the radar when analyzing receivers and tight ends. Some already take the first one (catch rate) into consideration, but the other (drawn pass interferences) might surprise you if you have never thought of its impact on the game.

That's why today I'm writing about the leaders in both statistical categories during the past 2020 season with our eyes already set on the upcoming 2021 one. Let's explore what the best players at the WR/TE position did when it came to catching rates and drawn pass interference.

Best 2020 Catch Rates - WR & TE

In order to limit the data to only fantasy-relevant players, I've only considered WRs and TEs to reach 150+ PPR points during the 2020 season excluding touchdowns. There are 33 of them in the chart above, all with catch rates between 56% (DJ Moore) and 79% (Curtis Samuel). Interestingly enough, both of them played for the same team, the Carolina Panthers, last season, with Samuel moving to Washington a few weeks ago during the offseason free agency period. I have highlighted the players who caught more than 72% of their targets in the chart above.

The first insight we can get is that among tight ends to meet the criteria (150+ PPR), only two caught more than 65% of their targets. Some players such as Robert Tonyan, George Kittle, Logan Thomas, and Dalton Schultz missed the cut after not meeting the followed criteria (falling short in PPR or the min. 60 targets required to make it to the chart).

Travis Kelce finished with the highest PPR on the season (312.8) while boasting a 73% catch rate on 145 targets over the year. Not only was he a great tight end, but receiver full stop. Only five players finished with more targets than Kelce, and just two of them bested his catch rate. Not bad if you ask me.

Darren Waller finished the year as the TE2 (278.6 PPR), although in a not-so-close race. His 145 targets tied Kelce's mark and he was able to actually beat the TE1 in the percentage of those passes he caught by a couple of percentage points. Waller's ADP was high already, getting off the board as the TE5 in 2020, but he looks like a lock to make it to the top-three drafted TEs group this summer.

Moving on to wide receivers, Curtis Samuel was by far the most reliable pass-catcher of the 2020 season while putting up heavy fantasy production numbers. He was targeted way fewer times than other studs at the position (97) but catching 77 passes for a 79%+ catch rate elevated him to the top of the latter leaderboard above the likes of Cole Beasley or higher-scoring players such as Davante Adams and Stefon Diggs.

Those last two mentioned ones, Adams and Diggs, are the only WRs with 140+ targets and catch rates above 74%. Funny bit of information ahead:

• Only three WRs finished a season with 140+ targets and 74%+ catch rates in the 2000-2009 span.
• Five have done so in the last three seasons alone. Shout-out to Michael Thomas for having two such seasons, and here is wishing a healthy 17-game comeback from him in 2021.

Buffalo is the only team with two receivers getting 100+ targets and catch rates above 76% each. The closer one was the Los Angeles Rams, which put Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods on the list of 100+ target players, only they could catch 74% and 70% of the passes thrown their way.

Worst 2020 Catch Rates - WRs & TEs

Let's move to the left side of the chart now, which contains the worst players in terms of catch rate. Highlighting those with a catch rate below 65%, as you can see, no tight end made the cut (while still racking up at least 150 non-TD PPR over the year).

Among the wide receivers included in the group to meet those marks (seven of them), the "best" were Tyreek Hill, Mike Evans, and CeeDee Lamb, all three tying for a 64% catch rate. All things considered, though, Hill was clearly the most reliable among them as he sustained that mark on a heavy 135-target dose compared to Evans' 109 and Lamb's 111.

DJ Moore fell in between those two groups with 118 targets over the full season, yet a paltry 56% catch rate on those opportunities, converting only 66 of those passes into actual catches and yards for his team. As many as 468 WRs have been targeted at least 118 times since the 2000 season, and Moore would be in a "respectable" 29th percentile in that group when it comes to his 56% catch rate. If you're curious, the worst season belongs to Chris Chambers in 2006 (154 targets, 38% catch rate).

In terms of the tight end position, and lowering our minimum requirements a bit (only 50 targets needed, no PPR points minimum considered), Zach Ertz had a nightmare of a season with a 50% catch rate on 72 targets. No other TE with 50+ targets fell so much, with Evan Engram ranking second-worst already at a much better 58% catch rate.

Engram's career is starting to get a little bit concerning as he has two of the 18-player seasons since 2000 in which a TE has been targeted 100+ times and posted a catch rate below 58%. He's also the only player at the position with such seasons since the 2012 campaign, having done so in 2017 and 2020.

2020 Pass Interferences Drawn  - WRs

In order to keep things simple when it comes to Drawn Pass Interferences, I have just limited the data to players with at least four DPI and 150+ PPR points in 2020 (TD-points excluded), which yielded only nine results. All of them are included in the chart above, and as you see, no tight end made the cut (three tight ends finished at the top of the position leaderboard in DPI with two over the year: Travis Kelce, Darren Waller, and George Kittle).

Among the highlighted wide receivers, the results varied wildly. The two of them able to rack up the most DPI (eight or more) ranged from an average of 175 yards per DPI (Hopkins) to just 91 (Evans). Evans' numbers when it came to drawing penalties from opposing defenses were a little bit of an outlier, though, and will most probably regress in 2021.

Fast receivers and big-bodied ones are to be found in the chart, with the tight ends cohort not making the cut as they are not often used in plays that can lead to DPI penalties (yet when they do, the sheer frame of those players make for easy calls against the defense).

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