Pittsburgh Steelers Mike Wallace pulls in a pass and runs away from Carolina Panthers Nic Harris for 43 yards and a touchdown in the second quarter at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 23, 2010. UPI/Archie Carpenter
A few days ago, I calculated the fantasy points per touch for the running back position, and today I’m looking at fantasy points per target for wide receivers. It’s important to note that not all targets are the same. A wideout will register a target if a QB throws the ball in his direction, so it really doesn’t matter if the ball goes off the receiver’s hands or if it sails 10 feet over his head. Generally speaking, the better the QB, the better the quality of targets his receivers will see, so all else being equal, fantasy owners should usually take the WR with the better QB. (But we knew that already, right?)
A few takeaways:
– These numbers don’t include a point per reception, so they’ll skew more towards the big play, TD-heavy wideouts. I also limited the scope of the table to those receivers who saw at least 80 targets. Of the players who were targeted 30-79 times, a few names stand out: Kenny Britt (1.80 FP per target), Austin Collie (1.57), Ben Obomanu (1.50), Malcom Floyd (1.40) and Dez Bryant (1.26) would have likely finished in the Top 20 in FP/T had they stayed healthy. Jerome Simpson (1.90) was only targeted 24 times, but obviously did a lot (20-277-3) with those looks.
– Mike Wallace is explosive. If he gets his targets into the 120+ range, he’d have a great shot at becoming fantasy’s top WR. Wallace saw 4.8 targets through the first four games (with Ben Roethlisberger suspended) and 6.6 targets over the final 12 games, with Big Ben under center, so his final 2010 numbers may be a little depressed.
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