Week 4 Quick Reads

by Vincent Verhei

The most interesting statistical stories of Week 4 involved the NFL's best and worst wide receivers this past Sunday. The best was outstanding, but probably not as great as you'd think. The worst wasn't especially bad, but it was the latest in a string of very bad games in what is quickly becoming a very, very bad career.

Let's start with the biggest star of the weekend. Atlanta's Julio Jones ripped the Carolina Panthers to shreds this weekend for 300 yards receiving, just the sixth time in NFL history a wideout has gone for three bills in a single game. Only three of those games have come in the DVOA era (which goes back to 1989). Jones averaged 25.0 yards per catch and had an 80 percent catch rate, so surely he must have threatened to break some all-time single-game DYAR, right?

Well, no. Jones did not set a record for most DYAR in a game by a wide receiver. He was not in the top three. Or top five. Or ten, or 15, or 20. Surprisingly, Jones' effort against Atlanta was just the 25th-best regular-season game we have on record. Now, that's an outstanding game. We're going on 27 years of DYAR data now, so simple averages tell us this will quite likely be the best game any receiver has in all of 2016. And it would have been the best game in any of 12 other years in our database, including all games played from 2002 to 2005. So no, games like this don't come down the line every month, or even every year.

That said, it's still hard to believe that there have been 24 regular-season games better than this in less than three decades. How can that be? He wasn't perfect. He did have those three incompletions, two of which were failed third-down plays. He scored just one touchdown, which isn't a lot when you're talking about the greatest games on record. And though none of his catches were failed completions, he did have four catches that failed to gain first downs: a 5-yard gain on first-and-10, a pair of 9-yard gains on second-and-10, and an 18-yard gain on first-and-20. That's 14 percent of his yardage total on catches that still left the offense needing to convert another play to pick up a first down. Meanwhile, only eight of his catches gained first downs, which isn't an unusually high number at all. Tampa Bay's Mike Evans topped that with nine first-down catches in Week 3. Odell Beckham and Antonio Brown have also hit eight first downs in a game early in this season, and at least three other receivers have gone for seven.

So while it seemed that Jones was an unstoppable force for all 60 minutes on Sunday, there were brief stretches where he was… "silent" is too strong a word, so let's say he was quiet. Now, when he was loud, he was very loud. His eight first downs averaged 32.4 yards apiece, nearly double the average gain (16.5 yards) of all first down receptions this season. The other factor to take into consideration is opponent adjustments. The Panthers haven't been very good on defense this year, and Jones' day gets dinged accordingly. Take everyone's adjustments away, and Jones jumps from 25th to 16th. The following table lists all 100-DYAR games for wide receivers since 1989. Calvin Johnson, Chad Johnson, and Jerry Rice have three each; Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Amani Toomer, and Jimmy Smith each appear twice. Besides Jones, active players on the list include Kenny Britt, Antonio Brown, Eric Decker, Josh Gordon (sorta), T.Y. Hilton, Andre Johnson and Marvin Jones.

Last August, the Falcons signed Jones to a five-year, $71 million extension, and so far the wide receiver has lived up to his price tag. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, almost a year to the day after Jones signed his deal with Atlanta, the Rams inked their own young wideout to a big money deal, getting Tavon Austin's name on a four-year, $42 million deal -- about 25 percent less than Jones got, per season, but still a healthy hunk of change. "Tavon has been an integral part of our offense and special teams since we drafted him in 2013," Rams coach Jeff Fisher said in a statement at the time. "It is important to our organization to retain players we've drafted and invested in, and Tavon is an example of that. We're excited for him to continue his career with the Rams." How has Austin rewarded his coach and his team for making that investment?

• In Week 1 against San Francisco, he caught four of 12 targets for 13 yards. He was the lowest-ranked wide receiver in Quick Reads.
• In Week 2 against Seattle, he caught five of nine targets for 50 yards. He was among the bottom 20 wide receivers in DYAR.
• In Week 3 against Tampa Bay, Austin had his best day of the season, catching five of eight targets for 82 yards, including a 43-yard touchdown. He finished in the top 10 receivers in DYAR and was originally listed in our top receivers in Quick Reads, though that was due to a glitch in our compiling system. Once we fixed the glitch, Austin fell out of the top five.
• In Week 4 against Arizona, Austin followed up on his big day by catching two of six targets for just 14 yards. As you can see below, he had the worst DYAR of any wideout in the league for the second time in just four weeks.

Put it all together and Austin currently has minus-93 DYAR on the year. This is worst among wide receivers by a good margin. Kevin White, the second-lowest ranked receiver, is closer to sixth-worst Torrey Smith than he is to Austin. In fact, over 16 games, Austin's total projects to minus-371 DYAR, which would shatter the record of minus-297 set by Chris Chambers in 2006. As a receiver, Austin has combined an abysmal catch rate of 46 percent with an anemic 9.9 yards per catch -- both in the bottom ten out of 81 qualifying wideouts this season. Only three wide receivers in DVOA history have qualified for our end-of-season tables with a catch rate so low and less than 10 yards per catch: Az-Zahir Hakim with the Lions in 2003, David Patten with the Redskins in 2005, and Eddie Royal with the Broncos in 2011. Hakim and Patten finished last in both DVOA and DYAR in those seasons. Royal was last in DVOA, and third-to-last in DYAR. Regular Quick Reads readers (Quick Readers?) will recognize that Austin's name at the bottom of our rankings is nothing new -- he was last in receiving DYAR last year too, and he just missed the bottom 10 in 2013. In between, he had positive DYAR in 2014, though he didn't see enough targets to qualify for our main tables. That's a three-year total of minus-134 DYAR, and that's very bad -- 27th-worst from 1989 to 2015, if we don't use a minimum number of targets. But that was before 2016 began. Four games into this season, Austin has been so bad that he has passed twenty-three of the worst wide receivers of the past quarter-century. At this exact moment, Austin has minus-227 DYAR, a total matched by only three other wideouts: Bryan Gilmore (minus-232), Greg Little (minus-235), and Dez White (minus-312). If he can't get things turned around quickly, Austin could fall behind White and claim the title of Worst Wide Receiver of the DVOA Era by Halloween.

It's quite possible, though, that Austin will turn things around. His numbers would almost certainly go up if the Rams ever give up on Case Keenum and turn to Jared Goff, who just a few months ago they drafted ahead of Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott, Jacoby Brissett, Cody Kessler, or any other player in the 2016 class. And we know that with the ball in his hands, Austin can change games on one play -- witness his 8.1-yard average on 103 career runs, and his three punt return touchdowns. That talent makes him a valuable asset even if he's not catching passes. Even this week, when he was the worst wide receiver in the league, his 47-yard punt return (and a 15-yard facemask penalty on Arizona) set the Rams up in the red zone. Five plays later, Los Angeles scored what proved to be the winning touchdown. Every team in the league could use a lightning-in-a-bottle threat like Austin on their roster. But if the Rams are going to get value out of their $42 million investment, they need to find a way to make him a consistent threat in the passing game, not a "secret" weapon only to be used a few times a game.