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Opportunity Is (Almost) Everything: Part III

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By Matt Morrison (@dynastyjerk)

Hello Dynasty Owners. I will be continuing my Opportunity Is (Almost) Everything article series.  After today, I will be through quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers. I will wrap up the series next week when I talk about tight ends. As for today, we have a lot to talk about so I’m going to jump right into it.

“A few years ago, I came across a few underutilized metrics that, I think, can help bridge the gap between opportunity and fantasy production. So often we compare Player x to Player y without having the full context of their seasons. I am guilty of comparing players that I know haven’t had the same opportunity. These metrics are also a great way to see which players are on the field, but aren’t receiving the opportunity you would expect.

So often we talk about how much a player’s opportunity means to fantasy production (especially for running backs). Well over the next month, I’m going to show you that while it is very important, opportunity isn’t quite everything.”

Today we will be talking about wide receivers. This article will be limited to players in the Top 20 at each position. I’m going to be presenting some of the leaders in each of these categories…

  • Total Opportunities
  • Opportunities per Snap (Opp/Snap)
  • Dynasty Owner Fantasy Points (DOFP) per Opportunity (DOFP/Opp)

Total Opportunities

An opportunity for a wide receiver is defined as targets plus rushing attempts. Obviously, wide receivers (typically) don’t rush that often in a season, but they still need to be included as meaningful opportunities.

PlayerTeamSalaryOpportunitiesDOFPs
Davante AdamsLV$28,000,000115218.4
Tyreek HillMIA$18,000,000111221.2
Cooper KuppLAR$15,750,000107199.4
Justin JeffersonMIN$3,280,701107215.7
Stefon DiggsBUF$14,400,000104226.3

It’s interesting, but not unexpected, that all five wide receivers who lead the NFL in opportunities are also all in the Top 5 for Dynasty Owner fantasy points. When it comes to wide receivers, opportunity and receptions are essential. Adams and Hill lead this category with Kupp, Jefferson and Diggs close behind.

Any player who finishes in the Top 5 for opportunities will likely have a good chance of ending the season as a top Dynasty Owner player. That being said, opportunity is not everything.

Opportunities Per Snap

Next, we look at opportunities per snap. This is how often a player gets a chance at fantasy points when they are actually on the field. Players get taken off of the field for various reasons: injury, snap counts, change of pace player, etc..

All this is to say that Opportunities per Snap (Opp/Snap) look at how efficient a player is with their opportunities when they take a snap.

PlayerTeamSalaryOpportunitiesDOFPsSnapsOpp/Snap
Tyreek HillMIA$18,000,000111221.24920.23
Cooper KuppLAR$15,750,000107199.45300.20
Stefon DiggsBUF$14,400,000104226.35200.20
Chris OlaveNO$4,817,969831444230.20
Amon-Ra St. BrownDET$1,066,31382140.84280.19

Tyreek Hill is once again at the top of the list. In this case, he gets an opportunity for Dynasty Owner fantasy points on 23 percent of his snaps. This efficiency is more impressive when you look at how many snaps Hill actually takes. He had 111 opportunities on nearly 500 snaps (492).

Hill, Diggs and Kupp are all over 100 opportunities on the season while St. Brown and Olave are well under 100. This is where you start to see the true efficiency come out. Olave is getting an opportunity on one out of every five snaps (20 percent). St. Brown is getting an opportunity on 19 percent of his snaps. This Opp/Snap is also directly related to their target share percentage. All five of these players are top of the league in target share for their team. St. Brown is clearly the greatest value overall for this category when you take salary into account.

Fantasy Points Per Opportunity

Like the last two articles, this is where I tie the whole article together. Here we are looking at how many fantasy points a player gets for every opportunity.

PlayerTeamSalaryOpportunitiesDOFPsSnapsOpp/SnapDOFPs/Opp
Jaylen WaddleMIA$6,771,49877176.54900.162.29
Stefon DiggsBUF$14,400,000104226.35200.202.18
Justin JeffersonMIN$3,280,701107215.76490.162.02
A.J. BrownPHI$1,413,09280160.55660.142.01
Tyler LockettSEA$17,250,00071142.24980.142.00
Tyreek HillMIA$18,000,000111221.24920.231.99
Tee HigginsCIN$2,171,69671139.24490.161.96
Amari CooperCLE$20,000,00081158.85890.141.96
Davante AdamsLV$28,000,000115218.46070.191.90
Christian KirkJAC$18,000,00085160.76060.141.89

Leading this list is Jaylen Waddle.  Amazingly, he is getting 2.29 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per opportunity that he gets. This means that there are a pair of wide receivers on the same team on this list. Waddle and Hill both make the list for efficiency. This is a real testament to the Dolphins’ efficiency throughout the season as Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) was ranked #1 for quarterback DOFPs/Opp. There’s no doubt that as a team the Dolphins will win the efficiency award at the end of the season.

Other notable names on this list are Tyler Lockett, Amari Cooper and Christian Kirk. They are making this list with 85 or fewer opportunities.

It will be interesting to see where these players end up at the end of the year, but it’s worth stating that numbers have been down since this time last year. Here is a look at last year’s DOFPs/Opp after Week 11:

PlayerTeamSalaryOpportunitiesDOFPDOFP/Opp
DeAndre HopkinsARI$27,250,00049125.62.56
Mike EvansTB$16,500,00066155.62.36
DK MetcalfSEA$1,146,51364149.62.34
Ja’Marr ChaseCIN$7,547,41077172.22.24
Cooper KuppLAR$15,750,000117259.32.22

Thank you for reading. Message me on Twitter (@dynastyjerk) and let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I would appreciate it if you followed @Dynasty_Owner on Twitter as well as subscribed to Dynasty Owner on YouTube. Take care everyone and be safe.

TheJerk

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