Which receivers caught more or less passes than expected based on where the ball was thrown? We look at the best and worst from 2014 and some historical data.
One of the oldest principles at Football Outsiders is that receivers should be evaluated on the passes they don't catch in addition to the ones they do. Stats like catch rate and yards after catch (YAC) are useful tools, but for comparison purposes both lack a lot of necessary context. That's why we need to do a next-level analysis that adjusts for how far the pass was thrown, where the pass was thrown relative to the first-down marker, and to which side of the field the pass was thrown.