As December rolls on and yet another NFL campaign begins to wind to a close, we’re close to full-season sample sizes on some players. The typical retrospective analysis of players is beginning to take place. “This guy is the fifth-highest scoring fantasy player at his position” or “he is sixth in the league in receiving yards.” You know the drill.
It may be more futile than ever to compare players statistically within one specific position group without looking at the historical context.
You’re correct if you feel like 2024 has been a down year for wide receivers. Without question, we aren’t getting the same elite level of production at the top of the league that we’ve seen in recent seasons.
Top 5 WRs in receiving yards through 13 weeks in 2024
1) Ja’Marr Chase 1,142
2) Justin Jefferson 1,038
3) Terry McClaurin 896
4t) Jerry Jeudy 880
4t) CeeDee Lamb 880
5) Zay Flowers 863
Top 5 WRs in receiving yards through 13 weeks in 2023
1) Tyreek Hill 1,481
2) CeeDee Lamb…
— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) December 3, 2024
That list is a week old, but even if you take a player like Jerry Jeudy’s updated receiving yard line of 944, fourth-best in the league, and stack it back to last season’s results through 14 weeks, he would rank 14th. It would rank ninth in 2022, 11th in 2021 and 12th in 2020.
We currently have just two 1,000-yard receivers in the NFL through 14 weeks. There were 11 in 2022, eight in 2021 and nine in 2020.
Some of the yardage marks in my X post above are arbitrary cutoffs — welcome to the unavoidable reality of NFL data analysis where the decisions on what’s “meaningful” are utterly subjective — but that doesn’t make the overall point any less instructive. The distribution of guys in that 700-plus yard range is relatively flat year-to-year. We aren’t short on overall impactful receivers; we’re just missing the elite producers at the very top of the position.
There are just two receivers over 190 fantasy points this season and there…
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