4 Wide Receivers Who Could Lose Significant Targets in 2016
Kelvin Benjamin, Carolina Panthers
Kelvin Benjamin eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards in his 2014 rookie season, a feat accomplished by only 15 other rookie receivers since the NFL merger in 1970. Expectations for Benjamin were high heading into the 2015 season, but an unfortunate ACL tear in the preseason left him sidelined for his entire sophomore campaign.
Heading into 2016, while still expected to be Cam Newton's number-one target among the Carolina Panthers' wide receiver corps, there's reason to worry that he might not be able to garner the 32.3% target share and 37.0% red zone target share that was necessary to buoy his 2014 production.
First, the Panthers' offensive philosophy has been, and likely will remain, run-first. Their 1.02 pass-to-run ratio from 2015 was the second-lowest in the NFL. With Vegas projecting the Panthers to be tied with three other teams for the second-most wins in the league in 2016 with 10.5 wins, it shouldn't surprise you if the Panthers spend a lot of time nursing leads late and milking the clock on the ground.
Second, the Panthers drafted a younger, more athletic, similar-bodied receiver in Devin Funchess prior to the 2015 season. In fact, per Player Profiler, Funchess bests Benjamin in his agility score, bust score, and catch radius.
In 2014, Benjamin, drafted at 23 years old, was thrown right into the lion's den to accrue immediate production. Funchess, however, was drafted at 21 years old, and the Panthers opted to allow him to come on slowly, despite the loss of Benjamin in the preseason.
A deeper look at the numbers tells the tale of why Funchess might eat significantly into Benjamin's target load this season. To do so, we’ll use numberFire’s signature in-house metric, Net Expected Points (NEP), which quantifies a players on-field contributions based on their performance above-or-under expectation level. You can learn more about NEP here in our glossary.
| Year | Receptions | Reception NEP | Targets | Reception NEP per Target | Catch Rate | Reception Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devin Funchess (2015) | 31 | 44.51 | 63 | 0.71 | 49.21% | 96.77% |
| Kelvin Benjamin (2014) | 73 | 97.14 | 145 | 0.67 | 50.34% | 87.67% |
While not significantly more efficient than Benjamin, it's impressive that, on a per-target basis, Funchess outperformed Benjamin despite being two years younger during his rookie season. Perhaps more impressive though was Funchess' 96.77% Reception Success Rate -- the percentage of receptions resulting in positive NEP -- which significantly bested Benjamin's rookie season success rate.
In fact, among the 86 receivers targeted at least 50 times in 2015, Funchess had the fourth-highest Reception Success Rate. By contrast, Benjamin finished 38th out of 87 receivers based on that same criteria in 2014. For a 21-year old receiver, that’s really impressive. And sure, there's some credit that needs to be given to Newton's improvement from 2014 to 2015. But that's a really wide gulf in effectiveness that can't be explained by improved quarterback play alone.
From all indications, Funchess has been having an eye-opening training camp, and he's already reached the end zone this preseason to go with a 10-target game in the third preseason game.
While the Panthers' propensity to run the ball early and often may not necessarily portend a fantasy football breakout for Funchess, his emergence could certainly eat into the target load and production of Benjamin.
