25 WR Statistics from 2019 (Fantasy Football)
The dust from another fantasy football season has settled. Now is the time of the year to reflect on the season and dig into last year’s stats and trends. The Ballers will be putting out their invaluable TRUTH episodes in the coming weeks and us writers will be pumping out the “25 Statistics” series of articles for every fantasy position.
In this edition, we’ll be looking at some impressive, surprising, or just interesting wide receiver stats from the season. I probably could have come up with 25 stats on Michael Thomas alone after his dominant season, but I limited it to just the first five.
Unless otherwise noted, all ranks and points are based on Half PPR scoring
25 Statistics: WR in 2019
1. Michael Thomas led all wide receivers in yards (1725), targets (185), receptions (149), catch percentage (80.5%), target share (32%), and yards after catch (587).
2. He scored more fantasy points in his eight home games than Odell Beckham Jr. did in ALL of his games.
3. Thomas more than quadrupled the fantasy points of the Saints second-leading receiver Ted Gin Jr. He more than doubled the fantasy output of all other Saints receivers combined.
4. You probably already figured out that Thomas finished as the WR1 on the season. He never finished outside of the top seven at the position over the final 12 weeks of the season.
5. Best of all for those who owned Thomas on their fantasy rosters, he averaged 25.1 fantasy points over the fantasy playoffs, then put up just 5.7 points in Week 17. Obviously, he was making a statement to anybody that still believes fantasy championships should be played in Week 17.
Now on to the non-Michael Thomas statistics….
6. A.J. Brown was the WR49 in standard scoring through the first 11 weeks of the season. From Weeks 12-17 he was the WR1. He finished as the WR9 on the season.
7. D.J. Chark started the season on fire, ranking as the WR5 in fantasy points per game through the first 11 weeks. He then fell off a cliff and ranked as the WR64 in fantasy points per game from Week 12 on.
8. Both Mike Williams and A.J. Brown averaged more than 20 yards per reception in 2019. The last player to hit that mark with a minimum of 40 receptions was DeSean Jackson in 2014.
Bobby Ellis/Getty Images
9. The stretch from Weeks 13-16 can be considered the most important in the entire fantasy football season. Over those weeks the top four fantasy wideouts in points per game were Michael Thomas (20.8), DeVante Parker (19.0), A.J. Brown (18.3), and Breshad Perriman (17.9).
10. Davante Adams finished as the WR24 on the season in total points but averaged 14.3 fantasy points per game, good enough for WR6 on a per-game basis.
11. Adams had more total fantasy points than teammates Geronimo Allison, Marquez Valdez-Scantling, and Jake Kumerow combined. He also played in just 12 games, nearly a quarter of their collective 46.
12. Teammates Chris Godwin (16.6) and Mike Evans (15.3) finished as the WR2 and WR3 on a fantasy points-per-game basis.
13. Keenan Allen started the season strong as the WR1 through the first four weeks. However, he was only the WR17 down the final stretch in Weeks 13-16 and finished as the WR8 overall on the season.
14. Keenan Allen and Mike Williams combined for 346.3 total fantasy points. The rest of the Chargers receiving corps combined for a total of 25.2.
15. Only four wideouts averaged 15 or more fantasy points per game in 2019, less than half as many as the ten that did so in 2018.
16. Every NFL team had at least one wideout total 100 or more fantasy points on the season. Alshon Jeffery barely got the Eagles there with 100.7.
17. Kenny Golladay led the NFL with 11 touchdown receptions. Six of them came on his league-high 13 ten-zone targets.
18. Golladay finished as the WR3 in standard scoring formats but the WR9 in full PPR.
Getty Images / NurPhoto
19. Christian Kirk caught all six of his ten-zone targets in 2019 but wasn’t able to convert any of them into touchdowns.
20. Amari Cooper scored over 20 fantasy points three times in 2019. He scored 10 or fewer fantasy points six times, including in the fantasy playoffs in both Weeks 15 and 16.
21. Five of the top-ten single-game wideout performances of the season came from receivers that finished outside of the top twenty on the season. The top two came from WR54 Will Fuller (Week 5: 46.7 points) and WR51 Sammy Watkins (Week 1: 42.3 points)
22. Despite season-ending injuries, Chris Godwin (WR2) and Mike Evans (WR12) were the only teammates to finish as top 12 wideouts on the season.
23. Two other pairs of teammates finished in the top 24; the Rams Cooper Kupp (WR4) and Robert Woods (WR17), and the Cowboys Amari Cooper (WR9) and Michael Gallup (WR22)
24. Three receivers had touchdowns of 90+ yards this season, the most since 2011 when five accomplished the feat. In 2019, it was done by Olamide Zaccheaus (93), Robby Anderson (92), and A.J. Brown (91).
25. A pair of Samuels led all wide receivers in rush yards in 2019. Deebo rushed for 159 while Curtis put up 130 on the ground. Deebo was also the only receiver this season with multiple rushing touchdowns; he scored on the ground three times.
Bonus #FootClan WR Stats
- Randall Cobb had exactly 55(!) receptions in 2019.
- Darius Slayton and Keelan Cole each had 55(!) yard touchdown catches in 2019.
Do you have a favorite wide receiver stat that I missed? Let me know on Twitter @aalarson.