Jets Wide Receivers: Best Traits

Edition #408

Good Morning! ☕

It is time for training camp yet?

I’m not really one to stalk the Instagram profiles of the players to see where they are jetting off on their holidays, so we’re just going to have to make do with some abstract topics. Although we did have two big pieces of news overnight.

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✍️ The Jets signed former Packers safety Adrian Amos to a one-year contract worth up to $4 million. We’re going to really dive into that signing tomorrow and what it means for Whitehead and Clarke. The reason I'm waiting to get into it…

🚑 Why another safety more comfortable in the box? According to NFL insider Aaron Wilson, there is major concern that Chuck Clark may have suffered a season-ending injury. According to Wilson, there are more tests to be run, but there is real fear that he has either sprained or torn his ACL. If the Jets have signed a player for close to $4 million, I'd be surprised if they weren't fairly confident that Clark was done for the year.

🌟 We’ve seen a lot of movement this off-season around the league, so NFL.com’s Kevin Patra put together the nine best new veteran QB-WR partnerships, and what do you know, the Jets have the #1 combo with Aaron Rodgers and Garrett Wilson: “There are more familiar faces to Rodgers on this Jets roster in Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb, but no one is close to Wilson's overall talent. The reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year owns a go-to skill set and run-after-the-catch acumen that will mesh perfectly with Rodgers. Wilson's 22 missed tackles forced after a reception finished second in the NFL last season, per Pro Football Focus. With Rodgers' pinpoint accuracy, Wilson should be in position to make defenders whiff even more and gobble up more YAC in Year 2.”

📈 Will McDonald spoke with the official Jets channel about his increasing comfort in the defensive system: "I'll probably say just learning the defense, I'm a little bit better," McDonald said. "It is kind of familiar because I did run this type of defense up in college. I'm now a lot more used to it coming out of nine technique, so I'm starting to get a lot more comfortable with it and a lot more familiar."

📄 PFF outlined their pre-season offensive line rankings and the jets faired a little better than I expected, being ranked 23rd. “The tackles are the biggest concern for the Jets. Duane Brown is now almost 38 and visibly declining, while Mekhi Becton has played fewer than 800 snaps in three years. Aaron Rodgers‘ arrival could immeasurably help the overall performance of the line. He is as good at manipulating a pocket as any quarterback in the game.”

Yesterday I was thinking about the prospect of adding DeAndre Hopkins. My initial reaction to the news of his release was that the Jets didn’t need him and that they had everything covered with their current crop of receivers.

This leads me to today’s topic. I looked at a number of wide receiver traits that can be accurately documented by statistics and then compared the Jet's top guys to see who does it best.

I’m going to base this on last year’s stats, so there may be some recency bias, but at the same time that’s the most relevant statistical base to start from.

First of all, I wanted to isolate one key stat which will help add context to the numbers below. Catchable passes.

Garrett Wilson may have had 139 targets, but how many of them were deemed catchable balls? A ball that sails 10 yards over his head will count as a target, but it wasn’t a catchable ball.

So here are the catchable ball totals for our receivers. I was unable to find the totals for Hardman, Robb and Lazard.

Garrett Wilson - 91
Corey Davis - 36
Denzel Mims - 16

Contested Catches

Not all contested catches are designed equally, but by their nature, a contested catch is a ball that both the receiver and defender have a chance to make a play on the ball. A receiver who can come down with contested balls is a QBs best friend, and will often lead to more targets as trust is developed.