Very interesting idea(s). While I would agree there’s definitely some “line” where you’re wasting talent/money on a super-elite WR group, I think the offensive line example comes into play here. Even if the worst OL player surrenders pressure only 11% of the time (that’s in the ball-park for worst in any given season, per PFF), because there’s 5 guys working together – and no one can 100% shut down the rush – it increases the chances he’ll allow pressure when one of the other 4 is also giving up pressure.

So, similarly (or you could say, inversely), increasing WR “talent” decreases the chance all your targets’ not-open snaps happen at the same time (and the QB is….screwed). Teams probably would rather risk “overpaying” & have *someone* open much more often than other teams, than have 1 stud WR & the rest clowns (and I think most would agree that’s the best plan, providing you have a QB who can distribute the ball efficiently).

Speaking of QB – IMO, it’s mostly a good/great QB unlocking/”filling up” a great WR (like pouring completions into an empty container). More to the point, I think great WR *production* comes from a great QB – because no matter how often a WR gets open, or how great they are after the catch, they can’t make the impact on the game if the QB doesn’t throw an accurate pass (often)**. That said, I still think there’s some (unknown) level of WR ability (ie: how often they can “get open”) needed to be a sufficient target (/piece of a passing attack). (Or rather, a level for any given ability of QB. ie: Even for those with the best vision, they still need a guy to get open ___% of the time, for them realistically find him in their reads, etc).

**bit of a tangent: I often think about how great it would be to have receiving splits for past decades, so we could attempt to equalize the QB factor for WRs, and see who was possibly a much better producer than we originally thought. To elaborate – if we had depth-of-target splits (including receptions, yards, targets & drops) for receiving/passing yards, we could find the accuracy (drop+rec/target) of, say, the top 10 most accurate QBs (at each level) & taking each WR’s YPC & drop-rate to find their “accuracy adjusted” receiving yards (assuming they were targeted the same number of times) – and if you have routes-run, adjusted YPRR. It obviously doesn’t account for poor QB awareness (failing to notice to even target them), or “touch”/placement (in setting up easy YAC), but it does help highlight guys who are especially hurt/helped by QBs with poor/great accuracy. The few times I’ve done this with PFF’s data, it’s often WRs whose QBs lack deep-accuracy that have the most radical change (because obviously your YPC on targets past 20yds will be high, and any pass your QB “should have made” would add significant yards to your adjusted total) – AJ Green is a great example.

Thinking back, you could probably make a similar argument about Warner/Fitz/Boldin. Having two great receivers helps when playing against one or two great DBs (you either win or draw, which is better than losing), but they are less valuable when playing against medicore or bad DBs where winning twice on the same play is only a marginal improvement for the team. You could probably make a similar argument that a good QB like Warner makes a great WR less necessary. Or is it that a good QB “unlocks” a great WR like Chase has said before? I can definitely see both sides of it, but I’m not sure how it evens out over the course of 400+ pass plays.