One way is to play with a good quarterback, assuming that is defined as a quarterback who averages a high number of yards per attempt. This is pretty self explanatory.

Another way, though, is to play with a quarterback who throws a lot of passes. For example, we know that Russell Wilson is a much better quarterback than Derek Carr. The stats back this up, too: Wilson has averaged 7.82 Y/A for his career; by comparison, Carr has averaged just 6.54 Y/A for his career. But Carr has averaged 36.2 pass attempts per game, while Wilson is at just 29.5. As a result, Carr has averaged 237 passing yards per game, while Wilson has averaged only 231 passing yards per game. Since every passing yard is a receiving yard, it’s actually been better to play with Carr than Wilson if your goal was to get a lot of receiving yards.

So, you might realize, if receiving yards just equals gross passing yards, then having a good quarterback is only half the equation.

Receiving Yards = (Yards/Attempt) x Attempts

So if you are a receiver, you want to play on a team that has a good passer, or passes a lot, or better yet — both! On the other hand, a wide receiver can’t control these things.  We would naturally expect that the same wide receiver would gain fewer yards if he suddenly played for a team with a worse passer and if that team passed less often.

So can we control for this?  You might think that we should focus more on percentage of team receiving yards, rather than raw receiving yards.  For example, this might mean a receiver with 1,000 receiving yards on a team that threw for 3,000 yards was “better” than a receiver with 1,200 receiving yards on a team that threw for 4,000 yards.  After all, the first receiver had 33.3% of his team’s passing game, while the second receiver had just 30% of his team’s passing game.

But there are issues with that, too.  Let’s assume that both teams threw 500 passes, so the team that threw for 3,000 yards averaged just 6.0 yards per attempt, while the team that threw for 4,000 yards averaged 8.0 yards per attempt.  A team that averages 6.0 yards per attempt is a very bad passing team, while a team that averages 8.0 yards per attempt is a very good passing team.  But here’s the question: is it “better” or “more impressive” to be responsible for 33.3% of a very bad passing game or 30.0% of a very good passing game?

Sometimes, it helps to look at an actual example. Let’s use Reggie Wayne, who had a career with a lot of change. He played with Peyton Manning, in years where Manning was legendary and just pretty good. He played with Andrew Luck, and then also in 2011 when the Colts had a terrible passing game. He played with Marvin Harrison, Pierre Garcon, and T.Y. Hilton, but also had years where Anthony Gonzalez was the team’s #2 receiver.

Here is Wayne’s career, with lots of stats on both him and the Colts passing game.  The columns are, in order, year, age, games, receptions, targets, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, team receiving yards, team receiving yards rank, team pass attempts, yards per attempt, yards per attempt rank, percentage of team receiving yards, and receiving yards per pass attempt.

Wayne had four great seasons within a 100-yard band of 1260-1359 yards, and they came several years apart: 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2012.  He also had a great year in 2004, but his best season came in 2007.

In ’07, Harrison was injured after just five games, while he still had a great quarterback in Manning.  This was Wayne’s third-biggest target season, but his biggest target season in Manning’s prime.   The Colts ranked 5th in yards per attempt but didn’t actually pass that frequently: Wayne had a huge year because he had a whopping 36% of the team’s receiving yards.  He also had a career high 2.74 receiving yards per team pass attempt.

In 2006, the Colts were a slightly better passing team and passed a few more times.  But with a healthy Harrison, Wayne had fewer targets, and a smaller percentage of the team pie.  Still, ’06 was a great season because he played on a great passing offense and still got 30% of the team yards.

Let’s look at the ’10-’11’-12 set of years.  What’s interesting is that Wayne had between 29% and 31% of the team’s receiving yards those three years, but those were three very different seasons.

2010 was Manning’s last season; The Colts had a ton of passing attempts but Manning was injured and not exactly his former self; the Colts actually were below-average in yards per attempt. But Wayne had 1,355 yards in large part because of that high pass attempts number. He also had Wayne averaged just 2.00 yards per team pass attempt, so this looks less impressive than his earlier seasons, but how much of it is due to Wayne and how much is it due to Manning being out of his prime?

Then, 2011 happened. The Colts ranked 29th in yards per pass attempt, and while Wayne actually increased his percentage of the pie, he had his first sub-1000 yard season since ’03. The Colts passed just 534 times and were bad at it: Wayne did all he could, although one could argue that a knock on his season was that Garcon (70/947/6) had almost identical numbers. Wayne could have distanced himself more from Garcon, perhaps, but otherwise, Wayne couldn’t do much about his receiving yards or RY/TPA.

Luck arrived in 2012, and Wayne’s numbers bounced back (also, Hilton replaced Garcon). The Colts Y/A rose by nearly a full yard and Indianapolis had nearly 100 more pass attempts. Wayne’s receiving yards rose by nearly 400 yards, but was he much (any?) better than he was in 2011 — or did he just have a better passing game?

What about during Manning’s legendary season of ’04? Wayne had a great year, but he “only” had 26% of the Colts receiving yards. Was that year worse than what he did in ’11? Or,is being 26% of a historically dominant passing game better than being 30% of a horrible passing game? Wayne did edge out Harrison to lead the ’04 Colts in receiving yards, after all.

Ultimately, I don’t have any answers yet on the best way to adjust a receiver’s situation to figure out which years are most impressive. But exercises like this at least help ground the process. What do you guys think?

A future HOFer?

Hall of Fame voters don’t seem to care too much about advanced stats, so I won’t bother covering anything beyond simple box score numbers. ^[3]However, if you do want a more in depth look at receiving stats, check out Chase’s series on the greatest wide receivers of all time. What voters do seem to care about are counting stats and a good story, or a combination thereof. Without any more ado, let’s get into the stats and the narrative.

The Stats

Currently ranks 7th all-time in receptions, 8th all-time in receiving yards, and 22nd all-time in receiving touchdowns. I am making the assumption that he will play a few more years at a diminishing level until he retires. That will leave us with a few questions about his statistical merits.

Where does he stand in receptions?

No one is catching Jerry Rice’s 1,549 any time soon, and Tony Gonzalez’s 1,325 looks safe too. However, Wayne stands only 43 catches short of knocking his former teammate out of third place. If Wayne can replicate his worst non-injured/non-rookie season’s catch totals, he’ll make it. ^[4]He caught 49 passes in his worst full season. After retiring with the third most receptions of any receiver in history, Wayne will likely be passed by Andre Johnson and possibly Jason Witten and Larry Fitzgerald by the time he is eligible for the Hall. Still, 6th place puts him in elite company.

Well, what about yards?

Glad you asked. At 14,202 yards, Wayne has a very small chance at moving into 7th place by the end of the season. Realistically, he will reach that achievement early next year before moving into 5th or 6th by mid-season. If he puts together two more above average campaigns, he could possibly reach the 15,934 yards necessary for 2nd place. If not, he will probably trail only Rice and Owens. Again, elite company.

Once again, Andre Johnson and Fitzgerald pose the biggest immediate threat to his ranking. Johnson is three years younger than Wayne and has only 821 fewer yards. Fitzy trails by 2,177 yards and is five years Wayne’s junior. Keep in mind, however, that this post assumes Wayne will be eligible in seven years. That means Calvin Johnson has to be considered the biggest menace to Wayne’s place on the podium. With 10,052 yards at the age of 29, it is pretty easy to see Megatron sitting comfortably in 2nd place by the time Wayne makes the ballot.

And touchdowns?

Wayne has never been a prolific scorer, so it’s unrealistic to believe he’s going to have a touchdown explosion after the age of 36. However, it’s not unrealistic to envision a scenario in which he plays a few more years and reaches 90 touchdowns. That would put him in 12th place on the career list at the time of his retirement. ^[5]Assuming, of course, Larry Fitzgerald scores two more touchdowns in that time; he currently has 89. Currently, Tim Brown and Isaac Bruce are the only players with 90 or more touchdown receptions not to be enshrined in Canton. ^[6]This takes for granted that Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, and Marvin Harrison will get in quickly.

Ranking high on the touchdown list when you retire doesn’t always do much for you – Cris Carter had to wait way too long for a gold jacket once the Moss/Owens/Harrison trifecta made his numbers look less impressive. Just as Carter’s numbers looked less impressive by the time he was eligible for the Hall of Fame, Wayne’s may also suffer from more modern receivers putting up bigger stats. Calvin Johnson already has 71 touchdowns, and he seems pretty likely to pass 90 within five years of Wayne’s retirement. Dez Bryant is young, but he already has 50 touchdowns in his brief career – and he shows no signs of slowing. Rob Gronkowski (51) and Jimmy Graham (50) don’t play the same nominal position, but they could be very close to 90 scores by that time as well.

Rice, Moss, Owens, Carter, and Harrison were huge anomalies in terms of scoring touchdowns. To compare the touchdown numbers of potential Hall of Famers against only these guys would leave a lot of worthy receivers out in the cold.

Does he pass the ink test?

Sort of. His only black ink came in 2007, when he led the league with 1,510 receiving yards. However, he has a ton of grey ink. He has finished in the top ten in receptions four times, yards six times, and touchdowns four times. From his breakout year in 2004 till his last full season in 2012, he had nine straight seasons of 75 or more receptions. He also was 40 yards shy of nine straight 1,000 yard seasons, reaching 960 in 2011 with the Painter/Orlovsky/Collins debacle under center.

The Narrative

Reggie Wayne is the only player in Colts history other than Peyton Manning and Johnny Unitas to play more than 200 games for the franchise. That alone is far from Canton-worthy, but voters love stuff like that. He is a six-time Pro Bowler and a three-time AP All Pro selection. ^[7]That’s an AP1 in 2010 and AP2s in 2007 and 2009. In addition, Wayne boasts many post-season credentials that voters love. He played in 18 playoff games, ^[8]That number will reach at least 19 by the consummation of this season. and he made it to two Super Bowls. In his lone Super Bowl victory, he caught Peyton Manning’s only touchdown pass. In fact, his playoff numbers dwarf those of the man to whom he was often second fiddle. ^[9]Wayne owns a 92-1,242-9 stat line in 18 games; Harrison owns a 65-883-2 stat line in 16 games.

However, in the eyes of many, Wayne will always be the guy who played across from Marvin Harrison. He was only able to take over the WR1 spot when Harrison succumbed to injury. On one of the most consistently great offenses of all time, he wasn’t able to claim the title of most important skill player until Harrison went down and Edgerrin James left town. Was Wayne somehow an inferior player because he happened to play with superior teammates? Of course not! ^[10]He’s no Alvin Harper. That’s not exactly fair, but thems the breaks.

Speaking of great teammates, Wayne caught most of his passes from the most statistically dominant quarterback the league has ever known. Oh, and when Manning was released, Wayne got to receive passes from the greatest prospect since John Elway. It doesn’t matter that Andrew Luck struggled to put up consistent stats in his first two years; this is a narrative we’re talking about here.

Yes, he played most of his career with the greatest statistical quarterback of all time, and it is hard to separate his greatness from that of Peyton Manning. However, benefitting from great teammates is not exclusive to Reggie Wayne. Jerry Rice played with Joe Montana and the statistically superior Steve Young. Marvin Harrison had Manning for the majority of his career. Terrell Owens played with Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, and Tony Romo in their respective primes. Tim Brown … nevermind.

What I’m getting at is that numbers are too interdependent to point at a guy’s teammates as the primary reason for his success. Would Wayne have had the same great statistical profile had he been drafted three spots earlier by the Vikings? I don’t know, and neither do you. There is no way to prove with epistemic certainty what would have happened in an alternate reality. Thus, we must make decisions based on, you know, actual reality. And in actual reality, the stats and the story add up to Reggie Wayne getting a bronze bust and a slick yellow jacket. It probably won’t happen in first-ballot fashion, but it will definitely happen.