By: Joseph Callahan

Watching the film of professional athletes fucking sucks. I would much rather watch a highlight tape where I get to see just the amazing things they do – think Odell Beckham reaching back against the Cowboys in his rookie season. However, there is the rare instance where watching the film for a player feels like watching their highlights. That is what it is like to watch Brando Aiyuk. The explosion in everything that he does is what makes it feel like a highlight reel.

His explosiveness is something that you don’t see often. This is what makes him so dangerous, especially down the field. Coming out of college, Aiyuk was graded with a burst score of 132 (92nd percentile) which is very evident in the film. Coming in and out of routes Aiyuk is able to create space, and yet we didn’t see this translate to fantasy success for one reason…

Jimmy Garoppolo

In the case of Aiyuk, we see someone who is very much capable of making moves and getting open deep. Normally with guys like this, we see RedZone cutting over to their game to show off a 30+ yard TD catch. Aiyuk really hasn’t shown much of this so far in his career. This comes down a lot in part to the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo is not a deep ball passer. Super Bowl 54 was infamously lost on a play where Jimmy G missed Emmanuel Sanders deep on what would’ve been a game-sealing TD pass.

Garoppolo is by no means a bad QB, but he is not someone who benefits fantasy WRs. He does not look to move the ball far downfield and when he does it is not often the most accurate pass. Yet somehow he was able to give us one of the best fantasy seasons from a WR in Deebo Samuel. This begs the question:

Why wasn’t Aiyuk successful?

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Aiyuk vs. Deebo

Deebo Samuel finished last season as the WR2/3 in standard and PPR respectively. So naturally, people see him as the best WR on the team. However, when diving deep into what allowed him to rack up yards, and subsequently points, we can see why Aiyuk was not as successful. I like Deebo, he is one of the most talented players in the NFL; however, what he does well matches up with what Jimmy G does well.

Aiyuk is not a player who excels in catching a slant and taking it for 15-20 yards. His quality is displayed further down the field. In week 11 Aiyuk finished as the WR8, but when looking at how he did it you’ll see he doesn’t excel in making linebackers miss, but is great at avoiding defensive backs. When given the space to operate, like in week 18 against the Rams, he is able to make more happen.

Last season Deebo finished as the WR1 on the week one time: Week 10 against the Rams. With Jalen Ramsey being one of the best CBs in the league this performance would surely cement him as one of the best WRs in the league, right?

Wrong.

Samuel spent most of the game at running back and catching short passes that he took for bigger gains. Simply check the film. This isn’t a knock on Deebo or his upside for fantasy this year. The point here is that Deebo isn’t a deep-threat receiver and benefits from being used as a multi-purpose guy.

There is a reason the 49ers used Deebo Samuel at running back often; he excels at beating linebackers and moving into the next level. This was very evident in his Wild Card Weekend performance against the Cowboys. In crowded areas, Deebo excels in making the defense look silly. This type of playstyle is very conducive to an offense that is based around wearing a defense down and not big chunk plays. When someone who looks to throw the ball downfield is behind center, we may see some changes in who is THE guy for fantasy on the Niners.

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NERD BREAKDOWN

While the focus of this site is on film and actually watching football players PLAY FOOTBALL, sometimes stats can be helpful in explaining what we see on film. Intended air yards per pass attempt (IAY/PA) looks at how deep a QB is throwing on each attempt and is a good metric for a QB’s willingness to go deep. When we take a look at Jimmy G last season we see a finish in 22nd place with an IAY/PA of 7.5 yards.

However, when looking at the rankings for this statistic we see one huge outlier:

Patrick Mahomes ranked 25th 7.3 IAY/PA

Clearly, this must mean this is a terrible statistic because Mahomes has one of the best arms in the league, yet he ranks very poorly. However, we need to take a deeper look at what impact this poor ranking has had on his best WR, Tyreek Hill.

Tyreek, by no means, had a bad season. He finished as the WR6 and racked up over 1,200 yards. However, when compared to his other two full seasons with Mahomes under center is when we see a problem. In 2018 and 2020 Reek finished the WR1 and 2, with average yards per target in those seasons of 10.8 and 9.45 respectively. However in this past season when he dropped off slightly we see his average yards per target fall to only 7.79. It seems like there is a correlation between his fantasy finish with his average yards per target. What did Mahomes’s numbers look like during that time? In 2018 he finished with an IAY/PA of 9.1 and in 2020 he dropped off to 8.4, still above this season’s number of 7.3.

As Mahomes was looking deep, his deep threat was able to eat, but when he shortened his throws we can see a clear difference. But, at the end of the day, Tyreek Hill is one of the most dynamic players in NFL history. What does IAY/PA mean for deep threats of a lesser skill level?

Tyler Lockett is the perfect example of someone who is able to get open down the field and make big plays. Fantasy managers live and die on this aspect of Lockett’s game. This past season we saw Russell Wilson lead the league in IAY/PA at 9.9, so this is no surprise that Lockett was able to succeed. But there were a few games where Russ missed and Lockett was left to fend with Geno Smith, so let’s take a look at those games.

Lockett had two high target games with Geno Smith at QB. Week 6 where he saw 7 targets, and week 8 where he saw 13 targets. He went from 5.5 points in week 6 to 26.2 points in week 8, but it wasn’t just almost double the targets that made the difference.

What changed to allow Lockett to have such a huge game in week 8? Geno Smith’s IAY/PA. In week 6 that number was 3.3, but come week 8 we see it grow to 8.2. Just by watching what happened in the game, we can see this is the case. Most of Lockett’s success comes as Geno pushes the ball downfield.

Deep threats benefit from deep ball passers.

Aiyuk in the coming season (barring an act of God) will be playing with Trey Lance. Lance is someone who looks to throw the ball deep, and in 6 games played last season finished with an IAY/PA of 9.3. For a guy in Aiyuk, who benefits from deep targets, this QB change will be game-changing for him. But just throwing the ball downfield isn’t enough to help your WRs. Baker Mayfield finished 5th in IAY/PA, but his inability to throw the ball accurately hurt his WRs in fantasy. This simply begs the question:

Is Lance any good?