NFL DFS Air Yards Report: Reviewing Week 10
Air Yards is a statistic we use in NFL DFS to identify the quality of a player’s opportunity. When we can find players who have a greater opportunity than their recent production shows, we can often benefit in our lineup choices on DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo. In this article, we’ll open the RotoGrinders Usage App from JoshADHD and discover a few key air yards trends from recent weeks. We’ll look for players who have a strong share of their team opportunity, but production that lags behind. We should be able to make better projections and find high upside at lower than expected projected ownership if we identify these players properly.
Today’s NFL DFS Air Yards Report
Chase Claypool
NFL Team: Pittsburgh Steelers
Position: WR
Share of Team Air Yards: 38%
Air Yards: 165
Air Conversion (RACR): 0.25
Chase Claypool led the league with 165 air yards in Week 10 but was only able to convert them into 56 receiving yards. Claypool still had a strong fantasy week thanks to finding the end zone twice but could have been in line for a truly monster game if he was able to haul in more than 4-of-10 targets. It’s tough to predict which Steelers receiver is going to put up the biggest fantasy performance on a weekly basis but Claypool has clearly carved out a large role in this offense, averaging more than 10 targets per game over the last three weeks. Pittsburgh draws another plus-matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 11 but Claypool and his fellow teammates may have a capped ceiling if Jacksonville isn’t able to keep the game close as 10.5-point underdogs.
D.J. Moore
NFL Team: Carolina Panthers
Position: WR
Share of Team Air Yards: 65%
Air Yards: 136
Air Conversion (RACR): 0.71
D.J. Moore has hardly been a model of consistency this season but it’s still encouraging to see him lead the Panthers with 136 air yards in Week 10, good for a 65% share. Many have attributed Moore’s lack of consistency this season due to more downfield targets and there may be something to that hypothesis as he leads the team with a 13.1 aDOT compared to Robby Anderson 9.5. While downfield targets are tougher to convert, they’re also much more valuable when they hit, which gives Moore an extremely strong ceiling on a weekly basis, even if Teddy Bridgewater is unable to suit up in Week 11.
Michael Thomas
NFL Team: New Orleans Saints
Position: WR
Share of Team Air Yards: 57%
Air Yards: 68
Air Conversion (RACR): 0.4
Michael Thomas only saw 68 air yards in Week 10 so why is he even on the list? I figured it was worth pointing out that despite his underwhelming performance he is clearly the Saints’ top “downfield” option regardless of who is under center. Thomas and Alvin Kamara combined for 65% of New Orleans targets against the 49ers and it’s safe to expect them to keep eating up nearly 50% of the team’s target share moving forward as long as they both remain healthy. Thomas will be talked about a lot this week due to a favorable home matchup against an Atlanta Falcons defense that has allowed the third-most points per game to the WR position this season. Encouragingly, Jameis Winston targeted Thomas on 5-of-11 passing attempts in his relief of Drew Brees in Week 10 and Thomas is likely to be his favorite target if he draws the start at QB in Week 11.
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