2017 NFL Target Analysis: Week 4

It seems to be DeAndre Hopkins world and we’re all just living in up to this point in the season. He’s dominated the receptions, targets and is also up there in yards. But he’s not the only one seeing a healthy amount of targets and capitalizing on all his chances. We’ve crunched the data and compiled 58 names this week, while pointing out some key numbers that you shouldn’t ignore for your fantasy football leagues or even your daily lineups!

Target Leaders

The NFL has just four pass catchers that have seen 40-plus targets come their way. Just two players have 30 receptions and they happen to be one and two respectively on the targets list as well in DeAndre Hopkins and Antonio Brown. We mentioned last week that it’s likely they’re going to be one and two for the entire season and nothing happened in Week 4 suggesting otherwise.

We have seven running backs, six tight ends and the rest are receivers. We have some heavily targeted backs this year, paced by Andre Ellington who’s coming off a 14-target week, which was the second most in the entire league. He’s a must-own in PPR formats at this point. He’s more valuable than Chris Johnson because Johnson is showing absolutely nothing on the ground, which is mainly the reason old man Carson Palmer leads the league with 183 passes.

The most notable omissions from our list this week look eerily similar to what we were looking at heading into Week 4. Michael Crabtree, Sammy Watkins, DeSean Jackson and Martavis Bryant are the four we’re looking at. Jackson has somewhat of an excuse because his team has only played in three games, but the others have been somewhat nonexistent thus far. Both Crabtree and Watkins have one big week on their resumes but the other games they’ve played have STUNK. We can expect Bryant and Jackson to creep onto our list within the next couple of games, if not after Week 5.

Target Percentage

Just like after Week 4, we have just four players on our spreadsheet that are receiving north of 30-percent of their team’s targets and it’s the same four guys from last week (DeAndre Hopkins, Antonio Brown, A.J. Green and Jarvis Landry). Hopkins has really separated himself from the pack and it doesn’t look like anyone will catch him. That being said, Will Fuller returned in Week 4 so he may soak up a little bit of Hopkins volume.

After last week, we mentioned how quarterbacks have been really spreading the wealth and distributing the ball to a whole lot of receivers and that definitely held true again in Week 4. We have five teams in Week 4 that had three or more players on our list, now we’re down to four; Giants, Cardinals, Packers, Patriots. If the league's QB's continue throwing the ball the five, six, sometimes seven pass catchers, that number will only go down from here.

Red Zone Targets

Larry Fitzgerald is flat out dominating the red zone targets this year. He’s averaging 2.5 looks per game inside of the 20 and that’s far and away the best mark in the league. He’s followed by Dez Bryant who upped his total to eight red zone targets thus far. If Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension were ever to come down at some point this season, Bryant will likely surpass Larry Fitzgerald as the league’s top red zone dog.

Something that’s also worth noting is the fact that Emmanuel Sanders is the guy for Denver in the red zone, not Demaryius Thomas. Thomas has one-third of the RZ looks that Sanders has, as the latter’s outpaced him six to two. That’s been the case from Week 1, too. Although Thomas is the much bigger man, Trevor Siemian seems more secure targeting Sanders when points are at stake.

Brandon Marshall, Duke Johnson Jr., Delanie Walker, James White and Brandin Cooks are the only five names on our spreadsheet that haven’t had any looks in the red zone. The running backs don’t surprise us much, nor does Brandon Marshall after seeing how washed up he’s looked thus far, but Walker and Cooks are very surprising. We know Cooks has a lot of big play potential, but Rob Gronkowski and Chris Hogan are eating up all of the targets in the red zone. Just between the two of them, they’ve had 14 red zone targets. Things have shaped out quite noticeably in New England four weeks into the season.

Drops

Two of the biggest names at receiver continue to pace the league in drops. Amari Cooper has a drop in every game he’s played and has seven total. He’s struggled horribly and this has become a theme throughout the years. Things probably aren’t going to get much better either, now that Derek Carr is injured and E.J. Manuel is operating as the team’s primary pass thrower. This presents a HUGE problem, bigger than it already is. Cooper’s still tied for 19th in targets amongst all players in football, but if you look back to Week 1, he continues to tumble down the list. If you are an Amari Cooper owner for any of your season-long leagues, now is the time to part ways.

Odell Beckham Jr. isn’t far behind him with five, which is also discouraging seeing how he missed a game and barely saw the field in another. For all the great things he does and all of the mind boggling catches he seemingly makes, sometimes he can’t get out of his own way. It seems like he’s always looking for flash instead of sometimes just being fundamentally sound. Beckham still leads the Giants in targets, however, and will without a doubt continue to do so week in and week out. Despite his case of the dropsies, his value is sky high per usual