Fantasy Lifespan of Wide Receivers

A few years ago (2007 to be exact) I created a spreadsheet which tracked the lifespan of running backs. This was during a period that I owned LaDainian Tomlinson in my dynasty league, and I was having an odd feeling that his career may be peeking. The research I did tracked the statistics of the best running backs in NFL history, and what I found from it paid off quite well. Nearly every RB tracked showed a dramatic spike in TD production at the early-mid point of their career, followed by a massive drop off two years later. The good news is I traded away L.T. at the height of his value. The bad news is the data was lost during a tragic computer crash.

I was going to recreate this information for the sake of this website, however, there just isn’t the payoff that there was a few years ago. Nearly all of the top RBs in the NFL right now are in the beginning of their careers. So I decided to shift gears and explore the wide receiver position. Players like Randy Moss and Terrell Owens are getting long in the tooth, but still remain on the radars of many fantasy owners. The hope of this study is to give a little guidance for current dynastic owners who hold these players on their roster, or for those looking to select these players during their 2010 draft.

Data Key and Explanation
Before viewing this data, you should understand a few key points. The Y-Axis in the graphs below represents the year of a player’s career. The X-Axis displays the total fantasy points earned by the player in that year.
The point totals given are based on the standard WCOFF scoring scheme:

• Yards receiving divided by 10 (e.g. 112 receiving yards = 11.2 fantasy points)
• 6 points for every receiving TD
• 1 point for every catch

Disproving the Myth of the 3rd Year Breakout

There is a known theory in fantasy football that the 3rd season of a wide receiver’s career is supposed to be when they breakout. From this small sample of NFL greats (above), this doesn’t exactly hold true. While the trend shows that in year 3 the receivers start becoming “productive”, it’s actually not until year 5 and 6 that they really start to become fantasy studs.

The “Double Dip” Trend

If you can trace through the mess of lines above, another trend becomes apparent. Following the surge of output that comes around year 5-6, there comes a dip in performance around year 8-9. This is proceeded by a resurgence, and then an ultimate collapse.

Increasing the Data Pool

The graph above (which is much easier to read) increases the player pool from which we are studying. You will see that the trends discovered earlier seem to hold up. A new year of significance to note is year 12. This is a year of which all the players participated. After this point many begin to retire, or just partially contribute due to injuries, etc. The year 12 is also important because the trend shows a beginning of the end for wide receivers. For a majority of the players, there begins a heavy decline at this point, or just plain absence from playing at all.

Using the Data for the 2010 Fantasy Football Season

The biggest take away from all of this should be a spotlight on Randy Moss, who just completed that crucial 12th career year.  Moss had in increase in output from year 11 to 12, however the numbers didn’t come near his other two peak years. That fact that he is on the second half of the double dip also should make one worry.

Examining the pool of historical players, one thing is clear — in terms of longevity, Jerry Rice was a freak. If there is ever to be a player to compare to Rice in terms of talent, it would certainly have to be Randy Moss. So one could make an argument that Moss could continue to have value for years to come, however the data suggests it to be lower. Viewing the comparison of Rice, Moss, and Owens it’s hard to ignore the similar data paths, which all point to a decline in production. This is especially the case for Owens. So for those of you hoping for a big come back season, maybe you will want to reconsider, because the data shows T.O. to be headed for a complete fantasy wasteland.

In Conclusion

The study isn’t a sure fire way to conclude everything for every player. After all, changes in scenery (new teams, coaching, etc.), injuries, and other considerations play a big factor into any fantasy player. However, using the following conclusions can give you something additional consider when going into the 2010 season:

1. Years 5-6 tend to be when a quality receiver blossoms, follow by a small decline in proceeding years
2. Around year 11 there tends to be a second surge of production
3. After the second surge, a massive drop off begins