A New Statistic I'm Tracking for 2017 - YARDS AFTER CATCH

[KB_fan]

Hey all,

I stayed up LATE last night to get all the gamebook data entered into my spreadsheet/database.  I've learned if I don't do it quickly following a game, it's really hard to keep current.

One new statistic I'm planning to track this year is Yards After Catch.  As we all know, it's an area Panthers' receivers have struggled in for several years, and one thing the team is very definitely targeting for improvement as part of it's "offensive evolution" with the addition of guys like Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, Russell Shepard, and Damiere Byrd.

This is a stat I've never charted before, so I'm still playing around with how to present / analyze the data.  Below is my first attempt at a table looking at the YAC for each receiver yesterday.

I'd welcome comments, questions and suggestions as to what would be helpful - how to present the data. 

Here's the data I have so far.  (data is presented left to right based on Total receiving yards)

It's also interesting to compare the trios of Shepard, CMC & Stew with that of KB, Funch & Olsen:

 

Some quick analysis:

I'd venture to say that the YAC stats were one of the keys to the game for the Panthers.  Obviously Russell Shepard's 21 YAC on his 40 yard TD score was important in terms of giving Panthers' offense some momentum (and it was the "go-ahead" score!). It was a big play that helped break open the game.  Stewart's 9 yard touchdown was ALL YAC.  He actually caught the ball 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage, so he ran 11 yards for a 9 yard score...!

Also, the fact that a full 50% of Cam's "passing yards" actually came from the LEGS of his receivers has to be a good thing in terms of sparing his shoulder.  Without the nice gains in YAC by Shepard, CMC & Stewart - (i.e. if their receptions were the same, but their YAC stats were more like those of Olsen, KB & Funch at 1.8 YAC per reception) - that could have subtracted 60 yards and 2 TDs from the score sheet.   Cam's stats could have been 14/25 for 111 yards, 0 TDs and 1 INT instead of 14/25 for 171 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT.  We still might have won the game 9-3 off of Gano's field goals.  But we'd all feel VERY differently about it!

Note:  At the moment, I have no basis for comparison from previous Panthers seasons, or the league average.  I'll try to be gathering some of that data (e.g. YAC data from Panthers 2015, 2016 seasons) in the coming days & weeks.  But my sense is, the Panthers are off to a very good start in terms of improving their YAC statistics and that it's already made a difference!

[yasuhara2241]

Always love your breakdowns! Also I think you hit the nail on the head! I believe that with our offense we will now rely more on YAC than before. I was also happy that we actually ran 2-3 screen passes successfully!! We hadn't seen that in a while!

[Hogmolliesmaht]

We are definitely going to need some good YAC's this year. This is a running football team and I don't expect Cam to put up 40+ passes anytime soon unless we get way behind in a game. Everybody complains about our WR's but it's hard to put up big numbers when you only complete 14 passes.

[d-dave]

Always a wonderfully insightful analysis @KB_fan!

This is probably going to be where our offensive evolution comes.  More underneath YAC as opposed to the long bombs and run.  How very "west coast" of us.  Let's hope that Cam's rust wears off quickly.  Think of the number of yards and TDs he COULD have had.

[KB_fan]

3 minutes ago, Hogmolliesmaht said:

We are definitely going to need some good YAC's this year. This is a running football team and I don't expect Cam to put up 40+ passes anytime soon unless we get way behind in a game. Everybody complains about our WR's but it's hard to put up big numbers when you only complete 14 passes.

Even with only 14 completions yesterday, 2 of those were pretty deep throws (21 air yards in the pass to KB & 19 air yards in the TD pass to Shepard).  There were also the two deep misses by Cam - 45 yards to KB and 21 yards to Dickson.  Shake off a little rust and both of those could have been TDs. 

So, while I agree with you that we may not see as many 40 yard bombs, I think we'll still see quite a lot of 20 - 25 yard throws...  Cam's deep ball accuracy is one of his strengths, and we've brought in some fast receivers. 

 

In fact, I just did a quick word search on "deep" in the gamebook.

Cam attempted 6 deep passes yesterday out of 25 passes thrown:

3 were complete (1 each to Shepard, KB, Olsen)

3 were misses (incompletes to Olsen & Dickson, INT to KB).

 

By contrast, Hoyer attempted only 3 deep passes in 35 attempts.  And all 3 of his deep attempts were incomplete.

 

Yeah, I don't think our deep passing game will go away!

[Hogmolliesmaht]

1 minute ago, KB_fan said:

Even with only 14 completions yesterday, 2 of those were pretty deep throws (21 air yards in the pass to KB & 19 air yards in the TD pass to Shepard).  There were also the two deep misses by Cam - 45 yards to KB and 21 yards to Dickson.  Shake off a little rust and both of those could have been TDs. 

So, while I agree with you that we may not see as many 40 yard bombs, I think we'll still see quite a lot of 20 - 25 yard throws...  Cam's deep ball accuracy is one of his strengths, and we've brought in some fast receivers. 

 

In fact, I just did a quick word search on "deep" in the gamebook.

Cam attempted 6 deep passes yesterday out of 25 passes thrown:

3 were complete (1 each to Shepard, KB, Olsen)

3 were misses (incompletes to Olsen & Dickson, INT to KB).

 

By contrast, Hoyer attempted only 3 deep passes in 35 attempts.  And all 3 of his deep attempts were incomplete.

 

Yeah, I don't think our deep passing game will go away!

Yeah, we will always throw it down the field. We just won't throw it as often as most teams. If Cam had thrown that one to KB a second quicker, it probably would have been a TD. That one was 100% timing.

[Fox007]

We'll have more YAC this year than all the years combined before with this coaching staff.

[KB_fan]

2 minutes ago, Fox007 said:

We'll have more YAC this year than all the years combined before with this coaching staff.

I certainly hope so.

I'm going to try and go back to look at Panthers YAC data over time...  it may take me a few weeks.  I didn't even realize YAC stats for each reception were included in the gamebook.  Somehow in all my data entry and analysis over the years I'd missed that.  Maybe I was consciously trying to block out the mere idea of YAC since it's something Panthers were pretty bad at!  LOL.

[Fox007]

5 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

I certainly hope so.

I'm going to try and go back to look at Panthers YAC data over time...  it may take me a few weeks.  I didn't even realize YAC stats for each reception were included in the gamebook.  Somehow in all my data entry and analysis over the years I'd missed that.  Maybe I was consciously trying to block out the mere idea of YAC since it's something Panthers were pretty bad at!  LOL.

Yea it's one of those things along with STs where you watch the other teams in the league and realize this team may as well have 0 STs at all in comparision. Same with YAC in years past.

[Moorgan]

Is Yards After Contact in the Gamebook? I know JStew has excelled at that stat over his career but would also be nice to see how the team does in that regard too.

[2jakefansinva]

Already seen big improvement......

the Sheppard TD wouldn't have occurred had it been Ginn.

he would have run straight out of bounds after the catch.

[KB_fan]

1 hour ago, Moorgan said:

Is Yards After Contact in the Gamebook? I know JStew has excelled at that stat over his career but would also be nice to see how the team does in that regard too.

At least for 2017, YAC is listed in the details of each play.  I assume it's also there in prior years, but I never noticed it before.

It is NOT summarized anywhere in the gamebook.  I had to total it play by play for each receiver, but that's not so hard to do, just do a text search on "YAC."

[KB_fan]

1 hour ago, Moorgan said:

Is Yards After Contact in the Gamebook? I know JStew has excelled at that stat over his career but would also be nice to see how the team does in that regard too.

I'll also be checking to see what YAC stats there are at Pro Football Reference and Sporting Charts, and will post more on this soon.

I know Sporting Charts has YAC for all receivers for each season, but I don't know if there are any compilations of team YAC stats - at least not for free?

-----------

Nevermind!  My reply is completely unrelated to the question!  Moorgan was asking about Yards after CONTACT and I answered regarding Yards after CATCH.  Sorry.  See below for a further reply to Moorgan about Yards after CONTACT.

[Moorgan]

1 minute ago, KB_fan said:

At least for 2017, YAC is listed in the details of each play.  I assume it's also there in prior years, but I never noticed it before.

It is NOT summarized anywhere in the gamebook.  I had to total it play by play for each receiver, but that's not so hard to do, just do a text search on "YAC."

Contact not Catch. Would mostly apply to RBs I'd assume. PFF I think had a stat about in the off season that JStew leads the league in that stat and I was wondering if that was something you tracked as well. Or am I confused? (always possible)