Splitsville: The tall and the short of it

Let’s mine the data this week for the players who were least and most efficient in converting yards from scrimmage into touchdowns. I’ve also included position and height/weight. Thanks to Pro-Football-Reference for the stats.

Here’s a link to the full chart.  We’ll just do the highlights here.

The top 20 most efficient scorers are:

The big WR model still works but it hasn’t been a great year for it. I think we have some selection bias going on. I’ll explain in a moment. First the details. Seven of the nine most efficient scoring wide receivers are at least six-feet tall. But players 5-11 and under average a TD every 212 yards and players 6-2 and over one every 190. That’s not close to the advantage I’d expect based on historical data.

So what’s going on? Randall Cobb and Antonio Brown are having crazy efficient touchdown seasons. That’s a big part of it.

But I noticed something when sorting. I typically pull the 6-3 and over guys and 5-10 and under guys and the sample sizes are similar. But this year, there are twice as many 6-3 plus guys (20) than 5-10 under guys (10). Selection bias means basically that the small wide receivers this year are better than they’ve been historically because teams don’t want small receivers. So to make it, you have to be really good. Similarly, since teams want tall receivers, you PERHAPS (not enough data yet, this is just a theory) don’t have to be as good. In other words, if teams are biased against short guys, you have to be really good to get through. If they’re biased for tall guys, you maybe mostly have to be tall. Again, do not run with this. This is spitballing. I’m in no way remotely saying to go and get short receivers now. I’m still until further notice Team Big Wideout.

Now what about the trailers?

I got this idea for the column as a Le’Veon Bell owner (limited keeper league w/three round tax — this is not zeroRB hypocrisy). I think Bell owners just got unlucky. He should be a monster. Same with DeMarco Murray (a TD every 221 scrimmage yards).

Man, Steve Smith (TD every 164 yards) has really slowed down, hasn’t he? He’s still sitting on five TDs seemingly forever.

But among the other trailers, how could you explain McCoy? Yeah, his rate wasn’t good last year, I admit. So maybe this should have been part of his projection.

We have a lot of washed up tall receivers (they age more quickly due to the physics of the human anatomy meaning their size is a tax on their joints, etc.). Some older backs too. A bunch of short receivers. Bowe, who is an abomination. Everyone fits here except for Bell. A lot of this is play selection, a little game flow, some LeGarrette Blount, who, of course is gone. A perfect storm working against a player who is clearly great. I bet this gets corrected to a more normal rate going forward, starting this week in Cincinnati.