Evans: Fantasy Football Passing Report ahead of NFL Week 7

As the NFL becomes more and more pass-heavy, fantasy football managers need to know where and how teams are distributing their targets in the passing game.

Receiver usage data — specifically targets, air yards and routes run — is much better at predicting future receiving production than simply scanning box scores. This passing report analyzes every team’s target, air yard and route run from the previous week so that fantasy managers can make informed decisions with information that's actionable and up to date.

The report includes five categories, which are defined as the following:

Target: a pass attempt to a receiver
Target share: the percentage of targets that a player receives out of his team’s total number of targeted pass attempts
Route run %: the percentage of routes run by a receiver out of his team’s total number of passing plays
Air yards: the number of yards the ball travels in the air for every pass attempt, measured from the point at which the QB throws the football to the receiver’s location at the spot of the target.
Air-yard share: the percentage of air yards a player receives out of his team’s total air yards.

ARZ | ATL | BLT | BUF | CAR | CIN | CHI | CLE | DEN | DAL | DET | GB | HOU | IND | JAX | KC | LVR | LAC | LAR | MIA | MIN | NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF | SEA | TB | TEN | WFT

ARIZONA CARDINALS

Player	Targets	Target Share	Route Run %	Air Yards	Air-Yard Share
DeAndre Hopkins	6	33%	93%	55	26%
Larry Fitzgerald	4	22%	70%	35	16%
Christian Kirk	2	11%	87%	38	18%
Andy Isabella	2	11%	33%	86	40%
Kenyan Drake	2	11%	60%	0	0%
Chase Edmonds	1	6%	33%	0	0%
Darrell Daniels	1	6%	33%	1	0%

The Cardinals' victory over the Cowboys was a strange game, as Kyler Murray only completed nine passes. There are still a few key takeaways here.

DeAndre Hopkins with a 30% target share is a weekly occurrence. He had a rough fantasy day but is an easy bounce-back candidate this week. Christian Kirk made the most of his two targets by cashing them in for a pair of touchdowns, though it is hard to get too excited about a player that is third in the target pecking order.

Andy Isabella is a world-class sprinter and gobbles up air yards every week — he is going to connect with Murray on a deep shot some point soon. Larry Fitzgerald had an 8.8-yard average depth of target in Week 6, his highest in a game this season. He is being used as a glorified tight end at this point in his career.

Surprisingly, Kenyan Drake beat out Chase Edmonds in route rate in Week 6, just one week after Edmonds appeared to have wrestled control. I think that is more of a blip than a trend, considering the run-heavy game script. Expect Edmonds to reclaim the RB receiving role in a potential shootout with the Seahawks.