Jack Kurtz '21
Since entering the NFL in 2014, Jarvis Landry has recorded the most receptions through four seasons in league history with 400 receptions, good for an astounding average of 100 receptions per year. Despite this historic number of receptions, Landry has struggled to produce yardage and touchdowns. During his four years with the Dolphins, Landry averaged 10.1 yards per reception (Y/R), in the 2017 season alone, there were 91 players who bested that mark, while Landry’s 2017 average Y/R of 8.8 ranked 110th that year. Moreover, he failed to record 10 touchdowns in a season just once throughout his career.
In a Sports Illustrated interview, when asked about his lack of yardage and touchdown production, Landry cited his lack of opportunity in the Dolphins’ offense for his low Y/R average, saying, “I probably caught about a thousand bubble screens.” On this matter, Landry was absolutely correct. In 2017, Landry’s average route run went only 3.92 yards downfield and 55.5% of his total yardage gained came after the catch. The Dolphins tasked him with running short routes from the slot and relied on him to create yards after catch (YAC) with short area quickness.
However, Landry also mentioned something else worth investigating, his excitement for expanded opportunity on deep routes in Cleveland. Was Landry really held back by his team’s refusal to have him run deep routes, or was the Dolphins’ offense designed correctly to cover for his deficiencies on deep patterns? To answer this question, I used player game speed data from the 2016 and 2017 season courtesy of Josh Hermsmeyer’s Airyards.com. Josh’s metric fastness under/above positional average (FUPA/FAPA) is calculated based upon a player’s average speed when running certain distances (including horizontal distance) versus the positional average speed at each distance. Jarvis Landry’s FUPA averaged -29.4, with individual scores of -29.5 and -29.3 in 2016 and 2017 respectively. FUPA paints Landry as having well below average speed for an NFL wide receiver (for what it’s worth Landry also ran a 4.77 40-yard dash at the NFL combine, providing more evidence of below average speed), but I wanted to know where his speed performs the worst versus the league average. To determine this, I used graphs charting game speed versus distance run.
As evidenced by the chart, Landry’s speed begins to drop off from the league average quite steeply around 25-30 yards traveled, casting doubt on his ability to ever become a consistent deep threat with the Browns. A receiver with poor speed downfield will always struggle to gain separation against cornerbacks on deep routes. Moreover, Landry’s skillset revolves around his short area quickness and elite hands, so having him run downfield routes would not only be ineffective but would come at the opportunity cost of losing some of his work in the slot.
To further analyze Landry’s deep threat potential, I selected Tyreek Hill (Blue line) and Antonio Brown (Red line), two of the premier deep threats in the league as comparisons for Landry (Green line).
In comparison to Hill and Brown, Landry’s peak speed comes much earlier, around 35 yards versus 50 for Brown and 65 for Hill. In addition, his total speed falls well below the others speed immediately following his peak, demonstrating an inability to maintain top speed for very long. These comparisons, combined with Landry’s performance in FUPA, support the idea that Landry was correctly utilized in Miami and will likely disappoint as a deep threat in Cleveland. Sorry Browns fans.
Note: All fantasy points use ESPN standard scoring