Green Bay Packers: Davante Adams Asserting Himself as Best WR in NFL

Davante Adams of the Green Bay Packers has improved every year he has been in the NFL and is now asserting himself as the best WR in the game.

Wide receiver is a position with a lot of top-end talent, with some of the biggest stars in the NFL at the position. With guys like Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Tyreek Hill, and many, many more. So is it possible that the second-round pick of the Green Bay Packers in the 2014 NFL Draft, Davante Adams, is the best of the bunch?

First and foremost, there is not just one statistic that we can look to and say if a receiver leads the league in this category, then they are the best in the NFL. Knowing this information, I will be looking at a lot of different stats and comparing what Adams has been able to do in comparison to the rest of the league.

Secondly, I will be looking at just the 2020 season, we know Julio Jones has been the best or one of the best receivers in the game for quite some time, but the best receiver in the game argument can change on a year-to-year or even a game-to-game basis.

Standard/Raw Statistics

I want to start by looking at the production that Adams has had this year and how Adams compares to other players around the league.  Adams has missed two games due to injury this season, but even with missing two games, his production is on par with some of the best in the business. The following statistics are via ESPN, and the ranks associated are where Adams stands among qualified receivers:

Receiving yards: 1,029 yards (5th)

Receiving yards/game: 102.9 yards/game (1st)

Receiving touchdowns: 13 touchdowns (T1 with Tyreek Hill)

 Big plays/game: 1.3 plays of 20 or more yards/game (T8 with Corey Davis among receivers with at least 10 big plays this season)

Yards after catch: 416 yards after the catch (6th)

First down receptions: 55 (T2 with Keenan Allen)

To validate all of these impressive stats, here is another one that puts Adams in a very elite club. The fact that we can mention Adams in the same breathe as four Pro Football Hall of Famers and possibly four of the best receivers of all time tells us a lot of how great Adams has been.

Advanced Statistics

We live in the analytics age now, where we are able to supplement the raw statistics with advanced stats to get a full picture of what is happening on the field. That being said, these statistics are not perfect either; we can use all of these in conjecture with one another to make a case for how two players compare to one another.

Pro Football Focus

Pro Football Focus ($) has a lot of different metrics, grades, and ways to chart statistics. I will talk about some of these statistics in order to better understand how Adams compares with the greats in the NFL.

First, I want to start with the grades that PFF puts out. Adams ranks second in their drop grade, which shows us how sure-handed of a receiver he is. In fact, he is the only receiver, according to PFF, that is more sure-handed than his division rival, Allen Robinson. Receiving grade is also another metric that is used, and Adams leads the league in this category. Not to mention that his overall grade for a wide receiver is another metric that Adams leads the NFL in.

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1336378029896032256

In terms of yards per route run, Adams is fourth in the league with 3.02 yards. Lastly, he is eighth in the league in yards per route run from the slot, which is key because the slot receiver is a very important position in today’s NFL.

The top two players in slot performance metrics have a combined 10 targets in the slot, which means they may be excelling in a few snaps, and we may not have seen enough from those two players. During the 2020 season, the only player that is in the top 10 for each of these PFF metrics is Davante Adams.

Football Outsiders

Football Outsiders ($) is another website that produces some unique advanced statistics. The two main metrics that I will be using are defensive yards above replacement (DYAR) and defensive value over average (DVOA).

DYAR gives the value of the performance of the receiver on plays that they caught the ball, compared to a replacement-level player, adjusted for situation and the opponent who they are playing. DYAR is then converted into yards, and currently, Adams is ranked sixth in the NFL according to this metric.

YAR is similar to DYAR but not adjusted for the opponent, and Adams is ranked fourth in the league in the YAR metric. Then we have DVOA, which represents the value on every play over an average wide receiver in the same game situation that is adjusted for the opponent the player is up against. Adams ranks 11th in the league per DVOA while being ranked 8th in the league in the VOA metric, which is not adjusted to the opponent.

One final metric that I want to use is effective yards (EYds), which is translating DVOA into a yard per attempt figure. This provides us with a way to compare how a player is playing on a per attempt basis. As stated previously, Adams is ranked 5th in the league in yards per game. However, he is ranked second behind Tyreek Hill by just two EYds, while trailing Hill by 50 yards in total receiving yards.

What does all of this mean?

There is a lot of different statistics that I went through, but what do all of these numbers mean? Adams ranks outside the top 10 in just one of the metrics that were mentioned above (DVOA), which indicates he is a top echelon wide receiver in the NFL. When looking at all of these different metrics for the rest of the wide receivers in the league, each receiver not named Davante Adams is not within the top 10 in at least two of the metrics that were talked about in this article.

All of these metrics plus the eye test tell me that Adams is the best wide receiver in the entire NFL. We are very lucky to have him on the Green Bay Packers, and in addition to Adams, we also have a top tier quarterback, running back, and offensive line, which makes this offense very hard to stop as well as very fun for us fans to watch.

Do you believe Davante Adams is the best wide receiver in the league? If not, let us know who is better below or on Twitter @DairylandXpress.