Heading into each NFL season, front office members, fans, and fantasy players search for hidden gems who can provide their favorite club or their fantasy team with value in the upcoming year.
On the SumerSports Show, Lindsay Rhodes and Sam Bruchhaus spent the offseason looking into year-over-year correlations for players who had played a substantial number of snaps in two consecutive seasons. Correlation is a metric on a scale of 0 to 1, where 1 is the best that measures how close the relationship is between two numbers.
Their analysis found the best “sticky stats” that offer insight into who’s most likely to produce on the box score, and thus in fantasy football.
Here are some of the key highlights that you should know going into 2025.
Pass Catchers: Keep a Close Eye on Usage Statistics
Of all the positions in the NFL, wide receivers and tight ends have the highest correlations between many of their key stats year-over-year.
Usage statistics, such as target share (targets per team target in games where a player is active), have been the “stickiest” metrics since 2021. Target share has a correlation around 0.70, which indicates that wide receivers that are good enough to demand targets in their offense typically remain good enough to demand more. This paints a rosy picture for young target-earners who such as Malik Nabers, who had a very unstable quarterback situation last year and has a three-man quarterback competition going into camp, and Puka Nacua, who battled injuries last year.
Similarly, if you are looking for value in the training camp rumor mill, closely follow reports on whether rookie wide receivers and tight ends such as Tetairoa McMillan, Colston Loveland, Tyler Warren, and Matthew Golden are “earning targets”, as this may indicate that they will be impact receivers in the upcoming year.
Another player to keep a close eye on with regards to their target share is Marvin Mims. Mims was a Top 5 player amongst players with over 100 routes run in Yards Per Route Run, a fairly sticky stat as compared to other production stats (greater than 0.60 correlation since 2021). Typically, Yards Per Route Run at that volume is led by the highest paid (or soon to be) wide receivers in the league. However, those players are generally target-earners. Mims, in contrast, had a very low target share, which limited his overall impact. If we start to see that target share increase, Mims may be able to establish himself as a solid weapon for Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos offense.
Quarterbacks: EPA and Sack Avoidance Can Be Sticky, But Who Deserves Credit?
When it comes to quarterbacks, Expected Points Added per Passing Attempt, has been the stickiest statistic since 2021 (correlation of about 0.60).
While this statistic likely played a massive role in Jared Goff, Tua Tagovailoa, and (most recently) Brock Purdy’s massive contract extensions, it must be pointed out that Expected Points Added is technically a team statistic. Quarterbacks rely on their offensive line to protect them on passing plays while also relying on their receivers to run crisp routes, allowing them to complete passes. Moreover, offensive coordinators and head coaches are scheming up plays. As a result, it is difficult to ever properly assign credit solely to the quarterback for a team’s offensive efficiency, despite them touching the ball every play. That being said, should a team’s environment stay relatively similar, it is reasonably likely that the offense will continue to succeed.
Also, sack avoidance metrics and ratios typically hold moderate year-to-year predictive value, though not to the degree of other statistics. Most of this group’s correlations are in or around 0.50. Given that extensive research shows that sacks are a “quarterback stat” and immensely harmful to an offense’s production, this is one stat that, despite not being “super sticky” is substantially attributable to the quarterback.
This certainly doesn’t spell out certain doom for Caleb Williams, who was 45th in sack rate amongst quarterbacks with 100 plays, but it will certainly be something to watch as he transitions to new Head Coach Ben Johnson’s offense.
Rushers: Use Caution with Rushing Stats
Many have heard the refrain from the deep recesses of the internet that “Running Backs Don’t Matter”. The position group is among the lowest paid in all of football, despite being one of the most visible.
While running backs certainly DO matter (just look at Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, and Josh Jacobs’ impact on their new teams in 2024), the problem is that it is immensely difficult for us to figure out WHICH ones will matter in any given year.
That is because rushing stats, across the board, have some of the lowest year-over-year correlations. The major theme here: environment matters. A lot. (Just look at Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs' impact on their old teams in 2023.)
The “stickiest” (and that is really a stretch) stat for rushers is Tackled for Loss Percentage, which only has a correlation of around 0.40 going back to 2021.
It gets even grimmer for production statistics, where Expected Points Added per Rushing Attempt has a virtually negligible correlation.
This might explain why a player like James Cook may hold out of training camp for an extension after a season in which he was excellent in that statistic. He wants to capitalize on his performance amidst great uncertainty about the future.
While rushing statistics are excellent descriptive statistics, they have little predictive value in the long term.
Final Thoughts: NFL Analytics and Fantasy Projections are an Uncertainty
While conducting the sticky stats research, it became clear that the correlations between year-over-year performance are not as high as in other sports. That is primarily because football can be weak-link system where 22 men work together to pummel each other, leading to all sorts of uncertain outcomes, including injury.
This analysis focused on players who played 100 key snaps in two consecutive years. As veteran coaches like to say, “availability is the best ability” so even achieving volume in two straight seasons is an accomplishment.
But nonetheless, we must try to divine over the summer how these NFL players will play in 2025. Here are a few parting pieces of advice to summarize:
- Trust receiver rate stats, particularly if they are describing the player's usage.
- Leverage EPA for quarterbacks but always take scheme and team changes into consideration
- Be heavily skeptical of rushing stats when trying to predict how good a running back will be in the upcoming season.
Keep up with all the sticky statistics mentioned in this article on SumerSports.com.
