Let's beat the wideout fantasy market with ESPN's receiver tracking metrics (RTMs).
Last year in this space we unveiled "open score," which measures a receiver's ability to get open on every route -- regardless of whether they are targeted -- relative to expectations, using NFL Next Gen Stats data. But the question I came back to this year was: Do the RTMs actually help us beat average draft position? It turns out some of them do. But critically, not all.
There are three components to the receiver tracking metrics: the aforementioned open score, as well as catch score and YAC score, which measure a receiver's ability to make the catch and generate yards after the catch, respectively. Again, this is relative to expectations based on factors such as the route run, defensive coverage, and the positioning, speed and direction of all 22 players on the field.
All three RTM categories rank players on a 0-99 scale, with 50 being roughly average.
