Thursday, May 28, 2009

I'm Not Sold on Lee Evans

Fantasy Football Librarian (much, much higher on the "must-read" pecking order than this rag) links today to an article about the apparent rise in value of Lee Evans, now that Terrell Owens is in town. The theory goes that a second wide-receiver that is a threat to catch the ball will "distract" attention, or will command part of the coverage, that has inhibited Lee Evans from realizing his potential. I am unsure of the central premise of this line of thought.
Last season, the Buffalo Bills attempted, collectively, 479 passes. This does not count sacks and non-designed QB runs. Lee Evans caught 63 of those passes. I don't have the catch percentage statistics from last season yet, but let's ASSUME that he caught 55% of his passes (he has never posted a very high percentage, if my memory serves, but I will validate this after I return from vacation). That would mean that he was thrown the ball about 114 times, let's call it 115 targets. That means that 364 passes were thrown to other receivers than Lee Evans last year. Now, two things will happen with this bundle of numbers that will have a countervailing impact on Lee Evans' production this season;
1) Terrell Owens will receive more targets than Josh Reed did last year
2) Opposing teams will play their #1 CB on Owens instead of Evans
The first will result in fewer targets for Evans, the second will result in a higher catch rate (presumably) for Evans. I see no reason why either should cancel the other out. If he gets 20 fewer targets, which is a moderately small estimate, he would need to improve his catch percentage by 11 points to have the same production! A dicey proposition at best. The only gain to Evan's production that I can foresee therefore, comes from one of two possibilities;
1) His catch rate improves DRAMATICALLY. By this I mean at least 15%.
2) The Buffalo offense throws the ball at LEAST 550 times. Assuming he gets 25% of targets, this would translate to 8-10 additional catches. The issue also arises that Evans only received 25% of his targets as the teams #1, what percent is reasonable to expect as the #2? For the record, he was dinged up last year, and that certainly comes into consideration, but was he lighting it up at the beginning of the season?
In summary, I don't know if I buy the angle that a #1 receiver gets a boost from another #1 receiver coming to the team. Definitionally, only one pass attempt can be made per play, and T.O is certainly going to get his share of those attempts (a much higher percentage, we can surmise, than Josh Reed got as the other receiver last year). If Terrell Owens gets as many looks as Lee Evans received last year, it is hard for me to predict an increase in production from Lee Evans, unless Buffalo is prepared to throw the ball 600 times next season.

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