Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: RB aerial threats

(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

The Scott Fish Bowl (SFB11) is coming up, and it’s the biggest tournament in the season-long fantasy football industry. There are also several unique scoring rules in SFB11, one of which is that RBs, WRs, and TEs get an extra 0.5 points per first down.

With that in mind, today’s Stat of the Day article will examine the RBs that had the most first-down receptions in 2020 to help you identify some players that can pad the fantasy stat sheet in SFB11.

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First-down reception leaders among RBs

The chart below shows the RBs that had the most first-down receptions in 2020.

Player	Targets	Receptions	1st downs	% of catches for 1st downs
Alvin Kamara	112	88	37	42%
J.D. McKissic	112	81	34	42%
David Montgomery	71	55	27	49%
Nyheim Hines	81	67	25	37%
Chase Edmonds	71	55	22	40%
James White	63	50	21	42%
Austin Ekeler	66	54	21	39%
Kareem Hunt	52	39	20	51%
Ezekiel Elliott	76	54	20	37%
Dalvin Cook	56	45	19	42%
Mike Davis	71	59	17	29%
David Johnson	46	33	16	48%
James Robinson	60	49	16	33%
D'Andre Swift	60	47	16	34%
Giovani Bernard	60	47	16	34%
Aaron Jones	63	47	15	32%
Clyde Edwards-Helaire	58	38	14	37%
Jonathan Taylor	43	37	14	38%
Chris Carson	48	39	14	36%
Jerick McKinnon	49	35	14	40%
Lynn Bowden Jr.	37	28	13	46%
Myles Gaskin	47	41	12	29%
Rex Burkhead	35	26	12	46%

For starters, the correlation between receptions and first downs among RBs is extremely high. It has an R-squared of 0.95 on a scale of 0-1, with 1 being a perfect match. This means you could sort by receptions and get a similar list.

But looking a little closer at the data tells us which players are above or below average when it comes to collecting enough yards to get a first down.

At the top, Alvin Kamara laps the field with 37 first-down receptions last year. J.D. McKissic, who saw the same number of targets, had 34 targets — but no other RB had more than 30. (Of note: Christian McCaffrey had 11 first-down receptions in just three games last season.)

Just below this top group was David Montgomery, who had 27 first-down receptions and snagged a first down on nearly 50% of his catches. The only player with a higher first-down are than Montgomery was Kareem Hunt (51%). David Johnson (48% rate) was also well above average.

On the lower end of the spectrum, Mike Davis (29%) and Myles Gaskin (29%) were well below league average when it came to notching first downs, but both are set to be featured backs again in 2021, so the volume should be enough to sustain them.

Other thoughts on the data

It’s encouraging to see Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s name on this list. He was mostly a disappointment last season, but if he’s used more in the passing game in 2021, he could really live up to last year’s expectations
Chase Edmonds had the fifth-most first-down receptions among RBs last season. Here’s to hoping he gets featured and doesn’t have to share too much with James Conner, especially in the passing game.
Austin Ekeler had the seventh-most first-down receptions among RBs despite playing only 10 games. If he gets a full season in 2021, he’s going to destroy his ADP.