Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The fourth-quarter pass-catchers

(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.)

Wednesday, we took a look at which QBs threw the most TDs in the fourth quarter of games last season. Names like Kirk Cousins and Ben Roethlisberger may have surprised you at the top.

Today, we’re looking at which WRs caught the most fourth-quarter TDs. Who came in clutch last year?

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The tight target tree in Pittsburgh — and why any type of WR can score clutch TDs

The chart below shows the top seven WRs from last year based on receiving TDs in the fourth quarter of regular season games.

Player	4th Q Rec. TDs
Adam Thielen	7
JuJu Smith-Schuster	6
Tyreek Hill	6
Will Fuller	5
A.J. Brown	4
Chase Claypool	4
Mike Evans	4

A few notes from this study:

Slot – Deep – Big. Interestingly, these top seven appear to be broken down into three distinct categories — in order. At the top of the rankings are two slot receivers (Adam Thielen and JuJu Smith-Schuster). Next are two deep threats (Tyreek Hill and Will Fuller). Followed by big, typical red-zone threat WRs (A.J. Brown, Chase Claypool and Mike Evans). It goes to show any type of WR can deliver clutch TDs.
Three is the magic number for fourth-quarter receiving TDs. There were 14 other players who scored 3 TDs in the fourth quarter last year, but only seven who scored at least four. Getting over the three-score hump seems to be the breaking point.
The tight target tree in Pittsburgh. It’s interesting that Pittsburgh’s Smith-Schuster and Claypool both ranked near the top here. Wednesday’s study revealed that Ben Roethlisberger shined in this stat, but it turns out that 10 of his 12 fourth-quarter TDs went to Smith-Schuster and Claypool. Those two, along with Diontae Johnson, are all being drafted as fantasy WR2s. The tight target tree — especially for high-value passes — is the reason why that’s actually reasonable.