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Six Receptions Rule - WRs to Pick Up

One of the questions that fantasy players most often asks themselves is which wide receivers should I pick up on waivers? We are strong believers that yards and touchdowns even out at some point during a player’s season or career. There are some players that have much higher yards or touchdowns per catch than the average but it is not the case for most players. This means that when looking for players on waivers we believe that you should choose a player with 6 catches for 60 yards over a player with 3 catches for 50 yards and a TD. Looking at data from the past four years, we came up with the six receptions rule.

Looking at the 48 players who had more than 10 fantasy points or more (in point per reception leagues) in the first week of the last four years, only 14 of those finished the year with more than 150 fantasy points (approximately the top 45 receivers). Of those 14 players, 11 had at least six receptions. The “success rate” for players with six or more receptions is 58% (11 for 19) while it is only 10% (3 of 29) for players with five or fewer receptions.

In this analysis we only looked at the first week of the season because it is difficult to apply those calculations for other weeks but we believe that the six receptions rule works throughout the year. Based on this analysis, we believe that wide receivers with at least six receptions in any week have almost a 60% chance of having top backup WR value for an average fantasy team for the rest of the year.

Here is a look at the wide receivers that had at least six receptions in either of the first two weeks of the 2009 season and that could be available on waivers:

Earl Bennett: He had seven receptions in the first game of the year but was replaced by rookie Johnny Knox last week. Cutler had good chemistry with Bennett in college so it’s normal that he threw to him a lot in week one but after last week, we don’t believe much in Bennett for the rest of the year.

Davone Bess: He had a great game in week one with seven catches but had only three last week. Bess will probably have an up and down year and we don’t believe he can be a weekly contributor to a fantasy team but he could still be a guy worth having on your bench.

Nate Burleson: He has 11 catches in his first two games but may start losing playing time to Deion Branch who is expected back this week. We would pick up Burleson if he’s still available but don’t start him until we know for sure that he’ll keep his job over Branch.

Antwaan Randle El: He is a player we thought was very undervalued this off-season and that you should pick up right now if you can. He has 50 catches in each of the last two years, has 11 in two games and is the clear number two receiver on the Redskins.

Andre Caldwell: He looked good in the first game against the Broncos and has outplayed Coles so far this year. Coles however will keep his job for as long as possible because of his contract and we don’t expect Caldwell to have much fantasy value this year.

Mario Manningham: If he is still on waivers he should be your top priority this week We were big fans of Hixon in the off-season but he lost his chance because of his injury and Manningham is now the starter opposite of Steve Smith.

Julian Edelman: We expect Welker to be back soon so Edelman has very little value.

Jason Avant: He had a good game last week because of DeSean Jackson’s injury, has little value for the rest of the year.

Johnny Knox: He showed some sparks in the first two weeks of the year and could be the full-time number two receiver in Chicago sooner rather than later. He has good hands and is a big-play threat, we recommend picking him up.

Laurent Robinson: We really liked Robinson in the off-season and he has been very surprising so far this season. He is the 14^th best receiver in fantasy football this season despite scoring only one touchdown and although it may be hard to keep this up, he could finish the year as a top 30 receiver.

Mike Sims-Walker: Troy Williamson is out for the year and Nate Hughes was moved to the practice squad which leaves Sims-Walker as the clear number two receiver. He was very impressive last week and we believe that both he and Holt could have a good year if the offensive line picks up their game.

Bobby Wade: We liked Bradley in the off-season because he was the number two receiver in this offense but Wade now takes over that job and we believe he could have an excellent season. Expect this offense to improve as the season progresses and Wade should be a pretty big part of it along with Bowe.

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