The 10 Least Efficient Wide Receivers in 2017

Despite appearances to the contrary during the 2017 season, the NFL is still very much a passing league. And as long as this remains the king in terms of offensive efficiency, quarterbacks will need reliable pass catchers around them to succeed, particularly at the wide receiver position.

The players we will be looking at here just put up seasons that qualify them for the complete opposite.

At numberFire, we use a metric called Net Expected Points (NEP). Not all plays are created equal, and NEP allows us to differentiate the value between a 10-yard completion on 3rd and 2 and a 10-yard completion on 4th and 12. To identify these players, we'll be using Target NEP per target. This allows us to look at all the players on a certain team to find out just how well (or how badly) a player has done in comparison with his teammates.

If all wide receivers on a team posted disappointing Target NEP per target numbers, then we could probably be justified in placing a fair amount of blame on the quarterback. Most of the signal-callers involved here were not exactly in the top tier at their position in 2017, there are very few cases in which we can absolve the wide receiver of all the blame for their lack of production.

Among wide receivers with at least 30 targets in 2017, the following 10 were the least efficient of them all.