We've all seen what the Tennessee Titans have been up to recently. Derrick Henry has run wild over the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Giants over the last two weeks. As a result, quarterback Marcus Mariota has only thrown 44 passes in that time for 250 yards.
If you took a leap of faith in Corey Davis this season, you were probably mostly disappointed. He had the peripheral numbers at the beginning of the season, but between passing volume concerns and quarterback injuries, he never really broke out like we were expecting. With the way things have been going recently in the Titans' ground game, we can't really expect that to change in Week 16.
Maybe this isn't Davis' year, but another Titans wideout is quietly enjoying a breakout in his own way: Taywan Taylor. It's currently Taylor that has all of the peripheral metrics in his corner -- over the past four games he's had the 12th-highest Weighted Opportunity Rating (WOPR) among wide receivers in the league and the third-highest market share of his team's air yards. His target volume hasn't been there -- just 17 during that span -- but he's been quietly waiting on the precipice of a breakout.
Taylor's managed such high market share values despite his low target volume because of how the Titans have been using him -- deep. He has the highest average depth of target, or aDOT, (18.1 yards) of any of the top 12 wideouts according to WOPR by almost a full yard. Odell Beckham had an aDOT of 17.4, but most of the wide receivers with higher WOPRs have aDOTs between 8 and 12 yards. He has been seeing a significant market share of high-value targets.
The Titans are squaring off against a struggling Washington team that probably won't put up much of a fight. They're on their fourth quarterback, and while they haven't technically been eliminated from playoff contention yet, they have to realize they stand little chance of making it -- let alone making a real run.
But enough narrative -- you came to numberFire for some real analysis. Washington has allowed opposing receivers a 1.09 Receiver Air Yard Conversion Rate (RACR) in 2018. That means that for every one air yard thrown to an opposing receiver, Washington is letting them have that plus another 0.09 yards. It's the second-worst rate in the league and means that Taylor should have no issues converting his large air yard market share into real receiving yards.
The Titans passing game volume is low, but that won't stop Taylor from putting up big numbers through extreme efficiency. He's going to go off for a top-12 wide receiver fantasy performance in Week 16.