ArticleScore 100
Why you should care more about RB air yards
Jul 5, 2026Ben GretchStealing Signals (Ben Gretch)
Player mentions
Bo Nix
QB · DEN · #general
...I’m thinking of Drew Brees as I write this, but it’s a Bo Nix trait as well, in a way that I’ve written is likely a quirk...
Bucky Irving
RB · TB · #general
...4’s lowest aDOT among backs with at least 30 targets, we get Bucky Irving at -2.9, and he was at -2.2 in 2025 as well. Rachaad Whit...
Blake Corum
RB · LAR · #injuryupdate
...argets at a legit downfield 3.2-yard aDOT for 170 total air yards. Blake Corum , his backup, racked up another 30 RB air yards on 19 targets (Cor...
Woody Marks
RB · HOU · #general
...y to crush in 2026, Michael Carter in Arizona and Woody Marks in Houston. But Carter’s offensive coordinator last year wa...
RJ Harvey
RB · DEN · #injuryupdate
..., I can circle back to why these things are difficult to research. RJ Harvey had a positive 0.4 aDOT last year, with a total of 23 air yards,...
Ashton Jeanty
RB · LV · #general
...w it can negatively impact receiving efficiency. I’ll get to Ashton Jeanty in a second, but he also was triple digits in the negative for to...
TreVeyon Henderson
RB · NE · #breakoutcandidate
...during the season I felt for a bit like this was work designed for TreVeyon Henderson , who got a lot of hype for his pass-catching role all through the...
Matt Barkley
QB · #general
...e QB just gets rid of it to avoid a pass rush. Early-career Saquon Barkley with late-career Eli Manning comes to mind, though Barkley didn&#...
Eli Manning
QB · #general
...a pass rush. Early-career Saquon Barkley with late-career Eli Manning comes to mind, though Barkley didn’t wind up with a hugely negative...
Frank Gore
RB · #general
...f fun with in the early years of this newsletter; I remember that infamous Frank Gore wheel route where I went on a long diatribe in that week’s Steal...
Darren Sproles
RB · #breakoutcandidate
...J Harvey was a big beneficiary of that in Denver, and that’s where a Darren Sproles comparison for him can come in, because it’s something Sean Payton d...
Harold Spears
TE · #injuryupdate
...17;s lowest RB aDOT among backs with at least 30 targets was Tyjae Spears at -2.7, and he amassed -135 air yards in total, which gets to th...
Drew Brees
QB · #general
...has long been a staple of Sean Payton offenses, and I’m thinking of Drew Brees as I write this, but it’s a Bo Nix trait as well, i...
Jordan Williams-Lambert
WR · #injuryupdate
...ch, McVay is at the forefront of the air yards stuff. Kyren Williams is the primary receiving RB for the Rams. In 2024, including the...
Christian McCaffrey
RB · SF · #general
...De’Von Achane similarly, for example, and certainly Christian McCaffrey has been a first-read target plenty of times for San Francisco in...
Carlos Henderson
WR · #breakoutcandidate
...e season I felt for a bit like this was work designed for TreVeyon Henderson , who got a lot of hype for his pass-catching role all through the...
John Robinson-Woodgett
RB · #waiverwire
...guy for a long time because of his unique skill set, but we also saw Bijan Robinson add to his arsenal of point-scoring paths with more downfield RB routes. <...
Freddie Stevenson
FB · #injuryupdate
...team I haven’t referenced yet is the Patriots, but Rhamondre Stevenson was second in the NFL in air yards last year at 155 on just 37 ta...
Saquon Barkley
RB · PHI · #general
...e as the QB just gets rid of it to avoid a pass rush. Early-career Saquon Barkley with late-career Eli Manning comes to mind, though Barkley didn&#...
Baker Mayfield
QB · TB · #injuryupdate
...nce of the QB. My argument for these Tampa backs is we can surmise Baker Mayfield is an asset to their receiving efficiency. They may not run downf...
Drew Sample
TE · CIN · #general
...those are each of the three most recent seasons, 2023-2025 (with the 2024 sample being small, but being the highest figure at 3.1). Relative to McCaffr...
Tyron Billy-Johnson
WR · #general
...hed. I probably first became obsessed with the concept during David Johnson’s 2016 season (which I coincidentally referenced not long ago in my...
Jimmy Graham
TE · #injuryupdate
...ew ways to generate them. Fifteen years ago, people were talking about how Jimmy Graham was this new type of TE who was too athletic for a linebacker and too big...
Tua Tagovailoa
QB · ATL · #breakoutcandidate
...arvey usage back to his Darren Sproles days, over to McDaniel with Tua Tagovailoa and Achane, are pass plays that immediately eschew the potential...
Article text
One of the things I’m aware of with the kind of content I do — both the subject matter and how inefficient I am with my writing — is that people are going to come and go. Interest in fantasy football will wane for some (I’m not sure how, but I guess that’s going to be true for any hobby). Available time to read longform works will not always be there. So I’m always toeing this line of trying to make my content accessible for people who are newer, and just diving right in to keep building and iterating. I hope I do that well enough to satisfy people on both ends of the spectrum. But those who have been around since this thing launched, reading a pretty high percentage of what I’ve written in that time — you’re just naturally going to have more fun with this post. “RB air yards” were a thing I had a ton of fun with in the early years of this newsletter; I remember that infamous Frank Gore wheel route where I went on a long diatribe in that week’s Stealing Signals that a handful of you referenced to me not just in the immediate aftermath of that week but across multiple years that followed. (I can’t recall the specifics; I guess my recollection is it was a third-and-short that failed, and the long tangent was me hammering it must have been Adam Gase(?) for the hilarity of dialing that up to an over-the-hill between-the-tackles runner, even as a major fan of RB air yards, because it was such a doomed play?) So anyway, I’ve been waiting all my life to write this post. Nothing’s ever been more important to me than RB air yards, which made it one of those original Stealing Signals topics because it was something I enjoyed tracking even before this newsletter was launched. I probably first became obsessed with the concept during David Johnson’s 2016 season (which I coincidentally referenced not long ago in my Titans’ writeup). What made that season for Johnson so fascinating was not just that he was racking up huge target numbers, but that he was doing it while frequently splitting out and running downfield routes. One of my TPRR databases has individual receiving seasons for players with air yards dating back to 2014, and Johnson’s 2016 is still the highest in RB air yards at 492 by a whopping 165 over any other RB season in the past dozen years. Second on that list came last year, and we’ll get there. But first, let’s talk a little about RB air yards as a concept. Difficult to classify and research Part of why this concept might be kind of new is it’s a hard one to research. For those unaware, I use the term “RB air yards” because the average RB target tends to have an aDOT around 0, i.e. the line of scrimmage. That’s because a lot of RB targets are going to have a negative depth of target, behind the line of scrimmage, including designed screens and some dumpoffs. We probably don’t talk enough about how those targets negatively impact receiving efficiency for RBs, because having to constantly gain yards just to get back to the line of scrimmage for a 0-yard reception (or small gain) is the kind of thing that’s going to bring down a player’s receiving yardage total. That said, it’s not as simple as looking at aDOTs, because not all targets behind the line of scrimmage are equal. I often think of the really negative targets as a sign of a nonfunctional offense, because you have a QB dropping way back and his outlet RB drifting deeper, and ultimately catching a pass well behind the line of scrimmage as the QB just gets rid of it to avoid a pas…