2018 Receiver Analysis using EPA

If you are not familiar with the EPA metric please see:

[www.espn.com]

In short, EPA is considered the a better(than yards) metric for gauging the impact of a play on a team's chances of winning. Higher is better.

What I did here is determine the mean EPA for the 2018 regular season for any Rams player with greater than 20 receptions. Sorted by mean_epa

receiver mean_epa success_rate yards_gained plays
<chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <int>
1 C.Kupp 0.615 0.564 10.3 55
2 T.Higbee 0.579 0.618 8.59 34
3 B.Cooks 0.463 0.573 10.3 117
4 R.Woods 0.460 0.592 9.38 130
5 J.Reynolds 0.213 0.5 7.73 52
6 G.Everett 0.211 0.52 6.4 50
7 T.Gurley 0.0870 0.506 7.16 81

Success_rate is the percent of plays where the player earned an epa > 0.

This is the top 10 for the NFL; min 50 plays

receiver mean_epa success_rate yards_gained plays
<chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <int>
1 T.Lockett 1.03 0.714 13.8 70
2 M.Williams 0.700 0.578 9.72 83
3 S.Watkins 0.663 0.618 9.44 55
4 T.Boyd 0.660 0.630 9.52 108
5 C.Kupp 0.615 0.564 10.3 55
6 T.Hilton 0.595 0.592 10.6 120
7 M.Thomas 0.592 0.653 9.56 147
8 J.Gordon 0.565 0.521 10.4 71
9 R.Higgins 0.556 0.585 10.8 53
10 A.Jeffery 0.550 0.587 9.13 92

Kupp is interesting here. Especially in comparison to Cooks--similar ypc, and success rate--but Kupp has a much higher mean EPA. This tells me that Kupp is likely gaining more 1st downs and TDs. Gaining his yards in more important situations.