Not Just A Deep WR: Breakdown Of James Washington’s 2017 Target Data

How many times this offseason have you heard or read new Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver James Washington referred to as only being a deep pass catcher coming out of college? While Washington was indeed a bona fide deep threat at Oklahoma State, he enters the NFL a much more rounded wide receiver than most people credit him as really being.

As part of me recently contextualizing all the pass attempts made by new Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph at Oklahoma State in 2017, I also was able to do the same for every pass thrown to Washington.

As you can see in the breakdowns below, Washington was targeted a total of 119 times during the 2017 season and he caught 74 (62.2%) of those attempts for 1,544 yards and 13 touchdowns.

52 of Washington’s 74 receptions were caught within 16 yards of the original line of scrimmage and in the NFL, that distance is considered a short pass. Those 52 receptions totaled 662 yards and 5 touchdowns. Washington also averaged 4.89 yards after the catch on those 52 receptions. However, it’s worth noting that only 10 of those receptions included Washington catching the football on the other side of the right hash mark on the field. In short, most of Washington’s short receptions came on the right side of the field.

The other 22 receptions that Washington registered in 2017 were of the deep variety and that means they traveled more than 15 yards in the air past the original line of scrimmage. In fact, Washington caught 22 of 48 (45.8%) deep throws his way in 2017 and that’s not a bad percentage at all. 13 of those 22 receptions came on passes that were thrown more than 30 yards in the air past the original line of scrimmage as well.

In total, those 22 deep receptions that Washington had in 2017 produced 882 receiving yards of which 155 was gained after the catch. 8 of those receptions resulted in touchdowns as well. If you do the math, you’ll see that those 22 receptions resulted in an average gain of 40.1 yards. That’s an astounding number.

The biggest thing that jumps out at you when you look at Washington’s reception breakdown from 2017 is the fact that only 4 of his catches happened on the left side of the field, which I deem to be left of the left hash mark. That’s not overly surprising, however, as Washington rarely lined up on the left side of the offensive formation last season, and quite honestly, his entire career at Oklahoma State.

I will have more Washington data for you in a future post but in the meantime, if you would like to see every target Washington had in 2017, below are links to every one of them along with the play-by-play and contextualization for each..