Are Taller Wide Receivers Better in the NFL?

Through the 90’s and into the 21st Century the ‘taller’ receiver has come into vogue in the NFL. Every year the NFL draft and free agency gives every team the opportunity to better itself with an infusion of talent. Each team has its own needs, but invariably there are several teams that are dying to get a top-flight receiver. So what would ‘experts’ have us believe that every team in the NFL is looking for in a receiver? Height. That’s right, the taller the better. If everything else were equal, hands, speed, intelligence, route-running, which would you choose the guy at 6’3″ or the one at 5’10”?

When you think of the game’s best receivers today who do you think of? Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Javon Walker, Mushin Muhammed: all 6’2″ or taller. What about Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt, Derek Mason: all 6’0″ or smaller. Could an argument be made that Torry Holt is better than Randy Moss or that Marvin Harrison is better than Terrell Owens? Sure, the argument could be made, but most people inherently think of Moss and Owens as the best. And because of that people tend to look for a taller receiver that can follow in their productive footsteps.

It never ceases to amaze me how often people rehash the same keywords to describe a player, I guess there are only so many adverbs to go around. These keywords will always be batted around “tall, long-limbed, well-developed frame, muscular frame, athletic.” As if we morons wouldn’t know that a potential NFL wide receiver is supposed to be athletic. Sheesh. But those words are infectious. I’m constantly hearing fans say, “if only we had a ‘big’ receiver the offense would be so much better.” The talking heads in the media are partially to blame for this line of thinking. So I asked myself: are taller receivers really better?

Here’s the crux of my question: It is obvious that Randy Moss at 6’4″ is better than Laveranues Coles at 5’11”. Not many people would argue that fact. But who is the next 6’4″ guy out there? How about Keyshawn Johnson? And the next 5’11” guy? Chris Chambers. Is Chambers better than Keyshawn? Now we could have a good debate about that one. Yes arguably the best pair of receivers in the game are 6’4″ (Moss) and 6’3″ (Owens) respectively. Who wouldn’t want those two lined up opposite each other, I just wouldn’t want to be on the sidelines with them. But if I’m about to spend millions of dollars on a player do I go for a ‘tall’ receiver, a ‘proto-typical’ receiver, or one a little smaller?

But what is a ‘proto-typical’ receiver anyway? I’ve often wondered what that really means, but that’s a discussion for another time, right now I’ll define it as a receiver who is 6’0″ and 200 lbs., even though I’m not interested in weight in this discussion. I’ll define taller receivers as any height above 6’0″ and smaller receivers as any height below 6’0″. I am also excluding tight-ends from this analysis.

I’ve taken the statistics for all of the wide receivers that were on active rosters in the NFL during the 2004 season and compiled them. I’m no statistician, and had flashback nightmares of my statistics courses in college while doing this, so please forgive me for not following proper statistics etiquette; I’m still twitching a little.

Some General Numbers

There were 260 wide receivers that took part in the 2004 season, 166 of those 260 had one or more receptions. This means that 63.8% of all active wide receivers caught at least one pass in the ’04 season. Those 166 receivers totaled 76,308 yards, good for an average of 293.5 yards per player for the year. Before I compiled these numbers I really wasn’t sure what they would be. Obviously many wide receivers by trade are used only on special teams and never get into the regular offense. Others have no or very few receptions due to injury, David Boston (0 receptions, 0 yards) and Steve Smith (6 receptions, 60 yards) come to mind.

But I’m looking for trends not individual performances so I have to build some of the data to analyze. Sounds fun, huh? Here is a breakdown of the height of receivers.

The height range spans from 5’6″ to 6’6″. There is only one receiver 5’6″, that would be J.J. Moses of the Houston Texans, while there are three that are 6’6″, Clarence Moore of the Baltimore Ravens, Malcolm Floyd of the San Diego Chargers, and Mike Bush of the San Francisco 49ers.

The league consisted of 20.4% at 6’0″ with the next closest height being 6’3″ with 15%. There are more receivers 5’09” (11) than 6’5″ (9) and there are more than twice as many receivers 5’10” (25) than 6’4″ (12). The 6’0″ receivers outnumber the 5’10” receivers by a two-to-one margin and the 6’4″ receivers by a four-to-one margin. Can it really be that less than 10% of receivers are 6’4″ or taller? And that nearly 50% of all receivers are between 5’11’ and 6’1″? That definitely was the case in ’04.

We know that 63.8% of all receivers had at least one reception, now let’s break that down by percentage for each height group.

The 5’8″ height group had the highest reception percentage at 75.0% although they consisted of a small sample size (3 out of 4). The next group is the 6’0″ receivers at 73.6% (39 out of 53), and coming in third the 5’10” guys at 72.0% (18 out of 25).

Reception Productivity

The chart below shows that a team has the best chance of getting production out of receivers from the 5’10”, 6’0″, 6’1″, and 6’3″ groups than they do from any other groups. As noted above the small sample sizes of receivers under 5’10” and over 6’3″ make any judgments from these charts very difficult. As you can see the 5’06” J.J. Moses didn’t represent his height group very well by failing to make a reception, of course he didn’t get much help.

For the season the 166 receivers with at least one reception had a total of 5,410 receptions for an average of 32.6 receptions per receiver. Again that’s nice to know but let’s break it down by height.

We can see that the 6’0″ group has the most receptions, but totals here are misleading. We can assume that since the 6’0″ group has a greater total number of receivers that they will also have more total receptions. So let’s rank this category according to average number of receptions by height.

Leading the way is the 6’1″ group with 38.1 average receptions per receiver, followed by the 5’10” group with 36.4, the 6’3″ group at 35.4, and the 6’0″ group at 35.3 receptions.

The 6’1″ group is clearly more productive catching the ball. They average 1.7 receptions more than the next group (5’10”) and a full 10 receptions more than the median group (5’11”). While there were only 23 6’1″ receivers they averaged the most receptions per player than any other group.

In fact the 6’1″ group almost doubles the average number of receptions as that of the ‘taller’ 6’4″ group (38.1 to 20.6). Does this mean that all 6’1″ guys are better than all the 6’4″ guys? No. But what it does tell me is that as a group the 6’1″ receivers are much more productive than the 6’4″ receivers.

The average league wide is 32.6 receptions for the year. You can see that there are only four groups above the league average, 6’1″ (38.1), 5’10” (36.4), 6’3″ (35.4), and 6’0″ (35.3).

Yardage Productivity

Now that we’ve seen the reception productivity, let’s dive into yards. We know that the 166 receivers produced 76,308 yards total. That’s a lot of yards, more than I realized were caught in one season. But hey, I’m not Nostradamus. Let’s break it down by height again and see if we find anything.

No way can the 5’8″ receivers (388 yards) be more productive than the 6’6″ receivers (342 yards)! Well as shocking as that is it’s true. And maybe
even more amazing is the 5’09” receivers (760 yards) are more productive than both 5’8″ and 6’6″ combined (730 yards). See what happens when you start analyzing stuff, some preconceived notions can be brought down in shambles; at least mine were.

So, I would expect the 6’0″ group of receivers to have the most yardage because they have the most receivers, and that’s what I found. The 19,471 yards the 6’0″ receivers put up is more than double the 6’2″ receiver’s production, and more than nine times what the 6’4″ receivers managed. So I decided to look at some percentages while I was at it for receptions and total yards and found that they were not too different from the totals for both categories.

We know that receivers averaged 32.6 receptions and 293.5 yards for the season. Who wouldn’t want all five of their receivers averaging that? There might not be a 100 catch or 1,000 yard receiver in the bunch but it would be great! Alright, I don’t even buy that since they would barely total more yards (1467) than Muhsin Muhammad (1405) had for Carolina in ’04. But they are good for something.

Here’s the something. And a very interesting something I must say.

The 5’10” and 6’0″ groups of receivers are significantly ahead of the pack when it comes to average yardage gained per receiver per group. The 5’10” group averages seven yards more than the 6’0″ group and 37 yards more than third place which goes to the 6’1″ group. Could it be that the 5’10” group (374 yards per receiver) averages 200 yards more per receiver than the 6’4″ (173 yards per receiver) group? It is so. I don’t know about you but that was a bit shocking to me. Yes, I know that Randy Moss was injured for a good portion of the season, but even if he were healthy and had a typical Randy season it would only change these numbers a little. From 173 to 226, still almost 150 yards less.

Now let’s take a peek at some benchmark numbers. The numbers most people like to throw out when talking about production, 1,000 yards receiving and ten touchdowns.

There were nine receivers in the 6’0″ group that produces more than 1,000 yards, or 38% of the all 1,000 yard receivers. The next most productive groups are the 6’3″ receivers who had five, for 21%, and the 6’1″ receivers who had four for 17%. After these groups the production drops significantly.

Of the receivers who caught ten or more touchdowns the lead goes to the 6’0″ group with three, and the 6’3″ group with two. All other groups had either one or none.

I know that many of you are saying you can’t lump everyone in together to get an accurate picture of what’s going on here, well, to a degree I agree. So I determined the Median and Mean for the list and coincidentally they both came out to be 13.8. 13.8 what you may be asking? 13.8 yards per reception. This time I will only count receivers that have an average yards per reception of 13.8 or higher. Looking at the chart we can see that there is a little difference from the total receptions chart. The 6’0″ group leads the way followed by the 6’3″ group the same as before. But with the adjusted group the 6’2″ group jumps into the number three spot followed closely by the 6’1″ group. So if you’re looking for a receiver that has a higher average yards-per-catch you should look for a receiver 6’0″ or taller.

I’ll even go one step further and look at only receivers that have an average yards per reception of 13.8 but also have a minimum of 20 receptions for the season. Why 20 you ask? It just sounds like a nice round number. Actually I decided to use 20 because if a receiver has 20 receptions for the season then they have averaged a bit more than 1 reception per game. To me 20 receptions means the receiver is at least a viable option and has been involved in the offense. This isn’t a precise measure I understand but I have to put the line somewhere. The 20 reception line means that Kelly Campbell with 19 receptions doesn’t make the list and Freddie Mitchell with 22 receptions does, and Terry Glenn with 24 receptions makes it but Josh Reed with 16 doesn’t.

There are some differences here but not much. The 6’0″ receivers lead the way, followed by the 6’3″, 6’2″, 6’1″, and 5’10” groups. I don’t know about you but I’m starting to see a pattern here, or maybe it’s just the Cheetos talking. To make sure I’m not seeing things I put all of these stats into a ranking matrix. I don’t know what a ranking matrix really is but it sounds official.

The average height of an NFL receiver is 6’1″ but the most productive height group in virtually every category are the receivers that stand 6’0″. For all of the talk about taller receivers these numbers just go to show that the ‘proto-typical’ wide receiver is really the most productive. I guess that’s why they are ‘proto-typical’ huh? Will wonders never cease?

Ok, ok, I know averages aren’t always the best way to look at these things. Let me poke some holes in my own thoughts here. Injuries are a major part of life in the NFL. How do you factor in the loss of David Boston in Miami whom they expected to put up big numbers? Or Steve Smith’s loss in Carolina after putting up huge numbers the year before? Can’t say for sure other than those injuries should be taken care of over time. What I mean by that is… Well injuries happen every year, but usually a player doesn’t have year after year after year of major injury, or if he does he’s not going to be in league very long. So time will help smooth out those peaks and valleys. This means to get a truly accurate view I need to look at more years and factor those all together.

For now I think that the best bet for a productive receiver in the NFL height-wise is to look at receivers 6’0″ or 6’1″. The production that outliers like 5’9″ or 6’4″ give will be few and far between. These numbers may only mean something to me, but if you’re a fantasy football addict and need some depth on your roster, go for the median. And if you work in the personnel department for an NFL team you probably already knew this.