Using A.S.S. for 2024 Fantasy Football

Average Separation Score (A.S.S.) is Fantasy Points Data’s latest triumph, featuring hand-charted separation grades for every single player on every single route. Finally, we have a quantifiable, film-based evaluation of how well each player executed on their routes in 2024, supplying a data point entirely free from the influence of QB play and target competition. Let’s use it to identify undervalued sleepers for your 2024 fantasy football drafts.

Of course, the best part about ASS is that it is in the Fantasy Points Data Suite, the most powerful football analytics tool on the market that allows you to filter for anything you can think of, such as ASS only on horizontally-breaking routes, or only in the first half of the season before a player got injured, or even how often QBs pass up open receivers after their first read, a stat I’ll explore below.

It’s also easy to compare a player’s ASS to the myriad of other stats available — for example, how well did getting open translate into actual targets for each player? Let’s chart ASS against targets per route run (TPRR) to find out.

Players above the line ultimately earned relatively fewer targets per route than their ability to get open would imply. If these players become sufficiently involved in their offenses, or if the ability of their QB to recognize open receivers improves, this visualization would suggest they have more upside than their recent production has shown.

Players below the line did not necessarily get “lucky” — earning targets is a skill, and plenty of players can do so consistently without being elite separators. Deebo Samuel might surprise on this chart, but it makes sense to me — Samuel isn’t a great separator, but he’s one of the best YAC creators in the league. Of course, you’d want to get him the ball more than separation implies.

But especially after you get past the elite target-earners and alpha X receivers, some players below the line may owe more of their production to the design of their offense, and to the frequency of their route being on the QB’s first or designed read. Kadarius Toney and DeVante Parker are excellent examples of this.

For this reason, I’d focus mostly on the players far above the line, especially in the top-right quadrant. These WRs are relatively adept target earners, but even better at executing on their routes than their raw target volume would have you know — a perfect talent pool from which to spot breakout players. Let’s explore some of these ASS outliers with changing situational factors in 2024 that could help them realize their potential.

Diontae Johnson, WR, Carolina Panthers

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.244 (2nd-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR40, 2024 ADP: WR37

Johnson is arguably the league’s best separator, ranking 2nd in ASS, 1st in Separation Win Rate, and owning the 2nd-highest team share of separation wins of any WR last year. Despite consistently getting open, Johnson was just as consistently thrown uncatchable passes from Kenny Pickett.

But it goes even further; using the Fantasy Points Data Suite’s play-level data, I’ve created a new stat that measures how often a QB ignores an open receiver: Ignored Separation Rate. Pickett tops the list of QBs who most often threw to a less open receiver after progressing past his first read — when it becomes more fair to judge a QB for not seeing an open man elsewhere on the field.

Let me know what you think of this stat. If you like it, maybe I can get it added to the Data Suite.

While there are some great real-life QBs like Josh Allen who also rank poorly in this stat, it is descriptive of his style of play — Allen is frequently criticized for freestyling and launching the ball downfield with reckless abandon. He can get away with it because of his otherworldly arm talent and athleticism, but Kenny Pickett, Zach Wilson, and Gardner Minshew see much different outcomes.

Most of the quarterbacks ranking well in this stat are great decision-makers or “game managers” in the complimentary sense. Patrick Mahomes, Brock Purdy, and Tua Tagovailoa will find the open receiver, and that has translated positively to their weapons' fantasy output.

Returning to Johnson, the best separator in the league now moves from the worst QB at recognizing open receivers to Bryce Young, who ranked much closer to average. Add that to the lack of target competition and HC Dave Canales’ recent heater of extracting above-average play out of questionable QB talents, along with Johnson’s 17.3 FPG in 2021 (the last time he had competent QB play), and you’ve got a recipe for a significant bounce-back campaign.

Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.213 (6th-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR33, 2024 ADP: WR8

The ADP market is quite confident Wilson’s production will dramatically improve with Aaron Rodgers throwing him the ball in 2024, and for good reason: Wilson’s ASS ranked 6th-best among all WRs last year. He also found near-equal success against both man and zone coverage, ranking top-5 and top-12 in each category (as measured by ASS).

Win Share is yet another new stat built from ASS, measuring the share of each team’s total separation wins a WR was responsible for in their active games.

Wilson created a whopping 44.3% of separation wins by all Jets receivers last year, the most in the league. That fact remains relevant as the Jets have only added a 29-year-old Mike Williams coming off an ACL tear — and ranked 99th out of 139 qualifying WRs by ASS in 2022 — and Malachi Corley, a Day 2 rookie for whom Brett Whitefield highlighted concerns that Corley had not run anything close to an NFL route tree in college. Aaron Rodgers does not have alternative weapons approaching anywhere near Wilson’s separation ability.

Speaking of QBs, you probably didn’t need confirmation that Zach Wilson has held Garrett Wilson back, but his 32.1% Ignored Separation Rate (3rd-worst) does a great job of explaining why Wilson’s elite separation abilities have yet to turn into fantasy points. That finally changes this year, making Wilson a solid value around the 1/2 turn.

Josh Palmer, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.154 (23rd-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR45, 2024 ADP: WR67

Moving to a less obviously-dominant player, Palmer’s separation abilities going above and beyond his TPRR last year demands attention given the departures of both Keenan Allen (one of only 23 WRs in the league with a better ASS than Palmer last year) and Mike Williams. It is easier to command targets at a high rate against lesser target competition, exactly what Palmer now has.

In seven games after Williams went out for the season, Palmer averaged an impressive 2.19 yards per route run (would have ranked 24th) and 71.1 receiving YPG (16th). With Justin Herbert missing time in training camp crucial to developing chemistry with new receivers like Ladd McConkey (who has injury issues of his own), the familiar Palmer is a near-lock to beat his ADP and could showcase surprising upside.

Josh Downs, WR, Indianapolis Colts

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.145 (25th-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR52, 2024 ADP: WR72

Downs’ name stuck out to me for two reasons:

1). He beat teammate Michael Pittman in ASS, despite Pittman ranking top-10 in targets and TPRR, both significantly above Downs.

2). His former quarterback, Gardner Minshew, had one of the top four worst Ignored Separation Rates, which likely contributed to the above issue.

With Anthony Richardson healthy and set to start in 2024, Downs getting open could be noticed more often, setting him up for more targets and production. Downs fits the mold of a Year 2 breakout WR and will be on the field plenty even if he remains a pure slot (the Colts dropped back with 3+ WRs on the field 80.7% of the time last year, a top-5 rate).

Downs also had a 23% TPRR (just barely behind Pittman at 25%) through Week 8 before getting injured, while besting him in fantasy points per route with each on the field and YPRR as well. His ADP being outside the top-50 WRs is completely inexplicable — even with the injury — making him a great cheap FLEX play with season-long upside for more available in the double-digit rounds.

Demarcus Robinson, WR, Los Angeles Rams

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.167 (18th-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR73, 2024 ADP: Undrafted

Over his final five full games of the season, Robinson averaged 15.6 FPG (~WR16) on a 19.0% target share and 2.10 YPRR (~WR29). He ran an 80% route share over that stretch because the Rams led the NFL (by far) in rate of 11-personnel on their dropbacks, meaning three WRs on this team can be fantasy-relevant.

Robinson is one of the most significant glaring outliers when comparing ASS to TPRR, a result to be expected from a good separator playing alongside Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua. But the real intrigue comes when one remembers Kupp has missed 13 games over the past two seasons, and that Nacua has already sustained a minor knee injury in training camp. Robinson is one of the best standalone WR values in best-ball leagues and one of the best contingency plays at the position even in managed leagues, a surefire waiver wire gem should either of his teammates miss time.

Andrei Iosivas, WR, Cincinnati Bengals

2023 Average Separation Score: 0.137 (30th-best), 2023 FPG Rank: WR120, 2024 ADP: Undrafted

Fantasy football is about finding the handful of outlier players who determine the outcomes of leagues each year. Much of the usefulness of a stat should be evaluated by how good it is at spotting these outliers, who experience a sudden breakout after little to no production the season prior.

Since it has no reliance on actual production outcomes, ASS could be even better positioned than a stat like YPRR to pick out an unheralded player with little previous playing time who could rise to relevance with a change in his situation. With the information available in early August, no player may fit that description better than Bengals WR Andrei Iosivas.

After the departure of Tyler Boyd, it was broadly assumed that third-round pick Jermaine Burton has the inside track to the Bengals’ WR3 job, a should-be valuable role on a team that dropped back with 3 or more receivers on the field at the third-highest rate last year. But even before Burton began to miss valuable practice time, the entire Bengals beat and even many of the team’s decision-makers had joined the loudest drumbeat of the 2024 offseason, as it appears their slot problem has already been solved.

Whether you take it from his WR coach, his star QB, or the Bengals’ GM, everyone around Iosivas is heaping incredibly unusual praise onto a former Round 6 draft pick who played only two games above a 70% snap share during his rookie season — that in itself makes this noteworthy. During those games, he averaged 14.1 FPG, which would have ranked as the WR24 over the full season last year.

I’d normally be uncomfortable extrapolating from such a small production sample, but thanks to ASS, we know that Iosivas was one of the top-30 WRs in the league last year at creating separation, ranking narrowly behind teammate Tee Higgins and above Ja’Marr Chase. That’s not to say Iosivas will challenge either of those two in terms of targets or fantasy production in 2024, but all of the evidence from when he’s been on an NFL field tells us his skills are on par with that of a very good starting WR in this league. For a young player entering a Year 2 breakout window who will go undrafted in absolutely every home league, that’s enough for me to want him on as many rosters as possible, as bench space allows.