Martavis Bryant

I'm not sure I've ever posted a sports rant here, but I'm going to now...

Folk who know me know that I'm a die hard Steeler fan.  From the glory days of the 70's through some lean years...  and back into recent success.  And the Steelers sit atop the AFC North today, with a 5-2 record.

But there is drama.  Their wide receiver, Martavis Bryant is increasingly vocal about his dissatisfaction.  He doesn't feel that he is getting sufficient opportunities, and that the Steerlers need to use him more or trade him.

Well, ever the engineer, I decided to see what the numbers say.  Using ESPN as my reference.  To keep it simple, I looked at the stats for the top 5 receivers (by yards) for each of the teams with a 5-2 record or better (KC, LAR, MIN, NE, PHI, PIT). That's 30 receivers total.   Not an inclusive sample, but these are the top guys with the top teams.  And what does that tell us?

1) How often are you thrown to?  I looked at each receivers number of targets vs total pass attempts for the team.  By  that measure, Bryant ranks 18 of 30.  And 3 of 5 for Pittsburgh.  Hmm...  While I can see a player wanting to be higher than mid-pack, it's not like he's at the bottom.  And within the context of the Steelers, he's behind 2 of the best offensive weapons in the game (Antonio Brown and LaVeon Bell).

2)  How about yards per catch?  Well, Martavis ranks 17 out of the 30 players...  again, mid-pack.  But his 13.0 yds/catch isn't so much worse than Antonio's 14.7 yds/catch or JuJu Smith-Schuster's 13.6 yds. per catch.

2) So, why isn't Bryant getting more chances?  I mean, other than the fact that he has two superstars ahead of him...  Well, I think a key here is effectiveness.  How well does he do when the ball is thrown to him? And I think there's two big measures of that:

2a)  First, let's look at Catches/Targets.  And by that measure, Martavis Bryant ranks 29 of the 30 players I looked at.  He has only caught 50% of the balls thrown his way.  By contrast, Antonio Brown has caught 62% of the balls thrown his way and LaVeon Bell has caught 79%.

2b) How about Yards per Target?    Her, Bryant ranks 25th of the 30, at 6.5 yds /target.  Brown is at 9.5 yds/target, JuJu Smith-Schester is at 8.6... 

Really, if you're the Pittsburgh quarterback, who are you going to throw the ball to?  The guy how is going to catch it.  The guy who is going to accomplish the most with it. Seems pretty simple to me.

Last game, Martavis Bryant got the first offensive touch of the game, on a reverse run.  He gained 2 yards.  Subsequently he was thrown to twice.  He gained 2 yards on a red-zone catch, and seemed to give up on a long bomb (perhaps he lost it in the lights?)....

If Martavis wants to see the ball more, he needs to get open, make plays....  And perhaps be a good teammate. 

He's not helping himself.  He's not helping the team.