49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk got off to a dismal start last year. This season hasn’t been as slow out of the gates, but he’s yet to post big-time receiving numbers in a game. It feels like that’s inevitable though.
Last year the 2020 first-round pick got off the blocks with nine catches for 96 yards and one touchdown through the first six weeks. He had just one game with more than five targets in that span, while posting three games with two or fewer targets.
This year’s start is stellar compared to that – 17 catches for 237 yards and one touchdown through five games – but it’s been mostly disappointing given how he closed last season.
In 2021 Aiyuk finished the year on a nearly 1,200-yard, seven touchdown pace. He’s on track for just over 800 yards and three scores this season.
Don’t let the numbers fool you though. Aiyuk’s lack of production hasn’t been for a lack of playing well. A handful of issues with San Francisco’s passing game have led all of their pass catchers to start slow statistically.
Last season Aiyuk was battling to get out of head coach Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse. This year Shanahan is lauding the work of the 24-year-old despite the downtick in productivity.
“Yeah, everyone expects numbers based off of guys playing well and it just doesn’t always work that way,” Shanahan said. “B.A.’s been playing really good. I thought he had his best game versus Carolina, his second-best game the week before, but the ball doesn’t always go that way. It didn’t get to Deebo that much, it didn’t get to B.A. that much. I think we ran it 30 times. George got a little bit, but his times will come. When we’ve gone to B.A., he’s done a hell of a job. He had some opportunities last week that we just didn’t get it to him on which would’ve helped his stats and helped perception, but that’s all it is to me is really perception and B.A.’s playing his ass off.”
A good example of what Shanahan is talking about comes via ESPN. Seth Burke posted a chart of the top receivers in the NFL using tracking metrics that don’t require the receiver to get the ball to illustrate their effectiveness. Via ESPN’s Brian Burke:
RTMs are a set of four metrics we’ve named Open Score, Catch Score and YAC Score, plus the overall combination of those three. All four are a per-play rate metric, rather than a counting or cumulative stat.
Each score is on a 0-99 scale, where 50 is roughly league average. The purpose of the metrics is not solely to rank receivers from best to worst; the goal is to describe and explain how a receiver is — or isn’t — able to produce yards.
They assess things like how open a player was whether they got the ball or not, and how many additional yards after catch they either created or lost. Aiyuk is at or near the top of the NFL among WRs in all of those numbers.
Top 10 overall scores from our new Receiver Tracking Metrics in 2022, with individual Open Scores, Catch Scores and YAC Scores for each.
Even among the top guys cool to see the attributes broken out. pic.twitter.com/YTeVuP0QU4
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) October 11, 2022
Put simply: Aiyuk is getting open a lot and creating additional yards with the ball in his hands.
The next step is getting him more targets, which should come as quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo settles in. Against the Panthers he put the ball in the air 30 times – the first time he’s ever done so in a game that lopsided. Aiyuk through five weeks has just 27 targets, which ties him for 65th alongside players like Patriots WR Jakobi Meyers, Bengals RB Joe Mixon, and Texans WR Nico Collins (who is definitely a player I’d heard of before and not someone I learned existed just now).
One thing Shanahan could do is get Aiyuk in the slot more. He’s 12th in the NFL in YAC/reception in the slot per Pro Football Focus, and he’s fifth in the NFL in yards per route run. Utilizing him there and feeding him more than three or four times per game alone would see a significant increase in numbers. From there it’d be up to Garoppolo to find No. 11 when he’s open further down the field – something Aiyuk has made a habit of in 2022.
There are no questions about Aiyuk’s talent, and according to Shanahan there are no questions about how well he’s playing. Those two things together typically mean a big game is bubbling just beneath the surface. All it takes for Aiyuk is the workload to put up numbers. As Garoppolo gets rolling and San Francisco’s offense climbs out of its early-season rut, expect Aiyuk’s box score stats to blow up.
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