StaTuesday: Does losing top WR really hurt Packers that much?
The Packers will be without Jordy Nelson during their 2015 campaign. Green Bay's No. 1 wide receiver tore the ACL in his right knee in Sunday's preseason loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers and will miss the remainder of the season.
It's a huge blow, no doubt. Nelson was seventh in the league in receptions last year (98), fourth in yards (1,519) and tied for second in touchdowns (13). He was a Pro Bowler and a second-team All-Pro selection in 2014. He was undisputedly one of the elite receivers in the NFL.
But now that the bleak reports have been confirmed and the grim news processed, attention turns to who is left at the position and what the offense can do now.
Sure, there is dynamic Randall Cobb, who also had a Pro Bowl season in 2014 with 91 receptions for 1,287 yards and 12 touchdowns. And there is promising Davante Adams, last year's second-round pick who had seven catches for 117 yards and a score in the Packers' Divisional Round playoff win over the Dallas Cowboys. And there is even Ty Montgomery, a third-round rookie with lots of potential who's been turning heads in training camp.
But there's not much else. Perhaps speedy Jeff Janis makes the team, or scrappy Myles White, or one of the other training-camp wideouts. Perhaps the Packers will sign a veteran.
The hard truth is they have a lot of production to replace. Nelson led the team in receptions, yards and touchdowns in each of the last two years, as well as in 2011.
Still, other teams have lost their top wide receivers before (the Carolina Panthers are in the same boat as the Packers right now after Kelvin Benjamin tore his ACL last week). Green Bay isn't the first squad that's had to play without its top pass-catcher. In 2014, the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles each started the regular season without their leading receiver from the year before -- Josh Gordon and DeSean Jackson, respectively. Brandon Marshall has left multiple teams behind to fill his stat lines.
That got us to thinking, what typically happens to a team, specifically a passing offense and its receivers, when the top dog is no longer there to haul in throws. Since 2005, there have been 42 occasions when a team's No. 1 receiver (in terms of yards) did not return to play for them the next season, whether because of injury, trade, release, retirement, etc. Many of those players, however, weren't as talented or as valuable as Nelson is to the Packers, especially the band of 700- and 800-yard guys that "led" teams like the Bears, Jaguars and Rams in receiving during some of their least offensively competent years.
So for our purposes, we focused solely on players that were not only their team's leading wide receivers, but also would have been considered among the best in the league at the time. We used 1,000 yards as the benchmark for comparing players to Nelson in an analysis of how teams performed in the year they had a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver and the following year when they no longer had that player.
In the last 10 years, there have been 11 times that a team has started a regular season without its top target, who had at least 1,000 receiving yards, from the year before. Only one of those players had more receiving yards than Nelson did last year (Gordon for the Browns in 2012) and none had as many touchdowns as the Packers star, though a few caught more passes than he did in 2014.
So, how did losing an elite receiver affect a team and its offense? Here's a chart and below are some takeaways.
| Team | Year | Player | Rec. | Yards | TDs | Team rec. yds | Rec. yds next yr | Diff. | Team TDs | TDs next yr | Dif. | Rec. offense rank | Rank next yr | Dif. | Record | Record next yr | Dif. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browns | 2013 | Gordon | 87 | 1,646 | 9 | 4,372 | 3,678 | -694 | 26 | 12 | -14 | 9 | 22 | -13 | 4 - 12 | 7 - 9 | 3 |
| Packers | 2014 | Nelson | 98 | 1,519 | 13 | 4,447 | N/A | N/A | 38 | N/A | N/A | 9 | N/A | N/A | 12 - 4 | N/A | N/A |
| Patriots | 2012 | Welker | 118 | 1,354 | 6 | 4,844 | 4,343 | -501 | 34 | 25 | -9 | 4 | 10 | -6 | 12 - 4 | 12 - 4 | 0 |
| Eagles | 2013 | Jackson | 82 | 1,332 | 9 | 4,406 | 4,581 | 175 | 32 | 27 | -5 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 10 - 6 | 10 - 6 | 0 |
| Steelers | 2009 | Holmes | 79 | 1,248 | 5 | 4,496 | 3,890 | -606 | 28 | 22 | -6 | 5 | 14 | -9 | 9 - 7 | 12 - 4 | 3 |
| Dolphins | 2011 | Marshall | 81 | 1,214 | 6 | 3,425 | 3,425 | 0 | 20 | 13 | -7 | 23 | 26 | -3 | 6 - 10 | 7 - 9 | 1 |
| Broncos | 2009 | Marshall | 101 | 1,120 | 10 | 3,825 | 4,307 | 482 | 21 | 25 | 4 | 13 | 6 | 7 | 8 - 8 | 4 - 12 | -4 |
| Chargers | 2011 | Jackson | 60 | 1,106 | 9 | 4,624 | 3,606 | -1018 | 27 | 26 | -1 | 6 | 22 | -16 | 8 - 8 | 7 - 9 | -1 |
| Chiefs | 2008 | Gonzalez | 96 | 1,058 | 10 | 3,358 | 3,183 | -175 | 23 | 18 | -5 | 18 | 23 | -5 | 2 - 14 | 4 - 12 | 2 |
| Cowboys | 2008 | Owens | 69 | 1,052 | 10 | 3,988 | 4,483 | 495 | 29 | 26 | -3 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 9 - 7 | 11 - 5 | 2 |
| Jaguars | 2005 | Smith | 70 | 1,023 | 6 | 3,352 | 3,060 | -292 | 21 | 17 | -4 | 21 | 24 | -3 | 12 - 4 | 8 - 8 | -4 |
| Browns | 2005 | Bryant | 69 | 1,009 | 4 | 3,323 | 3,247 | -76 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 23 | 20 | 3 | 6 - 10 | 4 - 12 | -2 |
As we can see, seven of the 11 teams had fewer receiving yards the year after they lost their leading pass-catcher (and one had exactly the same). On average, though, those teams only lost a little more than 200 total receiving yards overall between the two seasons, which is just 12.5 per game. And while nine of the 11 teams had fewer receiving touchdowns the following season (again, one had the same), the difference was only 4.5 scores, or .28 touchdowns per game.
And, most important, while a couple of teams lost four more games than they had in the previous season with the top-shelf receiver, the overall net difference in wins and losses among all 11 was zero games.
So, if you trust in Aaron Rodgers, and you believe in Cobb and Adams, and you understand these statistics to show that a team losing an elite, 1,000-yard receiver does not seem to dramatically affect its overall performance in the passing game or the standings . . . well, then fear not, Packers fans. Even without Jordy, it could be a Super season after all.
Follow James Carlton on Twitter
