Bengals, Chiefs Receivers Dominate NFL

NFL Week 7 – It was a good week for the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs offenses. The Bengals scored touchdowns on each of their first four drives, coasting to a 35-17 win over the Atlanta Falcons; the Chiefs were even better, scoring six touchdowns in their first eight drives in a 44-23 curb-stomping of the 49ers, one of the best offensive games we have ever measured. And while quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow deserve a lot of glory, finishing first and second in our rankings this week, it’s their receivers—Kansas City’s in particular—who were truly dominant.

Cincinnati’s Tyler Boyd got off to a hot start; not even 30 minutes into the game, he had already caught each of his five targets for 105 yards. All five of those catches picked up first downs, including a 60-yard scoring strike. He finished with eight catches in nine targets for 155 yards. Six of those catches moved the sticks, and the other two—a 4-yard gain on second-and-5 and a 9-yard gain on first-and-10—both counted as successful plays. Teammate Ja’Marr Chase also enjoyed a good afternoon, and in one stretch over the first and second quarters he caught five straight targets for 99 yards; all five of those catches picked up first downs, including touchdowns of 32 and 41 yards. He only had one first down after that, and no gain of more than 8 yards, but still finished with eight catches in 11 targets for 130 yards and those two scores.

Later that afternoon, JuJu Smith-Schuster was a dominant force against San Francisco. He failed to catch his first target of the day, but caught all seven after that for a total of 124 yards. Six of those catches picked up first downs, including a trio of third-down conversions, the longest a 45-yard touchdown. His other catch was a 14-yard gain on second-and-20. Smith-Schuster’s teammate Marquez Valdes-Scantling wasn’t nearly so busy, seeing only four targets all day, but he turned those targets into three receptions: a 40-yard gain on first-and-10, a 14-yard gain on second-and-7, and a 57-yard gain on third-and-11. Mecole Hardman, meanwhile, was quietly efficient as a receiver, catching each of his four targets and scoring a touchdown but gaining only 32 yards. On the ground, however, he was a terror, turning his two carries into 3- and 25-yard touchdowns.

If you scroll to the bottom of this article, in the table listing “Five Best Wide Receivers and Tight Ends by DYAR,” you’ll find Cincinnati’s Boyd and Chase in first and fourth place, respectively, while Kansas City’s Smith-Schuster, Hardman, and Valdes-Scantling finished second, third, and fifth. (This is being written before Monday Night Football, so here’s hoping that we don’t get four touchdowns out of Darnell Mooney or Jakobi Meyers in the Bears-Patriots game and ruining our narrative.) (UPDATE: Woo-hoo!) It’s the first time this year that two receivers from the same team have made the top five; the last time it happened was in Week 18 of the regular season last year, when San Francisco’s Deebo Samuel finished first and his teammate Jauan Jennings finished fifth after combining for 234 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns as the 49ers upset the Rams to clinch a playoff berth.

It’s not that uncommon for the top five to feature two receivers from the same team; it usually happens six or seven times a year, or about once every two or three weeks. What makes this special is that two teams did in the same week. We went back through Quick Reads (and by “we” I mean FO editor-in-chief Aaron Schatz, whose research was a huge help in writing this article) every week back to 2007, 15 full NFL seasons, as well as a few dominant quarterback performances from earlier years. Only once did we find a prior occasion when two teams each put two players in the top five, and that was a full decade ago. In Week 2 of 2012, Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz combined for 21 catches for 378 yards and two touchdowns in the Giants’ 41-34 win over Tampa Bay and finished first and fifth in Quick Reads. That same day, San Diego’s Dante Rosario and Malcom Floyd combined for 10 catches for 157 yards and three touchdowns in the Chargers’ 38-10 win over Tennessee, finishing in second and fourth place. (If we had run a list of the top 10 most valuable receivers, there actually would have been a third pair of teammates listed that week—Carolina’s Brandon LaFell and Steve Smith finished in seventh and eighth place after catching nine balls for 194 yards in the Panthers’ 35-27 win over New Orleans.)

We almost saw this happen twice in 2016. In Week 1 of that year, New Orleans’ Willie Snead and Brandin Cooks finished first and fifth after catching 15 total passes for 315 yards and three touchdowns in the Saints’ 35-34 loss to the Raiders. Cincinnati’s A.J. Green finished second after catching a dozen balls for 180 yards and a score in a 23-22 win over the Jets; his teammate Brandon LaFell (him again!) of the Bengals was in sixth with four catches for 91 yards. Then, in Week 9, Seattle’s Jimmy Graham and Doug Baldwin ranked second and fourth after catching 14 passes (in 14 targets!) for 192 yards and two touchdowns in Seattle’s 31-25 win over Buffalo, while Atlanta’s Julio Jones ranked fifth after catching eight passes for 111 yards and a touchdown in a 43-28 win over Tampa Bay. Jones’ teammate Taylor Gabriel (five catches in five targets for 52 yards) finished in sixth place.

Kansas City, however, appears to be the first team ever to put three receivers in the top five in the same week. The closest anyone has come before this was the New England Patriots in 2013. In Week 9 of that year, Danny Amendola finished in fourth place with Aaron Dobson in fifth after combining for nine catches for 252 yards and three touchdowns in a 55-31 win over Pittsburgh, with Rob Gronkowski (9-143-1) just behind them in sixth place.

Coming into the season, the biggest question facing Kansas City was “who is going to replace Tyreek Hill?” For one week, at least, the answer was “everyone.”