Make Sure You Check Out Davante Adams' ASS Before Dreaming Your Team Trades For Him
Brandon Sloter. Getty Images.Get ready to rate that ASS (average separation score).
A new analytic has emerged that finally rewards whoever decided the first four letters of a scholarly quantitative measure term should be "anal". While the most useful stats predict what's ahead, there's also value in looking at the behind. Hinder sight is also 20/20. Shout out to my guy Scott Barrett of my old stomping grounds, Fantasy Points, who let me take a good look into his proprietary ASS so I can search it myself for nuggets.
While Scott uses ASS for fantasy purposes (football, he claims), it appears to have real football applications as the guru's of the NFL are not just sitting on their ASS either:
Simply put - ASS is a stat that tracks how far a receiver separates on routes run - regardless of whether they were targeted. And it considers many factors such as what route was run, coverage the defense played, route break used, and where a receiver lined up on a play.
I learned it even accounts for when defenses completely miss an assignment. This is great so no one gets tricked into falling for an artificially inflated ASS. Sorry Mike Evans - you might have worked your ASS off last night, but you don't get credit for this one:
I found two major surprises in this year's ASS through Week 4 after poking around a little bit…
- Jared Nailor has a surprisingly very nice ASS. He's 7th overall in the NFL vs man coverage (min 75 routes). So far this season it's hard to deny he's been a surprise man ASS Nailor.
- Davante Adams' ASS Stinks!
Real quick on Jared Nailor. You might think defenses would be wise to keep everything in front to avoid falling victim of Jared "the man ASS" Nailor. But doing so actually opens things up for a comeback route. Avoid this at all costs. Probably best to just sit on Palms and hope for the best. But what are we talking about here? This blog is about Davante Adams. He desperately wants out of Vegas after seemingly spending a long weekend there which is the most relatable thing in the entire world. And with several teams in the mix for his services, it's easy to get caught up with his flirty talk.
But wait just a minute before you get too excited. I need to show you a side of Davante Adams where the sun don't shine. Through four weeks of the season in which he's played three games, no wide receiver has a worse ASS than Adams in overall routes run (min 75 routes):
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Yikes. There Davante Adams' Xerox view impression sits at the very bottom. While this is for all routes, he's third worst in the NFL when aligned wide (just below Quentin Johnston) and dead last when in the slot (out of 66 who ran at least 25 slot routes).
But when I think of Davante Adams, I think of slants and go routes. Let's focus there. Of the 37 receivers who ran 40 vertical breaking routes, Adams' ASS is 0.00 with only Allen Lazard lower. He was 6th best in this category in 2023. OK - that sucks. What about slants? He's ranked 161/162 (min 50 routes run) this year behind names such as Chig Okonkwo, Tommy Tremble, and - even more embarrassingly - Mark Andrews.
What in the world is going on here?
I checked in with Scott to see if maybe the reason for this was that no one else on the team is a threat resulting in him getting double teamed. Not the case. "He's checked out bro" - is the quote I was given from the official "ASS charters" of this stat. This tracks as Adams was highly productive in 2023. Even with AOC at the helm with little else to throw to, Adams was sturdy amongst the most robust ASS's:
So is Davante Adams washed or is he going to check back in if traded to another team? That's really the question here. I think he still has it. I for one wouldn't dare challenge what the official ASS charters have concluded. There's just no way a receiver goes from top of the class in 2023 to "just behind Lil' Jordan Humphrey, Jonathan Mingo, and Quentin Johnson" in 2024 without losing multiple limbs. Unless he's faking it. Let's try to finally learn for once in our lives that ASS can sometimes be deceiving.
With that said, I officially give you permission to get excited about Davante Adams' ASS if your team is one of those listed above as a potential suitor. Is this a player who can switch out the mom jeans for some apple bottoms and still give the thrill of a lifetime like he used to?
You bet your ASS.