Here at Football Guys, I’ll use my methodology for evaluating wide receivers, Reception Perception, in order to look for clues about a wide receiver’s fantasy value. We’ll examine players to buy or sell, and check in on the progress of young dynasty assets. In this edition, we’ll examine some of the limited data we have on Stedman Bailey.
As the season winds down, its not uncommon to see young players on below-average teams earn more playing time. Sometimes the clubs are just spinning their wheels to close out the year, or explore their youthful depth. On other occasions, these players are genuinely emerging and preparing for a push towards next season. It appears that St. Louis Rams’ second year receiver, Stedman Bailey, falls into the latter category.
Earlier this season, Reception Perception took a look at the surprising positive performance of Brian Quick. Unfortunately, we were never able to observe Quick’s progression after those first three weeks—he suffered a season-ending injury during St. Louis’ Week 7 loss. Quick was soaking up most of the targets amongst Rams wide receivers. In his absence, the pendulum has swung to multiple different players.
Kenny Britt has been a steady attribute in the passing game, but now Stedman Bailey appears to be getting some run. Bailey has 12 catches, 189 yards and a touchdown over the last two games. The second year receiver has plenty of fans out there; he’s well known as Studman Bailey on Twitter. Let’s take a look at Bailey’s most recent game, through the lens of Reception Perception, and see if any conclusions surface.
Alignment Data
There is a more than fair amount of diversity in Stedman Bailey’s alignment data. He only played 31 snaps in the Rams’ blowout win over the Raiders, but he lined up in multiple different positions.
Bailey is not the biggest, or strongest player on the field. As such, you would not imagine him being someone who could comes free from physical play. However, Bailey has not trouble with breaking into his routes off the line of scrimmage, or coming open early in routes. It all starts with aligning off the line of scrimmage, where he took 74.2% of his Week 13 snaps. Bailey has tremendous foot speed, and takes excellent angles in his release techniques. That allows him to gain optimal positioning early in his routes. Providing him the extra space allows Bailey to thrive in deploying advanced craftsman techniques most young players fail to utilize effectively.
While Bailey does line up as a “flanker” or z-receiver with some frequency, he is a more than capable slot receiver. In fact, his quickness and plus route running ability makes him a natural fit inside. However, he has the speed, and ball skills to work outside, as well. Frankly, there is nothing Stedman Bailey cannot do at a passable rate or better.
Route Analysis and Success Rate Versus Coverage Data
When using Reception Perception to analyze a receiver, total number of routes run is one of the most important figures. It’s the baseline numbers the rest of the study is built from. In Week 13, the Rams wiped the floor with the Raiders. Stedman Bailey amassed all of his basic stats during the first quarter onslaught. As such, he only ran 16 routes during the game with St. Louis taking their foot off the gas later in the game. It’s not damning, but that is a small sample size even for a single game.
Regardless of the total amount of routes, Bailey’s Week 13 Route Percentage Chart is very balanced. He ran every pattern at least once, excluding outs and digs. Yet, there was not anything on Bailey’s game film that indicated he could not run them. He has great foot frequency and runs crisp, sharp breaking routes. In fact, there is not a route on the tree Bailey does not perform well on. He is fluid enough to gain separation at the stem of posts, has great feel for YAC on screens, and has the deadly cuts to leave corner’s in the dust on curls and comebacks.
Route running is definitely a strength of Bailey’s game. He has plenty of tools in the arsenal, and ran almost every pattern last week. The Rams receiver also beat his man on the majority of those routes:
(SRVC denotes success rate versus coverage for each route. PTS indicates how many PPR fantasy points a receiver earned on each particular route)
The SRVC scores match up with the basic stats; Stedman Bailey torched the Raiders. He posted a 100% SRVC score on seven of the nine types of routes he ran in Week 13. Bailey was able to work open on deep routes with speed, and used technical savvy to shake free of defenders in the short areas. The PTS measurements show Bailey was able to produce on a number of different patterns. He made plays deep (4.4 PTS on posts), and down the sideline (2.6 PTS on comebacks). His 6.2 PTS recorded on screen passes were the highest total on the Week 13 chart. On screens, Bailey shows off his awareness to locate lanes to run through, and athleticism to dart through those. This helps ease any false concerns about bailey being a limited possession receiver. He can make serious plays.
The young receiver showed a propensity for making plays against both brands of coverage. Bailey beat man and zone looks with the exact same frequency:
Fantasy owners should be encouraged that Bailey shows the ability to beat multiple brands of coverage schemes.
Complete, balanced; these are words that continue to follow Bailey’s Reception Perception data. He was not perfect—Bailey had trouble separating from coverage on his corner routes, and did not always break in the right hole of a zone on curls. Yet, for a second year receiver, with limited snap experience, this is quite encouraging.
Target Data
The question many will ask is: why doesn’t Stedman Bailey play more snaps? He looks like the Rams best receiver right now, but is not on the field as a featured player. The answer lies in the structure of the St. Louis’ offensive design.
The Rams, under Brian Schottenheimer, are a very package based passing offense. Similar personal groupings come on and off the field together on a consistent basis. It makes things rather predictable for the defense, but that is the way Schottenheimer runs his show. There are a few examples. One package fields Cory Harkey, Jared Cook and Lance Kendricks on the field together, but spread away from the line. Another has Kenny Britt and Tavon Austin as the two isolated outside receivers. Its more than fair to question the utilitiy of such alignments.
Stedman Bailey has his packages as well, sometimes as a flanker, other times as a slot player. It would be a shift from Brian Schottenheimer’s current coaching and player deployment philosophy for Stedman Bailey to suddenly see his snaps go up—unless Bailey usurped Kenny Britt, which is possible. Even if he continues to play less than 60% of his team’s snaps, fantasy owners need not worry about Bailey’s productions:
The snap count is misleading. When Bailey, and his assigned package, is on the field he gets his targets. He was targeted on 37.5% of his routes in the Week 13 game. It does not matter if a player is on the field at a sub-optimal rate, if the ball flows their way fairly regularly when they get their chances. That appears to be the case for Bailey in this packaged based passing offense.
Sometimes a featured player has nothing to do with snap count, but rather a quarterback’s attention. When number 12 is beating cornerbacks, with a variety of methods, Shaun Hill will be looking his way. With an 83.3% target to catch converstion rate, we can be confident he is capble of converting his chances into production.
Going Forward
In light of Brian Quick’s solid Reception Perception work early in the season, and Bailey’s excellent numbers, it looks like the Rams have the makings of a formidable receiving corps. Bailey and Quick could prove to be a dangerous, and very young set of starting pass catchers for St. Louis. The Rams have long been starved for players such as these.
Best of all, Quick and Bailey are very different. Quick is the big, athletic wideout who has finally harnessed his ability to out-physical the competition. Bailey is the well-rounded craftsman, who offers more than enough playmaking ability to scare defenses. They win in complimentary ways, and could be a real asset to whoever the Rams look to next season to fix the quarterback position. 2015 could be the start of an intriguing era of St. Louis wide receivers.
For fantasy owners, all this positivity can only be a good thing. Bailey, in particular, makes a fine buy candidate in dynasty leagues, and a potential sleeper in next year’s drafts. We’ve seen Odell Beckham Jr build off a positive Reception Perception study, and Stedman Bailey can be a very similar player. He might be a poor man’s version, but if Beckham is Antonio Brown-plus, that is not so bad at all.
Stedman Bailey looks to be gaining ground in the Rams’ passing game, and in fantasy circles. Make sure you track his progress the rest of the season, and how St. Louis improves its offense in the offseason. Bailey could be one of the gems the real sharks are after in next season’s fantasy leagues.