Smashing the lies being told about Noah Fant through analytics

The Denver Broncos picked Noah Fant for his ability to be a mismatch in the passing game. What does the tape say about his abilities after the catch?

Box score scouting is fun. It’s become even more fun thanks to our friends at Pro Football Focus.

This is not a slight to PFF or the work they do there, but I do want to highlight ways things are missed, even with their in-depth analytics and the way they break things down from a borderline baseball-like statistical perspective.

One issue I have taken in the 2019 NFL Draft season with PFF — even before he was drafted by the Broncos (for all the haters) — is their recent analysis of Noah Fant’s game.

PFF, within the last month, made Fant seem like a drops machine who can’t make plays after the catch and who is a hack in contested catch situations.

No fewer than three of their analysts tweeted out these stats, but I’m going to use the tweet from my pal Austin Gayle because he’s a former FanSided brother and you should follow him.

Austin, if you’re reading this, you’re the man, but I’m going to rip these numbers to shreds.

I went back and watched just about every reception of Noah Fant’s last two years at Iowa to discover exactly why these numbers exist, because I can’t argue that they exist.

The first number I want to address? The drops.

Drops?

Noah Fant had 78 receptions at Iowa. According to Pro Football Focus — and depending on which analyst you ask — Fant had 92 “catchable” targets in his collegiate career.

Also according to PFF, he had 13 or 14 drops (again, depending on who you ask). That means that according to their data, of the 13 or 14 passes thrown Fant’s way that were catchable, 100 percent were dropped passes.

Not big hits jarring the ball loose. Not great plays by the defensive back. Flat out drops.

I don’t agree with this take.

Look at this play here against Iowa State. This is a catchable ball, but is it a drop? This is where statistical data and analysis become too objective. It’s not black and white like a foul ball in baseball. For a foul ball to happen, the ball has to hit the bat. If the ball hits the bat and it doesn’t go in play, it’s a foul ball.

Pretty simple, right? A ‘catchable’ pass in football is far too objective to say, and if PFF considers this pass among Fant’s 14 ‘drops’ I have a problem with that. This is not a dropped pass.

There were another couple of ‘catchable’ passes I charted that were not dropped. How about this one? Is this pass technically ‘catchable’? I would say so. If Fant lays out, he might catch it. If there’s any chance a player ‘might’ catch something you can objectively say it’s ‘catchable’. Is that a drop? No.

These plays cause me some concern over what PFF is objectively considering a drop.

I saw Fant drop a quick out against North Texas, what would have been a 3 or 4 yard gain, where the ball hit his hands and fell to the ground with no defender causing it.

I saw another play where Fant went to make a catch between two defenders, he is in the process of making a catch, and then he’s absolutely lit up on a borderline targeting penalty before the ball falls to the ground.

Is that a drop? If so, it’s the kind of drop I’d be okay with.

I’m not ‘here’ for the takes on Noah Fant dropping passes and it being an issue moving forward. For many of you who have been to this site in the past or know me on Twitter, I’m a big Iowa Hawkeyes fan (I know, I know — pray for me). I never, and I can’t stress that enough, never thought Fant had an issue with dropped passes watching all of his games in real time.

It was nothing like the issues Demaryius Thomas has been having, where you see something every week.

Fant after the catch

Now to the meat of this post.

One thing I had to see for myself watching Fant back was how good (or not) he is after the catch. PFF highlighted the fact that he has very few missed tackles per reception, so I wanted to get an idea of why.

After studying the tape, I think it’s very clear that while Fant is exceptionally fast and athletic, he’s not overly elusive in space. I mean, he’s no Saquan Barkley. He also doesn’t ‘Gronk’ guys too often, meaning he doesn’t just run over and through people to create extra yardage.

I’m not saying Fant doesn’t have the ability to create after the catch, either. Feast your eyes…

Noah Fant embarrassed Purdue.

Sorry, Nebraska.

RIP North Texas:

These are just a few examples of chunk plays where Fant creates after the catch using his elite straight-line speed.

It’s translatable, folks.

I will say, having the context of PFF’s data, I did notice more on tape that Fant doesn’t go out of his way to reverse field and create extra yardage, or plow through defenders and churn his legs. He’s not sliding down every time he gets the ball, but he could get better in this area, for sure.

With that said, the examples above are an indicator of what he’s capable of after the catch, and perhaps there’s room for him to be utilized even more in that regard.

He was used as a blocker at Iowa, of course, but Fant would stay in to pass protect at times. He ran comeback routes, deep in routes, out routes, and flat routes that were designed to gain specific yardage, not for Fant to keep running in space.

Iowa also gave Fant a good percentage of his targets in the red zone, where his ability to gain YAC is obviously limited.

But you wouldn’t want to consider that when you can push another narrative.

Here’s a stat for all of you this matters to. Of Noah Fant’s 19 touchdown catches at Iowa, 13 were red zone targets (inside the opponent’s 20-yard line).

That means that 13 of his 78 college receptions (16.7 percent) had little or no need for YAC.

Contested catch/usage at Iowa

How does one come away from a college career with 78 catches and only four contested catches?

There’s really no contest.

I think it’s funny that we’re caught up about the fact that Fant had only four contested catches and completely blowing by the 19 touchdowns he caught among his 78 receptions.

Roughly 25 percent of the time, if Fant caught the ball it was for a touchdown.

I want you to watch this video of all of Fant’s touchdown catches — just touchdown catches — while he was at Iowa, and see if you can find something in common with many of them.

Finished?

What’s the one thing many of those touchdown grabs have in common? Fant is wide-freaking-open.

How does that happen? This is a guy who is much savvier than he’s given credit as a route runner. His release off the line of scrimmage is superb, and when he gets a full head of steam it seems like defensive backs constantly forget this is a player with elite speed.

I charted three plays in one game against Iowa State in 2017 that would have been touchdowns additionally for Fant if the pass was on target.

Think about that. That’s just from one game.

Iowa utilized Fant well, but as much as I love Nate Stanley, he didn’t allow us to consistently see the best of Fant.

Contested catch situations only arise if guys are constantly blanketed in coverage. Fant was routinely wide open, especially on longer developing routes. His speed is just too much for receivers.

I’m not necessarily fighting data with data here in this post. I’m not trying to re-write PFF’s stats but I wanted to show you all what Fant is doing on tape, and you can see for yourself that some of these ‘issues’ are being vastly overblown.