Overview
Receiving Intelligence evaluates every eligible pass catcher within the context of his own team's receiving offence.
Before comparing players across the league, Fantasy Mate first measures how important each player is to his own passing game. This team-relative approach allows the model to describe offensive roles consistently regardless of team quality, offensive philosophy or passing volume.
The five Receiving Categories are team-relative. Each category is evaluated relative to the player's teammates before broader league comparisons are made.
Why Team-Relative Evaluation?
Raw production alone cannot fully explain a player's importance.
A receiver on a pass-heavy offence and a receiver on a run-heavy offence may play equally important roles despite very different statistics.
Receiving Intelligence therefore begins by asking:
How important is this player within his own team's receiving ecosystem?
Every category is evaluated relative to the player's teammates before broader league comparisons are made.
Team Score
The Team Score summarises a player's receiving profile within the context of his own offence.
It combines the receiving categories after they have been evaluated relative to the player's teammates.
A high Team Score indicates that the player occupies an important role in his team's passing game.
Because the Team Score is team-relative, multiple players across the league may achieve similarly high scores. This is expected. The Team Score is designed to measure offensive importance within a team, not league-wide standing.
League Overall Score
Once every player has been evaluated within his own offence, Fantasy Mate compares those profiles across the league.
The League Overall Score answers a different question:
How does this receiving profile compare with every other eligible pass catcher?
Using both Team Score and League Overall Score allows users to distinguish between team importance and league standing.
The Five Categories
Receiving Intelligence evaluates five complementary team-relative categories:
- Role
- Volume
- Efficiency
- After Catch Creation
- Production
Together they describe how the player contributes to his team's receiving game. They are intentionally evaluated independently before being summarised by the Team Score.
Role
Role measures the player's importance within his team's passing structure. It reflects how central the player currently is to the offence relative to his teammates.
Volume
Volume measures the share of receiving opportunity currently earned within the team's passing game. It describes offensive involvement rather than league-wide workload.
Efficiency
Efficiency measures how effectively the player converts his current opportunities into receiving value. It evaluates execution independently from opportunity.
After Catch Creation
After Catch Creation measures the value created after securing receptions. Keeping this category separate highlights a distinct receiving skill that is not fully explained by opportunity or production.
Production
Production measures the player's current receiving output within the context of his team's offence. As the season progresses, this category evolves together with the player's profile.
Why Many Players Can Score Highly
It is normal to see many players with category scores in the 90s.
These scores do not indicate that every player is one of the league's best receivers. Instead, they indicate that each player occupies a similarly important role within his own offence.
League-wide comparison is performed separately through the League Overall Score.
Do not interpret a team-relative category score in the 90s as proof that the player is one of the best pass catchers in the league. It shows that he is highly important within his own offence.
Relationship with Historical Intelligence
Although several category names are shared with Historical Intelligence, the methodologies are different.
Historical Intelligence evaluates completed seasons against historical positional populations.
Receiving Intelligence evaluates current receiving profiles relative to each player's own team before placing those profiles into league context.
What's Next
The following articles explain how Receiving Intelligence interprets movement through the Overall Trend Index (OTI), Baseline, Reliability, Momentum, Rest of Season Projection, Team Context and Availability.