NFL: Who will lead the league in receiving yards?

The Cleveland Browns star wide receiver Josh Gordon led the National Football League in receiving yards in 2013 with a whopping 1,646, averaging 117.6 yards per game. However, Gordon will potentially miss the entire 2014 season as he’s been in some off-field trouble. Who will take over for Gordon and lead the league in receiving yards in 2014?

Another perennial contender is Calvin “Megatron” Johnson, who is the only player other than Gordon to post a yards per game average of more than one hundred last season. What’s even more impressive for Johnson is that he missed a few games last year and seemed to be playing banged-up. Don’t forget — it was only two seasons ago when Johnson put up a remarkable 1,964 yards receiving (122.8 per game).

Apparently, it isn’t very difficult for wide receivers to produce a 1,000 yard season as 24 players did it last year with an honorable mention to the Giants’ Victor Cruz (998). So an elite season for a wideout isn’t 1,000 yards, it seems like 1,400 is a more reasonable cutoff.

Here is the list of receivers to total at least 1,400 yards through the air in 2013.

Josh Gordon (CLE): 1,646 yards

Antonio Brown (PIT): 1,499

Calvin Johnson (DET): 1,492

Demaryius Thomas (DEN): 1,430

A.J. Green (CIN): 1,426

Alshon Jeffery (CHI): 1,421

Andre Johnson (HOU): 1,407

Now let’s take a look at each of these receivers’ situations to see if their production should increase, decrease or stay the same next year.

Josh Gordon

This is complicated. There are three scenarios that are possible. The most probable is he misses the whole year and obviously can’t compete for most yards. The other is he misses eight games, where he probably can’t quite make the top ten in yards even if he is spectacular. The least likely outcome is he beats the charges and plays well. Factoring in regression from that amazing year, Gordon would probably be in contention, but not finish at the top. I think Gordon misses at least half the season and doesn’t factor in the yardage competition.

Prediction: Suspension knocks him out of race.

Antonio Brown

Brown piled up a lot of yards last season. With an aging, but still relatively effective Ben Roethlisberger tossing him the ball, Brown was an elite receiver. Brown lost WR Emmanuel Sanders opposite him, but replaced him with Markus Wheaton. Last year was also budding superstar running back Le’Veon Bell’s rookie year. As long as Bell’s legal situation doesn’t get out of hand, Bell’s outstanding running ability and improving pass blocking could vault Brown to the top.

Prediction: Increase yards by 100.

Calvin Johnson

Johnson is a beast whose combination of speed, size and athleticism gives him a distinct advantage to dominate the opposing defense. The Detroit Lions finally have a competent number two wide receiver opposite Johnson in Golden Tate from the 2013 Superbowl champion winning Seattle Seahawks. They have a great tight end prospect in Eric Ebron and a one-two punch in the backfield of Reggie Bush and Joique Bell. With Johnson healthy, he should be a yardage monster.

Prediction: Increase yards by 150.

Demaryius Thomas

There is going to be some regression for the Denver Broncos this year. It won’t be so bad they will become an average offense, but one thing is for sure, Peyton Manning isn’t throwing for 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns again. This trickles down to Thomas, the number one option. His numbers should go down a bit, and even more if Wes Welker stays healthy, taking away some targets.

Prediction: Decrease yards by 100.

A.J. Green

Green and his quarterback Andy Dalton really have a connection on the field. Since they both got drafted by Cincinnati in 2011 they’ve been racking up stats together. Dalton just received a huge contract extension. There isn’t much to say about these two. They will keep on doing what they’re doing.

Prediction: His stats will stay about the same.

Alshon Jeffery

Jeffery was the breakout wide receiver of 2013. Defenses didn’t know what to do against the prolific Bears offense with now two star receivers in Jeffery and Brandon Marshall, along with Matt Forte in the backfield. With a second year in Marc Trestman’s offense, Jeffery should be on his way to a great season. However, defenses now know about him and he was so good last year, it’s going to be hard to improve upon.

Prediction: Increase yards by 50.

Andre Johnson

Last season was not ideal for the Houston Texans. Then quarterback Matt Schaub continued to throw interceptions and their star running back Arian Foster was injured for a good portion of the season. Now with Ryan Fitzpatrick at the helm at quarterback, the Texans offense will hopefully be able to march down the field more. Fitzpatrick isn’t a great quarterback but he can’t throw as many interceptions as Schaub did. If DeAndre Hopkins can divert defensive attention away from Johnson in his second year that would help. But if he can rack up 1,407 yards in such a miserable year, he can do it in a regular year. However, with his injury history I think he’ll get hurt at some point and become irrelevant for this discussion.

Prediction: Decrease yards by 200.

After the analysis this is how the players would rank next year.

Calvin Johnson: 1,642 yards

Antonio Brown: 1,599 yards

Alshon Jeffery: 1,471 yards

A.J. Green: 1,426 yards

Demaryius Thomas: 1,330 yards

Andre Johnson: 1,207 yards

Josh Gordon: 0 yards (suspended for whole year)

So after everything is said and done, Johnson should lead the league in receiving again following a season in which he posted his lowest totals in three years. He led the league in receiving yards in both 2011 (1,681) and 2012 (1,964). Johnson should finish with about 1,642 receiving yards, which is better than the average for the NFL receiving yards leader since 2000, which is 1,599 yards per season.