Minnesota Vikings

StaTuesday: Vikings WR Thielen's record pace could be sustainable

Published Oct. 16, 2018 2:38 p.m. ET

A week ago, Adam Thielen was breaking modern NFL records.

This week, we're talking single-season receiving records.

Thielen had 11 catches for 123 yards and a touchdown in Week 6, and now leads the league with 712 receiving yards on 58 catches.

That's a 16-game pace of 1,899 receiving yards and 154 receptions, enough to threaten the single-season yardage record and shatter the single-season receptions record.

Calvin Johnson set the current single-season yardage record in 2012, racking up 1,964 receiving yards, while Marvin Harrison set the receptions record in 2002 with 143.

And while those numbers seem out there -- particularly for a guy coming off his first 1,000-yard season -- some of the underlying metrics suggest that Thielen's torrid pace could be sustainable.

Thielen had another 15 targets Sunday, giving him a league-leading 81 on the season. He has no fewer than 10 targets in any game this season, and an overall catch rate of 71.6 percent.

That catch rate is actually down from Thielen's career high -- an even 75 percent, back in 2016 -- and more than 20 percentage points off the league lead.

Most of those catches are coming without much additional yardage, a potential area of improvement.

Thielen is currently averaging 12.3 yards per reception, slightly below his career average of 13.6, after averaging 14 yards per reception from 2016-17.

He's averaging just 4.2 yards after the catch per reception, well outside the top 30, and slightly off his 2017 rate of 5.0 YAC/R and his 2016 rate of 4.4 YAC/R.

There is, it would seem, a bit of untapped potential left there.

One potential wrinkle: His usage so far accounts for 44.27 percent of the Vikings' air yards this season, a measure that eliminates YAC.

From a basic standout, Thielen is accounting for nearly half of the Vikings' passing offense.

That seems like an area where Thielen could be primed for regression -- he currently ranks second in the league behind Julio Jones at 48.02 percent -- but such a number isn't unprecedented in this pass-happy era.

Both Jones and A.J. Green finished 2017 above 45 percent, while DeAndre Hopkins, Antonio Brown and Michael Thomas finished north of 40 percent.