Fantasy Football Quandary: Are Targets a Vital Statistic?

It seems the trendy statistic in the NFL is the number of targets a player receives. Quite simply, it's the number of times the ball is thrown to a player. Obviously it's important that a player gets thrown to in order to put up numbers, but is it being overhyped?

Here are the top 12 targeted WRs:
Andre Johnson - 52
Nate Burleson - 49
Steve Smith (NYG) - 49
Randy Moss - 48
Reggie Wayne - 48
Chad Ochocinco - 46
T.J. Houshmandzadeh - 45
Steve Smith (CAR) - 43
Santonio Holmes - 41
Calvin Johnson - 41
Wes Welker - 41
Hines Ward - 40

Now here are the top 12 fantasy WRs (non-PPR leagues):
Steve Smith (NYG) - 72.1
Reggie Wayne - 69.9
Andre Johnson - 67.7
Brandon Marshall - 54.8
Chad Ochocinco - 53.0
Nate Burleson - 53.0
Mario Manningham - 52.2
Miles Austin - 51.1
Roddy White - 50.9
Larry Fitzgerald - 50.0
Vincent Jackson - 49.3
Hines Ward - 49.0

Notice that five of the top targeted WRs don't show up.

The next four highest scoring WRs are DeSean Jackson, Mike Sims-Walker, Santana Moss, and Percy Harvin, which makes them the 13th-16th ranked fantasy WRs.

Jackson, Sims-Walker, and Harvin don't rank among the top 30 targeted WRs. Santana Moss is 22nd.

Steve Smith (CAR), Wes Welker, Torry Holt, Anquan Boldin, Justin Gage, Eddie Royal, Mark Clayton, Mushin Muhammad, Bryant Johnson, Bernard Berrian, Louis Murphy, and Patrick Crayton are among the top 30 targeted WRs yet they aren't among the top 30 fantasy scoring WRs. That's a staggering 40%.

While it is a useful statistic, do not put too much stock in it. The most important statistic for a WR is TDs. It is no coincidence that the top ten scoring WRs all have 3 or 4 TDs so far. Obviously a close second is yardage. That's where the scoring comes from.

PPR leagues add a point per reception, but I am vehemently opposed to PPR leagues. It overvalues possession receivers and short-changes deep threats. For the life of me I can not figure out why someone would agree that 3 catches for 15 yards should be more valuable than 1 30 yard catch. That's a different discussion for a different day.

The bottom line is use targets as a guide, but don't ignore the age old indicators of fantasy production.