50 yard line on an american football field
Brian Nemhauser·
Wide Receivers
··4 min read

Seahawks Receiving Trio Are Perfect

With the never-ending attention paid to footballs the Seahawks do not secure, whether batted or fumbled, it seemed worthwhile to share a tidbit you might be surprised to hear. The top three targets for Russell Wilson this year have perfect catch rates through four games.

Doug Baldwin

This is shaping up to be the most productive season of Doug Baldwin’s career. He has 20 receptions, and is on track for 80 at this pace. His career high was 66 receptions last season. His two touchdowns also put him pace for a career best eight TDs on the year, which would top the five he had in 2013.

Baldwin is one of the most efficient receivers in football. He has been targeted 24 times and has 20 catches. Not all of those passes, though, were catchable. For example, his one target on Monday that was not caught happened when Wilson scrambled all over creation before finding Baldwin and throwing the ball that bounced at his feet. 
ProFootballFocus.com tracks catchable targets, and Baldwin is a perfect 20 for 20 when thrown a catchable ball this year. Only five receivers have more catchable targets than Baldwin without a single drop.
Name Team Targets Receptions Drops Catchable Catch Rate
 Julio Jones ATL 48 38 0 38 100%
 Jeremy Maclin KC 39 28 0 28 100%
 Pierre Garcon WAS 34 24 0 24 100%
 Michael Crabtree OAK 38 23 0 23 100%
 T.Y. Hilton IND 39 22 0 22 100%
 Doug Baldwin SEA 24 20 0 20 100%
That is pretty good receiving company. A less appreciated part of Baldwin’s game is his explosive play ability. He was 3rd in the NFL in catch rate for deep passes in 2013, 5th in 2014, and 6th so far this year. Deep passing catch rate is calculated a little differently in that it ignores whether the ball was catchable or not. It is pure deep catches (20+ yards) divided by total targets. Both of Baldwin’s touchdowns have come on explosive plays.

Jermaine Kearse

Fellow starter has been nearly as efficient so far this year. He is also on pace for a career high in receptions. With 16 so far, he would wind up with 64 if he maintained this rate, which would blow away his career high of 38 catches last year.

Like Baldwin, Kearse has a perfect catch rate. He has been targeted 20 times overall, but just 16 of those have been catchable. That makes the Seahawks the only team in the NFL with two receivers with 100% catch rates (min 8 catchable targets).

The Seahawks are the only team in the NFL with two receivers to have at least 8 catchable targets and a perfect 100% catch rate

This is new territory for Kearse, who was far less efficient last season. He ranked 45th in the NFL in catch rate last year. He also has the most explosive receptions on the team with six. That has helped to make him the leading Seahawks receiver in terms of yardage thus far with 236 yards. That puts him on pace for 944 yards. That would nearly double his career high of 537 yards set last season.

The last time the Seahawks had a 1,000 yard receiver was 2007 with Bobby Engram. Kearse could reach that level this year.

Jimmy Graham

The big Seahawks tight end is not getting the chances that either he or fans want to impact the passing game, but he is making the most of them.
Only two tight ends have more catchable targets than Graham’s 18 and a perfect catch rate. Jason Witten has 25 and Charles Clay of Buffalo has 21. It might surprise you to know that Graham has more receptions on the year (18) than Rob Gronkowski (16). 

The confounding part of how the Seahawks are using Graham is the lack of downfield targets. He has zero targets of 20+ yards so far this year. Luke Willson has three. That has to change for Graham to realize more of potential on this offense.

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