receiving DVOA for over 20 years, but it’s always been based on value per target. Route DVOA is based on value per routes run, which accounts for the skill of getting open and earning targets. It’s probably a better measurement of receiver quality and it’s definitely more consistent and predictive from year to year.
We don’t yet have all our methods streamlined enough to update Route DVOA automatically after each week’s games, but I have been putting it together once I get the FTN Data charting of routes run. Let’s take a look at the data through Week 11 of the 2025 season.
There are a couple of ways to look at these stats. We’ve got Route DVOA, or value per route. We’ve got Route DYAR, or total value based on routes. The player ranks are closer than they are for normal receiving DVOA, but not exactly the same. We can also look at the difference between a player’s regular receiving DVOA and his Route DVOA. To do this, I use z-scores, because Route DVOA has a wider scale than regular receiving DVOA. Z-scores look at the difference in standard deviations over average for each metric.
What stands out the most here is Jaxon Smith-Njigba and the incredible season he is having for the Seattle Seahawks. Here’s the article I wrote about Route DVOA and DYAR through Week 13 of last year. That’s an additional two games for most of the receivers, and yet nobody last year was even close to the 744 Route DYAR that Smith-Njigba has so far this year. Last year, Amon-Ra St. Brown had 540 through Week 13, and this year both Smith-Njigba and Puka Nacua are ahead of him with two fewer games. (In Nacua’s case, it’s even fewer games since Nacua missed a couple of games with an injury.)
You can see the jump here from standard DYAR to Route DYAR for players who draw a ton of targets, including Ja’Marr Chase and Davante Adams. It’s also worth mentioning Chris Olave, who ranks just 40th among qualifying wide receivers right now in Standard DYAR but is 14th in Route DYAR.
Subscribers will get the list of the worst wide receivers plus data on tight ends and running backs and a link to all the numbers in a Google Sheet.
