An Interesting Ray Rice Fact

**Filmstudy** · 07-22-2010, 01:29 AM

According to STATS Inc., Rice led the entire NFL in Yards After Catch with 757. That was 36 yards more than Wes Welker.

It's a fascinating total considering that Rice had just 702 receiving yards (his average spot of reception was .7 yards behind the LoS). Sproles (562 YAC, 497 Receiving yards) was probably the most comparable, so it's not a singular event.

Rice is the first Raven I can recall that I've actually been happy to get the ball short of the marker on 3rd down. Last season the Ravens made very few 3rd down throws to any other receiver that were shy of the sticks.

**psuasskicker** · 07-22-2010, 09:21 AM

Football Outsiders - where game charting volunteers confirm YAC that's typically captured by the base data but often has errors - confirms that Rice is #1 although the total yards is a bit off, they have Rice with 791 YAC, and Welker at #2 with 741. Miles Austin is 3rd with only 621 YAC. Those are sort of staggering numbers...he's 7% in front of #2, and an amazing 27% in front of #3.

Probably safe to say he's one of the more elusive ball carriers in the NFL...

- C -

**chicagoravensfan** · 07-22-2010, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Filmstudy

(his average spot of reception was .7 yards behind the LoS).

that seems a little hard to believe but really impressive if true. >100% of his receiving yardage came after the catch? wow!

**Jeremiah W** · 07-22-2010, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by chicagoravensfan

that seems a little hard to believe but really impressive if true. >100% of his receiving yardage came after the catch? wow!

I can not think of any that came more than 5 yards past the line, and almost all of them he made the first guy or two miss before taking off.

**psuasskicker** · 07-22-2010, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by chicagoravensfan

that seems a little hard to believe but really impressive if true. >100% of his receiving yardage came after the catch? wow!

Avg spot receiving the ball was -0.62 yds from the LoS, so yeah, it makes sense. 13 yards was the farthest forward from the LoS that he caught the ball of his 84 catches (6 of which were turned over by penalty). Only 31 of his 78 receptions were past the LoS (six were 5+ yards past it). 33 of them were behind it.

- C -

**AirFlacco** · 07-23-2010, 03:20 AM

This makes me wonder why, when we were strugling with WR the last 2
years, they didn't move Rice there as well.

Lenny Moore started out as WR and then moved to RB so they could have
moved Rice to WR especially with Willis to plug in at RB and with McClain wanting
more carries.

Talk about stats, Lenny had over 12,000 yds both running and receiving.

Rice might be able to put up these kinds of numbers playing both positions,
but of course we have Boldin and Stallworth now but it might have been
interesting to see Rice as both RB and WR the last 2 years.

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/me...?player_id=155

**Dade** · 07-23-2010, 05:16 AM

I remember a couple times last year Rice motioned out of the backfield into the slot. Shouldn't need much of that this year with Boldin and Stallworth at wideout.