Curious Deus, how would you measure a deep threat?
I ask because I'm not sure myself.
That's a good question, and I don't think that YPC alone answers it because YPC doesn't say anything about average depth of target, which is not a commonly recorded stat.
You can kind of get a "shadow number" for average depth of target by calculating average depth of catch - subtract a player's YAC from his total receiving yards and then divide by his receptions. But that still says nothing about how deep he was on the passes that he
didn't catch. You can maybe get a feel for that by comparing his catch rate - IF you assume that, in most cases, longer throws typically generate a significantly lower completion percentage than shorter ones.
For example, Player A and Player B both have 19 YPC, roughly the same total receiving yards and the same number of TD receptions.
Player A: 35% of his total receiving yards are YAC and his catch rate is 67%.
Player B: 15% of his total receiving yards are YAC and his catch rate is 62%.
So, you might guess that player A is making a lot of his receptions in the short to intermediate range between the LBs and the secondary, and that Player B is making a lot of his receptions in deeper coverage. But that's still just an extrapolation, and a fairly murky one at that.
Of course, even that doesn't resolve the issue. Is a guy who catches a 12 yard pass and takes it 50 yards to the house the "deep threat"? Or is it the guy who catches a 50 yard pass and takes it into the EZ from 12 yards out the "deep threat"? Or are they both?