Rain=Good or Bad for WR?

[Cupertino_11]

Haven't seen this discussion up before and I'm curious myself. In wet weather conditions, you'd think the WR has the advantage since the DB cannot fully anticipate the cuts. As long as the ball gets changed out regularly (I assume it does) rainy weather would seem to benefit more than hinder a WR.

Thoughts?

[Big Game JLo]

It was always my assumption that anything like rain, snow & wind have the most affect on the ball when it is in the air / being thrown. With a wet ball, one would think that handing it off would be the safe bet. Hence, WR's would be adversely affected the most.

[jake_twothousandfive]

Well poor footing makes it difficult for an offense to maintain good timing and a wet ball is harder to catch.

[biju]

It depends on the specific weather conditions and how it affects the field.

I'll start with the fields. Newer stadiums use field turf and footing is only slightly different. There might be the occasional slip, but for the most part this won't affect anything. On real grass the field can get muddy and slick. Because the DBs need to react they have a tendency to slip until they wear longer cleats. This keeps them from slipping but they also lose speed. Faster WRs who run good routes will benefit. Snow will change any field to slippery conditions.

As for the weather conditions, light to moderate rain with little wind doesn't really affect too much. But heavy rain pushes the ball down and calls for shorter passes. This means flankers who run deep routes will not get thrown to as much. Snow also can affect distance because of the temperature drop (I can't remember how this works, but I've read it before). And obviously in strong wind conditions you're not going to throw the ball deep unless you really need to or your guy is wide open.

[Cupertino_11]

Great replies....thanks. There are so many variables to look at when projecting a player's potential on a week to week basis (injuries, defensive matchup, quality of QB) that I often overlook weather conditions. It's been ingrained in my head that poor field conditions will result in poor fantasy numbers, but maybe that's not entirely true. Appreciate all the examples Biju.