Out of 241 wide receivers to be targeted 100+ times in an individual season from 2006 to 2012, only Torry Holt with the Jaguars in 2009 (his final year in the league at 33 years of age) posted a lower percentage of touchdowns relative to targets. That year he was targeted 103 times and had 51 catches for 722 yards and 0 touchdowns.
Out of 241 qualifying wide receivers over 7 seasons, Hartline's touchdown-to-targets percentage was 2nd lowest.
And the company he keeps at the low end is not flattering.
On the plus side you do have DeSean Jackson with a sub-2% number back in 2008 (his ROOKIE season), and you also have Steve Smith of Carolina appearing on the list at just under 2% in 2010 (the Jimmy Clausen year). And then you have Antonio Brown in 2011 with a percentage of about 1.6% (double Hartline's), which is the example most often cited.
But on the minus side, the other guys at sub-2% include Marty Booker (2007), Davone Bess (2009 & 2012), Jerricho Cotchery (2007), Donald Driver (2007), Greg Little (2011), Jabar Gaffney (2010), Mike Williams of Seattle (2010), Derrick Mason (2006) and Matt Jones (2008). Not very flattering company. Has-beens, never-weres, #3 receivers, etc.
From 2002 to 2005, ESPN does not record the targets information. However, using a cutoff of 60 catches yields much the same sample pool as 100 targets. Of the 126 qualifying receivers in that time period, only Laveranues Coles back in 2004 with the Washington Redskins (the Pat Ramsey year) had a smaller touchdown-to-catch percentage than Brian Hartline had in 2012. In 2002, both Easy Ed McCaffrey and Tim Brown had sub-3% touchdown-to-catch percentages, but both were clearly on the down slope of their careers. Ed McCaffrey was coming off a major injury that forced him to miss 15 games in 2001, had the season in question in 2002 (69 catches, 903 yards, only 2 touchdowns), and then he completely fell off the map in 2003 before retiring. Essentially, Ed McCaffrey's "Brian Hartline" season was his death rattle. Same with Tim Brown (2002: 81 catches, 930 yards, only 2 touchdowns), who fell off considerably in 2003 (52 catches, 567 yards, 2 touchdowns) and then fell off the map in 2004 before retiring.
In the interests of full disclosure, Eric Moulds did have a "Brian Hartline" in 2003, with 64 catches for 780 yards and only 1 touchdown in the year Drew Bledsoe played the entire year at QB and only threw 11 touchdowns. But in Moulds' case, he was able to come back nicely in 2004 & 2005 before he fell off the map in 2006 & 2007.
Here is what I take from this. Yes it is entirely possible for a pretty good player to have a season like this with a really awkward touchdown drought. But in the cases where those players were destined to turn things around (Laveranues Coles, Eric Moulds, Donald Driver, Derrick Mason, DeSean Jackson, Steve Smith and Antonio Brown) these were guys that were either too young (DeSean Jackson a rookie, Antonio Brown a second year player, first year starter) or they had previously demonstrated an ability to score touchdowns over the years. Many of them had dismal quarterback situations that I don't think you'd compare with Ryan Tannehill, unless you're one of those that believes Tannehill was awful in 2012.
Otherwise the guys that perform like this are basically flash in the pan types, career #3/#4 types that managed to have a flash-in-the-pan big year from a yardage/catch perspective, or they were on the down slope of their career and lacked the explosive abilities they once possessed. And even amongst those, arguably over a period of 11 years only 2 other players (Holt and Coles) had as uniquely bad a season from this perspective as Brian Hartline did.
Just think about this though.
We're talking about 367 qualifying wide receivers over an 11 season period. And yet, only 6 walked away with 0 or 1 touchdown, and only 2 had a lower percentage than Hartline over the period.
That means his 2012 season ranked 365th of 367 for touchdowns as a percentage of catches and targets.
And people want to pay him $6 million a year? Why? Based on yardage? Of these 367 qualifying receiver seasons, his ranks only #157th in total receiving yardage. Is that really that special? The 43rd percentile among receivers with a qualifying workload? That's good enough to warrant $6 million a year despite near-record low touchdown production?
It doesn't really speak well for Brian Hartline no matter how you slice it and that's why I think there's no way you pay him more than $4 million a year.
