Can Julio Jones claim the crown in 2015?

It’s no secret that historically Kyle Shanahan has relied heavily on his X-receiver. With Shanahan’s recent move to Offensive Coordinator in Atlanta, Julio Jones appears to be the next beneficiary. Shanahan’s system has proven to feed quality wide receivers when given the opportunity in his scheme.

The chart below highlights the number of targets and their league rank when Shanahan has led an offense with a legitimate #1 WR, which there is no debating that’s what Julio Jones is.

Source: ESPN

Prior to last season, Julio Jones has done most of his damage with minimal targets. In 2014 he ranked 3^rd in targets, with his highest previous target ranking being 20^th in 2012. By examining Julio’s historical production per target we can get an idea of what to expect from Julio in 2015.

Clearly Julio has been extremely efficient with his targets throughout his career. Now the fun part is projecting the damage he could do if he were #1 or #2 in targets this season, which as demonstrated earlier was a common place to finish for talented X receivers in Kyle Shanahan’s offenses.

Over the last 5 years the top two leaders in NFL targets have average 184 targets. Below highlights what Julio’s production would look like with 184 targets, assuming his historical production per target.

The above point totals (even the example with the 10 fewer targets) would put him at the #1 Fantasy WR in 6 of the last 10 fantasy seasons for Standard Scoring Leagues.

Summary

Though Jones is not a consensus top 5 WR, he should be #1 on your draft board based on the historically high number of targets the X receiver gets in offenses led by Kyle Shanahan. 

Michael Brusko is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Mike, check out fantasyalpha.com.