Duke Johnson may be top candidate for Cleveland's slot receiver job
by Mark Leipold | Mon, Jul 24th 3:54pm EDT
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that Duke Johnson "is the leading candidate to replace Andrew Hawkins as the No. 1 slot receiver." (Cleveland.com)
Fantasy Impact:
Johnson has 177 carries and 114 receptions over his first two seasons in the NFL. Cabot expects Johnson to surpass his average of 57 receptions this season. Cabot also reported that it remained to be seen how Johnson's carry numbers would be impacted. This would indicate that Johnson may be adopting more of a Ty Montgomery or Tyreek Hill type of role as a utility player. Johnson was effective at running the ball over his first two seasons, averaging 4.9 yards per carry, so it's hard to imagine that his carries will go away significantly, but this might put him in line for more touches overall, in line with my previous update. While it's hard to speculate too much before training camp starts (Wednesday for the Browns veterans), I'm definitely buying Johnson at his current ADP of 135.3 in Standard and 106.7 in PPR scoring, according to FantasyPros aggregated ADP data. I'm certainly willing to take his upside in the 12th round of Standard and the 9th round of PPR.
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