I’m usually a glass-half-full kind of guy when it comes to evaluating fantasy football players, but one that I’ve always had difficulty doing that with is Keenan Allen. He’s a favorite of the fantasy community, and the impression is that he’s a stud when healthy. While I’ve disputed that in the past, there are new concerns that have come up that slide Allen even further down my board.

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Injuries Piling Up

Most fans, myself included, were shocked when the Chargers selected Clemson wide receiver Mike Williams with the No. 7 overall pick in NFL Draft. It’s easy to see why they would want the No. 2 projected wide receiver in the draft, sure, but it seemed to be a luxury rather than a necessity.

The crazy part is that Williams is added to an already crowded receiver corps that includes Allen who is coming back from a torn ACL, just one year after missing half the season for a lacerated kidney. He also suffered a broken clavicle back in 2014. I’m not saying that Allen can stop these injuries from happening, but we also cannot pretend they didn’t happen. The Chargers may be preparing for life without the same Allen from years past.

Too Many Mouths to Feed

With him on the shelf for almost the whole season, Tyrell Williams made quite the impression on the fantasy crowd, totaling 1,059 yards and seven touchdowns and finishing as the No. 13 wide receiver in standard scoring. Let me remind you that Allen himself has never finished better than the No. 17 receiver, though injuries have been his limiter the last two seasons. Not just Williams, but Dontrelle Inman came on over the final 10 games, totaling 631 yards in that span, which was 23rd among all wide receivers.

Most have already forgotten about the receiver that the Chargers paid $13 million guaranteed to just a year ago, Travis Benjamin. Before getting hurt, Benjamin had two 100-yard performances in the first five weeks of the season. Dealing with injuries over the second half of the year helped Inman emerge, but Benjamin isn’t going away.

It’s not just the wide receivers that are available to Philip Rivers, but we now have Hunter Henry and Antonio Gates in the mix for targets. If last year was a sign of anything, Henry is Rivers’ new go-to target in the red zone, as he caught eight touchdowns on just 53 targets. Those targets should only rise in 2017. Melvin Gordon showed off some receiving chops last year, hauling in 41 receptions in just 13 games, and now the Chargers are expected to have receiving specialist Branon Oliver back healthy, who people may have forgotten about. He caught 49 passes in 2014-2015 despite playing on just 33 percent of the snaps.

Volume Was a Necessity

Going back through Allen’s game logs, you’ll notice a trend. When he’s not seeing double digit targets, he’s not producing. You know how people were down on Todd Gurley last year because he was just a volume play? Well, Allen has been the same way throughout his career. Below is the chart showing what he’s done in games with a certain number of targets.

Even if you’re an Allen supporter, those numbers are quite damning to his credibility as a stud wide receiver. It’s not like I cut it off at a reasonable number like six targets, which he should be able to get. But with all of the competition for targets in Los Angeles, how many times can we confidently project Allen to see more than 10 targets? As a marker, his 10.49 PPR points per game with 10 or less targets over 16 games would’ve finished as the No. 47 wide receiver last year right in between Kenny Stills and Inman.

2017 Outlook

Most overlooked it last season, but when the Chargers brought Ken Whisenhunt back, most assumed it meant great things for Allen, considering the success he had under Whisenhunt his rookie year. But no, instead you had to look at what Whisenhunt had done as a coordinator/head coach over his years, as well as the history of Rivers as a quarterback.

The 2015 season that most want to go off of with Allen is the one where Rivers threw the ball a league-high 661 times. Outside of that season, Rivers hasn’t thrown the ball more than 582 times, including last year when Whisenhunt returned. If you went back to the year Whisenhunt was with the Chargers (Allen’s rookie year), Rivers threw the ball just 544 times. It’s no coincidence that nine of Allen’s 11 games with more than 10 targets came in 2014 and 2015, without Whisenhunt.

I’m not going to say that Allen is going to completely fall off a cliff, but expecting him to put up numbers anywhere close to those he did in 2015 are completely unrealistic. He actually has one of the worst schedules in football for passing offenses, playing against the Broncos twice, Chiefs twice, Giants, Patriots, Jaguars, and Redskins throughout the year.

If you project Rivers to make a jump in pass attempts, if Mike Williams doesn’t make too big of an impact, if Hunter Henry doesn’t see more targets, if Tyrell Williams isn’t in the starting lineup, if Allen can get over one of the tougher schedules for wide receivers, if he can see double digit targets, and if he can return from his torn ACL as the same player, he can be a high-end WR2. But guys, those are a lot of if’s and we aren’t playing a game based on those. If you can get anything close to high-end WR2 value for him in dynasty/keeper or redraft leagues, it is probably a good idea to do so. He’s returning to a team that is much better than the one he left.

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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.