It seems that there is a divide on which Raiders wide receiver is the better value as we head into 2017, Amari Cooper or Michael Crabtree? Cooper comes at a premium as the 10th wide receiver off the board while Crabtree is being taken as the 22nd wide receiver. This seems a bit odd, right? I mean, Crabtree finished ahead of Cooper in fantasy scoring last year, so what gives? While analysts everywhere say that Crabtree is free money, the public may be smarter than given credit for on the subject, though their reasoning may be wrong.

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Once Crabtree came to the Raiders, it seemed that it could be the change in scenery that he needed to get his career on track. After playing with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick, most assumed that a majority of his struggles came from playing with two somewhat underwhelming quarterbacks. After finishing as the No. 19 wide receiver in 2015 and the No. 11 wide receiver in 2016, this seemed to be the case. After looking at the numbers a bit closer, he hasn’t really been a better player than he was in San Francisco.

There’s always a part of me that feels guilty for drafting Crabtree in the WR18-WR24 range, which is why I sat down to do this profile. It just didn’t feel exciting; didn’t give me the feeling that I could win a fantasy title because he was my WR2. It’s likely because I’m always realistic in my projections, and what Crabtree has done the last two years is not likely to hold up for a third season.

Touchdowns

The area Crabtree has stood out above the competition is in the redzone, where he’s scored 17 touchdowns over the last two seasons. Stop me if you’ve heard this before – touchdowns are the least predictive stat in year-over-year production. That’s said because it’s true. There are some players who defy the odds every single year (Dez Bryant), but Crabtree has still yet to score more than nine touchdowns in one season, making it highly unlikely that he fits that bill.

Most assume this is where I’ll bang the drum for regression, however, when looking closer at his production, his per-target touchdown rate isn’t that hard to sustain. Over the last two seasons there have been 56 wide receivers who’ve accumulated at least 150 targets. Of those players, Crabtree’s one touchdown every 17.1 targets ranks 17th. The truth is that Crabtree has accumulated much more targets than most realize over the last two years, as he ranks 11th in that category. His touchdown rate is not what should concern you, as he can post a similar rate in 2017.

Redzone Efficiency

Looking closer at the targets he did receive, 23 of them came in the redzone last year, which was the second-most in the NFL, behind only Jordy Nelson. On those targets, Crabtree produced 55.7 fantasy points, which is the number that will regress without a doubt. If you were to go back and look at Crabtree’s 2015 season, he saw 13 redzone targets that netted just 13.8 fantasy points on the same team, with the same quarterback. If you were to look at his numbers in comparison to other wide receivers, Crabtree exceeded his expected point total in the redzone by about 15 fantasy points. If you’d like to learn more about wide receivers and their expected scores inside and outside the redzone, I wrote that up earlier this season right here. Even seeing his number dip by just 15 points in 2016, he would’ve gone from the No. 11 receiver to the No. 20 receiver. Most will say that his targets will make up for the touchdown regression in relation to his ADP (average draft position), but that’s where the disconnect begins with me, because I don’t believe he sees those targets going forward.

Yards Per Target

When you continually do something for two seasons, you get a pretty solid sample size of data to work with, especially when the player in question has seen 291 targets. Most talk about Crabtree’s touchdowns, but what about his abilities outside of that? Remember when I said earlier that there’ve been 56 wide receivers who’ve totaled at least 150 targets over the last two seasons? There are just two wide receivers who’ve posted fewer yards per target than Crabtree in that span, and those players are Donte Moncrief and Tavon Austin.

Looking over a five-year sample, you have a good enough landscape as to what should be happening with certain numbers, and yards per target creates a very predictable trend among wide receivers. I went through the last five years, looking at each of the top 30 wide receivers from each season, which amounts to 150 possible spots up for grabs. From there, I went searching for wide receivers who’ve finished with less than 7.0 yards per target but managed to sneak into the top 30. The result? Just six percent of them.

There are a few things to take away from this chart. One being the fact that Crabtree is the only one listed on here twice. Another interesting find is that not a single one of these wide receivers finished among the top-10. In fact, Crabtree was the only one who finished inside the top-15. The final thing you’ll notice is that low yards per target players typically don’t score any more than six touchdowns. Again, Crabtree is the only one who did, and he did it twice. You can try and argue that Crabtree is the outlier and continue to project him as such, but there are factors playing against him doing that going forward.

2017 Outlook

Over the last two years, Amari Cooper has shot up draft boards as the projected No. 1 in this offense, though Crabtree supporters will argue that he’s been better than the young Cooper. Despite playing as a rookie with what sounded like plantar fasciitis and seeing many of the opponent’s top cornerbacks, Cooper has posted 8.5 yards per target with the same quarterback, on the same team (you can read the Cooper Player Profile right here). His number ranks No. 14 in the NFL among wide receivers over the last two years, right behind Odell Beckham Jr. Here’s an interesting stat to drive home the point: There have been 49 wide receivers over the last five years who’ve totaled at least 145 targets in a season. Of those 49 individual seasons, Crabtree’s yardage totals over the last two seasons rank No. 44 and No. 47 among them. If you’re running an NFL offense, which wide receiver should you be targeting more? It’s not that simple, but the discrepancy in targets (29 target difference) over the last two seasons should be righted in 2017.

The Raiders brought in Marshawn Lynch to handle the goal line work that used to go to Latavius Murray, and although Murray did a phenomenal job there in 2016, they’ll be looking to run first in those goal-to-go situations. Cooper reportedly put on 10 pounds this offseason in order to get better when cornerbacks try to jam him at the line of scrimmage, something that could have affected his redzone production, or lack thereof. Crabtree is going to be 30 years old when the season starts, while Cooper will be just 23 years old, entering the prime of his career. The plates are naturally shifting underneath them, but you now know reasons why they should, and arguably, need to be.

If you’ve missed any of my other player profiles, you can find all of them on the landing page right here.

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