Sometimes an NFL team just crushes a draft. The rookies they take in that draft and sign out of the undrafted free agent pool take off at the NFL level and look like seasoned veterans right away. Sometimes they even become relevant in fantasy.
The Jaguars have done just that. Three of the rookie offensive skill players they added this year are producing viable fantasy numbers, including two outside of the first three rounds of the draft.
For a team that lost Allen Robinson in the first game of the season and Allen Hurns in Week 9, they sure don’t seem to be struggling to move the ball. In the last three weeks, the Jags have scored no fewer than 24 points in a game, and a lot of that recent offensive potency can be attributed to the rookies we’ll be talking about today.
In the weeks that followed he struggled with an ankle injury as well as a suspension, missing two games outright and putting up muted numbers in three of his last five games. That’s not to say he’s been totally bad during that span of time; he was the RB12 in 0.5 PPR in Week 14. He just hasn’t been as electric as he was to start the year.
Fantasy owners haven’t been thrilled with Fournette’s recent performances, but the Jaguars surely must be. Despite missing two games Fournette has the seventh-most rushing yards in the league as well as the fifth-most rushing attempts.
The rest of the league definitely caught on to the Jaguars’ strategy of pounding Fournette 20 times a game. Per PlayerProfiler.com, Fournette is facing the third-most stacked boxes of any running back in the league. In other words, only two other running backs face as many defenders in the box as often as Fournette, and he’s still averaging a nice 3.9 yards per carry on those plays despite that disadvantage.
Their heavy usage of Fournette has absolutely opened up other aspects of their offense. Since other teams have to commit so many defensive resources to stopping Fournette in the running game, Blake Bortles has fewer defenders covering his wide receivers. Of course, the fact that those wide receivers are pretty good themselves helps, too.
Dede Westbrook (WR – JAC)
The Jaguars drafted Dede Westbrook in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft, and he may just end up being the second-best steal of the draft (he’s no Alvin Kamara). Since Westbrook came off of the injured reserve he’s done nothing but impress.
In his debut game, he drew six targets, catching three for 35 yards, despite playing just over 40 percent of the Jaguars’ offensive snaps. In the three weeks that followed he’s drawn a team-high 27 targets while improving his yards per reception in each consecutive outing.
His week by week improvements culminated in his finish as the WR14 in 0.5 PPR leagues this past week. Westbrook caught 5 of 8 targets for 81 yards and his first career touchdown against the Seahawks and looked like a veteran receiver while he did it.
Per AirYards.com, the 2017 Biletnikoff Award winner has the ninth-highest WOPR, or Weighted Opportunity Rating in the league. WOPR is a metric that measures a wide receiver’s target share and share of his team’s total air yards and combines them into one number. Players with similar WOPRs include the likes of Keenan Allen, Robby Anderson and Adam Thielen, you know, fantasy WR1s.
Westbrook shouldn’t slow down in the coming weeks either. His schedule for the fantasy playoffs might just be the friendliest of any wide receiver.
This week the Jaguars draw the Texans, who have been decimated by injury and have allowed the eighth-most points to fantasy receivers this season. Next week they get to play the 49ers, who have allowed the eighth-most passing touchdowns this season and who haven’t been great against wide receivers either. Westbrook is helping this team look it didn’t lose its star receiver in the season opener.
Keelan Cole (WR – JAC)
Dede Westbrook may be stealing the show, but Keelan Cole has been outstanding for an undrafted free agent. Cole actually outscored Westbrook in Week 14, finishing as the WR12 with 17.40 fantasy points.
You may remember that we covered Cole back in Week 10. In that Rookie Report, we discussed Cole’s background as a college walk-on and as an NFL UDFA. We also noted that Bortles took repeated deep shots to Cole in that game and that the two were very close to completing a deep touchdown pass.
In Week 14, we got to see what it looks like when that pass actually connects. Bortles hooked up with Cole on a perfect pass that Cole took for a 77-yard touchdown. It was a thing of beauty (that also happened to produce over 13 fantasy points).
In the last three weeks, Cole’s average depth of target (ADOT) of 15.4 ranks 14th among wide receivers with 10 or more targets during that period of time. His RACR, an efficiency metric determined by dividing a receiver’s receiving yards by his air yards, of 0.89 ranks higher than all but one of the 13 wide receivers with higher ADOTs. Looking at these metrics, Cole has been playing like one of the top field-stretchers in the league the last three weeks.
Conclusion
The Jaguars nailed the 2017 NFL Draft (at least for fantasy football). Leonard Fournette has done everything they wanted from him, and Dede Westbrook and Keelan Cole are giving Blake Bortles a lot to work with.
Much has been said about Bortles in the past, but the past few weeks he’s been playing great. The Jaguars rookies have made enormous contributions to their offense, but Bortles’ improved play has been a huge factor in the team averaging 28 points per game over the last three weeks (tied for the fifth-most in the league).
That’s it for the Week 14 Rookie Report. It’s fun seeing a group of rookies like this contribute to such a high-powered offense, so feel free to let me know on Twitter if you can think of any other group of rookies that lifted up their teams like these guys are doing for the Jaguars right now.
We’ll be back next week with the Week 15 Rookie Report. Until then, good luck in your fantasy playoffs.
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Aidan Mcgrath is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Aidan, check out his archive and follow him @ffaidanmcgrath.
