Breshad Perriman is Here to Win You a Fantasy Championship

What a season it’s been. If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely you will be playing for your league’s championship in Week 16. If you have a Week 17 championship, that’s fine too. You still need to win one more game in order to move on to the title matchup. Fantasy football is a beautiful game. It can turn a player that’s been considered a bust for most of his career and turn him into a league winner. This is where we are at with Breshad Perriman. If you owned Perriman in past seasons and he failed to produce for you, he can redeem himself by helping you win a title next week, and then all will be forgiven.

Chris Godwin went down with what is likely a season-ending hamstring injury in Week 15 a week after the same fate befell Mike Evans. Scott Miller left Sunday’s game when he re-aggravated his hamstring injury leaving the Tampa Bay wide receiver production firmly in the hands of Perriman.

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Player Profile

Perriman was a raw prospect who had just one season of what could be classified as elite production in college. During his junior campaign at the University of Central Florida, Perriman pulled in 50 receptions for 1,044 yards. He averaged an awe-inspiring 20.9 yards per catch during his junior year and 19.5 yards during his three college seasons. Perriman was a first-round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens in 2015. The Ravens fell in love with his above-average size and his elite speed. As you can see from his Mockdraftable spider graph, his 40-yard dash falls in the 99th percentile for wide receivers, so I’m not exaggerating when I say he has elite speed.

He missed his entire rookie season due to tearing his PCL twice, once during training camp, and then in practice in Week 3 as he was trying to work his way back active duty. Perriman was able to play all 16 games in 2016 but barely produced. In 2017 he missed five more games due to injury, and never produced when he was on the field. The Ravens cut him in September 2018, and he played for the Browns during their final 10 games of the season. Quiet for most of his Cleveland run, his last four games showed some promise. Perriman scored at least 10.1 fantasy points in three of the final four weeks of the season and scored 9.6 fantasy points the one week he fell short of double-digit scoring. After initially planning to re-sign with the Browns this past offseason, he instead joined the Buccaneers when the Browns traded for Odell Beckham Jr.

Outlook

Except for his Week 9 performance when he put 42 yards on four receptions, including a touchdown on eight targets, Perriman didn’t see many targets during his first 12 weeks with Tampa Bay. But he’s seen targets the past three weeks and has produced on those targets. He’s had six targets in each of the last three games, at least 70 receiving yards in each of the last three games, and scored at least one touchdown in two of the last three games. He has the 17th most air yards, the 19th most yards after the catch, and the 23rd most receptions among receivers over the past three games per airyards.com. Perriman scored 16 points and 13.7 fantasy points the two weeks prior to Sunday’s game, and I expect that range of scoring to be his floor in Week 16. This week, he scored 34.6 fantasy points this past Sunday helped by snagging three touchdowns, including the one below when he dusted the Lions DB.

That’s his ceiling. Over the past three week’s he scored the second-most fantasy points among wide receivers. Don’t forget that he did this with Chris Godwin and Mike Evans each playing all of Week 13 and Godwin playing all of Week 14. Neither is playing this week. Both players suffered severe hamstring injuries and Bruce Arians came out after both games when they were injured and stated he doubted they would play again this season.

Next week the Buccaneers play the Houston Texans who’ve allowed 379.4 passing yards per game, the fourth-most in the league. Tampa Bay averages just over 400 yards passing per game, third-most in the league, and the fifth-fewest rushing yards. This is as about as perfect as a spot for Perriman to feast as could possibly exist. With no Mike Evans and no Chris Godwin Perriman is set up for another monster week and whatever FAAB you have remaining should be spent on him.

Wide receivers to consider dropping for Perriman based on our Rest of Season rankings:

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