JuJu Smith-Schuster Fantasy Football Outlook (2020)

By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Wed, Aug 26th 2020, 6:56am EDT

Did everyone forget just how talented Smith-Schuster is because he had a down year in 2019? He played through multiple injuries and dealt with what was probably the worst quarterback situation in the league. In Week 1 and Week 2, when Ben Roethlisberger was on the field, Smith-Schuster saw 16 targets, catching 11 of them for 162 yards. Not too shabby. Insert bad quarterbacks, paired with Smith-Schuster trying to run routes from the perimeter, and it was a recipe for disaster. The Steelers have vowed to put him back in the slot where he belongs, and he's getting back Roethlisberger, who's continually supported fantasy receivers throughout his long career. Going all the way back to 2008, Ben Roethlisberger's No. 1 and No. 2 wide receivers combined for at least 225 targets on eight different occasions, including 334 times when he had Antonio Brown and Smith-Schuster in 2018. With Roethlisberger on the field, the Steelers haven't thrown the ball less than 584 times since way back in 2012. It's hard to see a scenario where Smith-Schuster doesn't see at least 130 targets if he's healthy (that would be just a 22.2 percent target share), which is elite volume, so even if he's average, he'd be a high-end WR2. I'll leave you with this... Smith-Schuster posted 1,426 yards in his second NFL season at the age of 22. There are just six players who posted more yardage in one of their first two seasons. The list includes Isaac Bruce, Josh Gordon, Torry Holt, Jerry Rice, Victor Cruz, and Odell Beckham Jr. We can't pretend Smith-Schuster is anywhere close to average. He's worth a third-round pick in drafts, even though many are getting him in the fourth.