A.J. Brown Fantasy Football Outlook (2020)

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

WPrior to the NFL Draft last year, I had D.K. Metcalf as my 1A receiver and Brown as my 1B. Loved them both, but Metcalf's landing spot moved him into the driver's seat. Maybe I underestimated just how much Brown could do without an elite quarterback. Despite not being a full-time player until Week 9 and seeing just 84 targets, Brown finished as the No. 21 wide receiver in his rookie season. There have been just 10 wide receivers over the last 10 years who've finished as a top-24 fantasy receiver while seeing fewer than 87 targets. Going back to when Ryan Tannehill started playing, Brown received a very stable 21 percent target share. That's not elite. Not bad, but not elite. Let's go from Week 9 through Week 17 when Brown moved to a full-time role. Brown's target share was 24 percent in that time, which ranked 10th among wide receivers. If we project Tannehill for 480-500 pass attempts, that'd amount to 115-120 targets. It is possible Brown's target share goes up but staying at 24 percent feels like it's repeatable. It's important to note that Brown averaged a ridiculous 8.9 yards after the catch last year, a number that isn't repeatable. You typically won't see even the best of the best receivers average more than 6.0 yards after the catch. If you move Brown down to the 5.5 range, he would've recorded 187 fewer yards and finished as the WR28. Then you must factor in Tannehill's ridiculous 7.7 percent touchdown rate regressing, so don't automatically assume that Brown's efficiency remains the same. He's still a phenomenal talent, but he needs to get the bump in pass attempts to take the next step. If I were guaranteed 500 pass attempts out of Tannehill, I'd draft him as a low-end WR1. It's best to be a bit cautious though and have some equity built in, making him a WR2 with serious upside.