Fantasy Football Player Notes

Fade aging wide receivers, they said. Julio laughs as he posted his sixth straight season with more than 1,390 yards. He still has just one season under his belt with double-digit touchdowns, which is quite ridiculous when you consider he's had three seasons with 1,500-plus yards. He's as safe as they come at the wide receiver position. Think 31 years old is too old? Check out this piece on what age a wide receiver declines. There are a lot of fantasy owners drafting Tyreek Hill over him, and while I understand the upside Hill presents on a weekly basis, Jones presents stability that Hill can only dream of. Hill has posted WR2 or better numbers in 21-of-43 games (48.8 percent) over his career. Meanwhile, Jones has hit that mark in 64.8 percent of his career games and has posted WR1-type numbers in 42.4 percent of them. Sure, Calvin Ridley is going to ascend, but a lot of his ascension comes from the missing targets from Mohamed Sanu. Jones should be the No. 3 wide receiver off draft boards, at worst.

Prior to getting hurt and having his season cut short, Ridley was on pace for 1,066 yards and eight touchdowns in 2019, which would have had him as the WR14. Now going into his third NFL season, there's a real chance for a breakout. Sure, Julio Jones isn't going away but he doesn't have to. Not many realize that Mohamed Sanu saw 94 targets in 2018 and was on pace for 96 targets before being traded in 2019. We don't really expect Russell Gage to fill that role, do we? If you want to know if there's room for both Ridley and Jones to be WR1s, look no further than the Bucs last year with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, even if it is rare for that to happen. Ridley saw 49 targets in the six games he played without Sanu, which would amount to 131 over an entire 16-game season. Ridley has real top-five breakout potential and is an ideal high-end WR2 on your fantasy team.

Once Mohamed Sanu was traded, Gage saw a ridiculous 66 targets in nine games, though it did help that both Calvin Ridley and Austin Hooper both missed time during that stretch. I expected the Falcons to fill that role with someone in the draft or free agency, but it never happened, so it's possible we see Gage as a bye-week filler on fantasy rosters, especially if any of the other pass-catchers were to miss time. There isn't much upside here, though. Best case scenario is that we're looking at someone like Cole Beasley from 2019. Again, could play a role in fantasy, but don't see a consistent fantasy producer.