Fantasy Football Player Notes

NextGenStats tracks each player's usage and routes throughout every game, and I wish I could remember who posted it, but Godwin's routes were essentially the same exact ones that Bruce Arians used for Larry Fitzgerald back in Arizona. That's a very good thing. I want to do an exercise with you. Close your eyes and imagine Tom Brady dropping back to pass. What do you see? Do you see him muscling a pass towards the sideline? I didn't think so. I also saw him targeting a receiver over the middle of the field. Godwin played 63.4 percent of his snaps last year in the slot. He was second in the league in slot yards (838) behind only Cooper Kupp, and despite seeing 31 fewer slot targets than Kupp, he only finished with 15 fewer yards and the same number of touchdowns. Godwin's average depth of target was 10.4 yards last year while Mike Evans' was 15.3 yards. The average depth of target for Brady last year was 7.6 yards down the field. It's clear that Godwin should quickly become a favorite of Brady, who hates to take risks, as Godwin is a better separator than Evans. Believe it or not, there's a clear path for Godwin to finish as the WR1 in 2020. I don't say that about many receivers. He's in the tier immediately after Michael Thomas, Davante Adams, and Julio Jones.

There are a lot of people who'll point out the fact that Evans finished as a WR1 in 2019 despite missing three games. Well, I hate to break it to you, but he was not a WR1 in terms that actually matter to you, the fantasy player. Despite averaging an elite 9.1 targets per game, Evans posted WR2 or better-type numbers in just 38.5 percent of his games. That ranked 28th among wide receivers. Seriously, guys like Sterling Shepard, Cole Beasley, and Jamison Crowder had higher percentages. Now you take away Jameis Winston, someone who was more than willing to throw the ball into tight coverage all the time, and swap him with one of the most risk averse quarterbacks in football? Evans' 2.4 yards of separation at target was one of the worst marks among wide receivers, and while it doesn't tell the full story, those who watch Evans knows he uses his body extremely well to box out defenders rather than gain multiple yards of separation with precision route running. Look, he's still a good player who's totaled at least 1,000 yards in each of his first six NFL seasons, so I'm not completely writing him off, though it does help that he's seen at least 8.7 targets per game over the last five years. I don't think Brady is as bad as some think at throwing the deep ball anymore, I just don't think he does it nearly as often as Winston did/was willing to. I'm expecting a slight dip in targets and less air yards, which in turn, equals less production for a player like Evans. It's not bad if you land him as your WR2, but I wouldn't recommend him as a WR1.