Fantasy Football Player Notes

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.

It wasn't long ago where we were drafting Davis as a top-30 receiver with breakout potential. He's now going outside the top-60 wide receivers. It certainly doesn't help that he had to have toe surgery and is now missing time with the team. It's nothing major but it does put him at a major disadvantage when A.J. Brown has overtaken the alpha role on the team. When a team has averaged just 440 pass attempts over the last two years, it's tough to find more than one player with value. The wide receivers have averaged 251 targets per season and a 57 percent target share. So, even if we get Tannehill to 480 pass attempts, we're looking at 274 targets for the receivers, and we know Brown is getting roughly 21-25 percent of the overall target share. It does help that Tajae Sharpe and his 35 targets are gone, so we're trying to find a way to divvy up 135-158 targets between Davis and Adam Humphries (and others). That's enough for him to be reliable at times, especially if Tannehill can maintain some momentum from last year. We also can't forget that if Brown were to miss time, Davis would likely step into that 20-25 percent target share, and as a former first-round talent in a contract year, he could surprise. He has a little bit of a DeVante Parker feel to him, because make no mistake about it, Davis is a good football player. I like him as a late-round bench stash.

Remember when he was a target monster in Tampa Bay just two years ago and finished as a top-30 wide receiver? He dealt with injuries throughout the year, resulting in limited playing time and just 47 targets on the season. Even worse is that once A.J. Brown entered the lineup on a full-time basis, Humphries didn't see more than four targets in a game. Even if Humphries were to do something, it's not going to make you wonder how you missed it, because his ceiling is a fringe WR3. Shoot for upside in the later rounds. He doesn't have it.