NFL Best Ball Upside Scenarios: Wide Receivers
In the NFL Best Ball version of fantasy football, the later rounds aren’t about finding decent sleeper value so much as finding those who can smash their smash spots for incredible value. Guys who can break weeks on multiple occasions.
Wide receivers are the sexiest, most sought-after players in fantasy. The ones we know to be target monsters will be gobbled up earlier in every draft, no matter what the texture of the general RB approach. In this space, we’ll look at a possible target monster with a strong ADOT, a couple of deep threats in an offense desperate for one, and someone who might be dust but in a new environment that might suit him.
Let’s get nuts.
T.Y. HILTON, COLTS
T.Y. Hilton feels like a dusty old man pick for people who haven’t played since the Obama Administration, but check it: Hilton had a 12.1 ADOT and his receptions averaged over ten yards downfield. And that was with Philip Rivers noodle arming the ball.
This season, Carson Wentz and his 8.8 IAY/PA will be slingin’ the rock to Colts receivers. A huge jump from Rivers’ 7.2 IAY/PA. We should expect Hilton’s efficiency to skyrocket.
If his 6.2 targets per game from 2020 sniffs the 8.6 from 2018, we could see huge games from him in 2021. He doesn’t need that sort of volume. He just needs the deep opportunity and — as we discussed in our QB article — Wentz could give it to him.
HENRY RUGGS and JOHN BROWN, RAIDERS
Derek Carr threw for 8.1 IAY/PA in 2020.
The average completion Darren Waller was 5.8 yards downfield and Hunter Renfrow was 5.7.
Nelson Agholor had a 15.5 ADOT and he’s gone.
Someone is gonna have to be targeted downfield for a decent Raiders offense that will have to throw more than it wants to.
The Raiders run. A lot. Relatively speaking, though. They still passed over 34 times per game. Waller can’t get 15 targets every week and when they’re down, it’s likely a shutdown on Waller. Meaning either Ruggs or Brown will get the opportunity to step up pretty often to give us huge weeks as the deep threat.
Ruggs has the talent and body to dust the league. If he can’t catch, Brown has proven for years that he can figure it out more often than most as a secondary or tertiary target for big weeks.
A.J. GREEN, CARDINALS
Receivers make their own air yards.
Sure, A.J. Green didn’t smash any weeks last season, but he isn’t geriatric, yet.
Green is still 6’4” and that means something when he had a 13.7 ADOT over 104 targets. Kyler Murray has an IAY/PA well under 8.0 over his two-year career, but the objective for the Cardinals stacking Green’s air yards on top of Andy Isabella and Christian Kirk is clearly to stretch the field at high volume.
Green is gonna be a wind sprinter a lot of weeks, but the DeAndre Hopkins volume demands so much attention, as well as Murray’s legs, that opportunity will be there more weeks than not for Green.
Green’s ADOT and size make it so he doesn’t need to be a target monster to be relevant in fantasy. Sure, we don’t want him in seasonal because good luck finding his great weeks. But his game is perfect for Best Ball:
- Big wide receiver
- Tons of yards per route
- High quantity of routes
- High-powered offense
The Cardinals should produce every week and I love James Conner, too. If we miss out on Murray and Hopkins, we can still sneaky-stack the Cardinals and profit.