Jack Delaney talks draft strategy and what it means to take two receivers from the same team.
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Daily fantasy football players are familiar with stacking players from the same team together, but what about using that concept in your season long leagues with wide receivers?
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In 2013, I tested this strategy with a team of Julio Jones and Roddy White, Demaryius Thomas and Wes Welker, and Randall Cobb and James Jones. While Nelson and Cobb would have probably been a better combo, James Jones was just coming off his 14-touchdown season from 2012 and it was difficult to draft Cobb and Nelson together.
With Julio Jones and White totaling more than 2,000 receiving yards and combining for 17 touchdowns in 2012, I wanted to test how effective it would be to own two starting wide receivers on a high-powered passing attack. If White had a disappointing day, a 23-point performance from Jones would balance things out and I felt I would have less of a risk of having two wide receivers play poorly when I started a combination like them.
As you may or may not remember, Julio Jones only played five games in 2013, Cobb played in six and White didn’t complete a full season playing thirteen. Through trades and the waiver wire, however, each of those fantasy teams made it into the playoffs. The only group that didn’t was that of Thomas and Welker.
If you look at the scoring leaders for wide receivers in 2012 on NFL.com, Julio Jones finished 9th and White finished 10th. I was unable to reach a solid conclusion because the players on two of my teams were injured, and while I didn’t pursue this strategy last season, the Week 1 results in 2014 standard scoring leagues once again peaked my interest.
Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate: 38.1 total points
Julio Jones and Roddy White: 22.8 total points
Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb: 20.1 total points
Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders: 13.6 total points
So how did the 2014 season play out?
- Jordy Nelson (2nd) / Randall Cobb (6th)
- Demaryius Thomas (3rd) / Emmanuel Sanders (7th)
- Julio Jones ( 8th) / Roddy White (26th)
- Calvin Johnson (14th) / Golden Tate (13th)
You do have to take into account that Johnson was injured so Tate received a bump in value, but the Packers and Broncos supported two wide receivers who finished in the top 10 for standard scoring leagues.
Does this mean in the right situation you should draft a duo like Nelson and Cobb and reap the benefits of owning such dominate receivers?
Pros and Cons of this strategy
The biggest benefit from this concept is that you have the power to offset one receiver having a bad week. If Nelson was heavily shadowed all game and couldn’t break free, it stands to reason that Cobb would be the next receiver on the list to be heavily targeted. In Week 14 when Cobb only scored 5.7 fantasy points, Nelson lit up the scoreboard with 26.6. Together, that totals to 16.15 points if you split it per receiver which is a pretty solid week in standard scoring leagues. You also have the benefit that if one receiver does become injured, your other receiver should receive an additional boost in productivity.
Of course, the cons seem to outweigh the good. When you draft two wide receivers from the same team you also run into the issue of the offense stalling and every player having a bad game. Cobb only had 2.9 points in Week 3 against Detroit and Nelson only finished with 5.9 points. In Week 14, Thomas only had 1.1 fantasy points and Sanders finished with 6.9. This tends to lend itself to a boom or bust scenario for certain games which can hurt you in the playoffs.
In order to draft players like Cobb and Nelson, you are also going to need to spend early-round picks on each of them. Sometimes the logistics can be difficult to figure out as current ADPs have these two receivers for the Packers as second-round picks. I don’t expect Sanders to repeat his season from last year, which means it will be more difficult to pinpoint any teams that could post the type of numbers that Green Bay did. The Chicago Bears have an interesting duo with Alshon Jeffery and Kevin White, and the Colts with T.Y. Hilton and Andre Johnson, but those are risky combos to own as your two starting receivers.
While there is an upside to this strategy, it’s filled with too many holes to execute on it for your drafts. You have to not only make the assumption that two wide receivers can continue trends from previous season, but you also have to predict which teams can sustain fantasy success among two receivers. This isn’t to say you personally can’t find success from this concept, but it’s much easier said than done.
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Jack Delaney is a contributor at So Called Fantasy Experts. You can follow him on Twitter @YourFFCoach.
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