Yesterday, I took a look at wide receivers who are likely to see an increase in targets during the 2018 fantasy football season. Now it’s time to check out the other end of the spectrum. Here are four wide receivers who are likely to see a decrease in targets this season.
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DeAndre Hopkins (HOU)
2017 targets: 174
174 targets, the most in the NFL since 2016, is crazy. What’s crazier is it happened in just 15 games. What’s craziest is the target share Hopkins received, which was by far the largest any player has received in the last five years. Only 18 players over that time frame have received greater than a 30% target share. Of those, just five have gotten more than 32. Of those, none has gone over 33%.
Hopkins hit 35.2%.
I know everyone is buzzing about the year Hopkins and DeShaun Watson had, but if we expand the games Watson was a starter he doesn’t even hit 500 passing attempts on the season. Surprisingly enough the Texans passed more without Watson than with him. Hopkins saw almost two fewer targets per game with Watson in the lineup compared to Tom Savage and T.J. Yates.
I think it’s safe to assume Watson will hit and exceed that 500 mark he was on pace for last season. Bumping him to 535 attempts and going with the career rate of 29.8% for Hopkins puts him right at 160 targets.
Jarvis Landry (CLE)
2017 targets: 161
We acknowledged Landry’s new team opening up opportunities in Miami for the teammates he left behind, but the man himself should find targets harder to come by in Cleveland. The Browns already start off our test poorly with just 52.6% of their passing attempts going towards receivers last season. This appears to be a balanced attack from the get-go, with the running backs and tight ends both grabbing an above-league-average share of targets.
When thinking of my projections I try to work backward, so with these, I try to estimate how many targets the team as a whole should expect to see. In three seasons with the Bills, Tyrod Taylor never topped 470 pass attempts. Even if we bump it to 500 for him this year it is an ominous outlook for this receiving group. Landry and Josh Gordon both have historically received about 28% of their team’s target share, which would be 140 each. 2016 first rounder Corey Coleman has had issues staying healthy, but he’s been on 100+ target paces his first two years. Pencil him in for another 100, Duke Johnson and the running backs in for their 110 after a 25.8% share last season, and the tight ends for 100 and we’re up to 590 without accounting for any of the depth players.
Realistically Coleman won’t hit his 100 with Landry in the mix, but I see no reason 2017 first rounder David Njoku would significantly regress after a promising rookie season. I’d also be surprised if the running back group took much of a hit, if any, with Johnson still in the mix and adding Carlos Hyde (88 targets last year in San Francisco). There were only two teams last season with more than two receivers seeing 100+ targets: the Lions and Dolphins. Both were in the top 10 in passing attempts. The Browns and Tyrod almost certainly will be in the bottom 10 this year.
I don’t expect Landry to fall off the face of the earth after signing a massive contract, but Josh Gordon is the best receiver on that team and there are a ton of other options. Most projections I’ve found put him in the neighborhood of 140 targets, but I’m going to say around 120 is the best case scenario we’re looking at for the former Dolphin.
Brandin Cooks (LAR)
2017 targets: 114
Cooks goes from playing for two Hall of Fame quarterbacks in pass-heavy offenses to Jared Goff and a run-first mentality. The Rams threw the ball to their receivers a healthy 63% of the time last season, but with Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp claiming 56% of them last season and returning Cooks could find matching his 114 from last season difficult. Never a target hog in either New Orleans or New England, Cooks averaged an 18.7% target share over his three seasons as a full-time starter. Some may think the Rams trading a first round pick would mean he’ll be featured heavily, but Sean McVay has never been one to feed a receiver the ball a ton. In his time as a head coach or offensive coordinator, he’s averaged just a 19.2% target share to his top receiver which is pretty much directly on line with Cooks career average.
Bumping Goff to 525 and giving Cooks an above average (for him and his coach) share of 20% only gets him to 105. He is a home run threat and can make it work with that few of targets, but if you’re looking for a safe play I’m not sure Cooks is your guy based on the volume alone.
Sterling Shepard (NYG)
2017 targets: 84
Shepard is a bit of anomaly on our list seeing only 84 targets last season, but his 16 game pace of 122 is certainly respectable. This one may seem obvious with Odell Beckham Jr. coming back and dominating targets as he has his whole career, but Shepard did put up 104 in his rookie season. Don’t expect it this time around. After years of below average attempts to tight ends and running backs inflating the wide receiver total numbers, Evan Engram broke out for a monstrous freshman campaign and dual-threat running back Saquon Barkley was drafted 2nd overall. Part of the break out for Engram was injuries to the receivers, but he’s a legitimate threat. Like I mentioned above we can work backward with our projection.
We’ll likely see in the neighborhood of 600 targets (603 average over the last four years). If we pencil the tight end group at a league average 21% and keep last year’s 23% the running back group achieved without a standout like Barkley we’re left with 336 targets for the receivers. Beckham has commanded a ~27% share throughout his career to great success. Marking him down for 160 targets leaves 176 for Shepard and the rest of the receiver group.
I mentioned above the average second receiver on a team gets right at 90 targets and that’s going to be the fair projection for Shepard as he’s not a standout player in any way in an offense with plenty of other options.
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Every NFL season is fluid with injuries, under-performance, and sometimes straight up buffoonery from coaches affecting workloads of our fantasy players. Seeing the volume a player gets is helpful, but if you can use tools like target distribution trends and historical data to get ahead of the curve and find the guy to get it before he ever does you’ll have a massive edge on our opponents because, after all, volume is king.
WRs Who Will See More Targets in 2018
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Ryan Melosi is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive and follow him @RTMelosi.