RADIO
Fantasy football draft season is upon us and RotoBaller is here to help! In this series, two RotoBaller experts will discuss the merits of two players with similar value and average draft position (ADP). Remember that situations will change for all players over the course of the summer and it may impact where they are selected in drafts.
Our Player vs. Player series rolls on as we examine veteran receivers that may be vastly undervalued in fantasy football drafts for 2017. Each player has a similar ADP just outside the top 40 WR, but could reap big rewards for fantasy owners in PPR leagues.
Brittany Smith discusses the merits of drafting Baltimore Ravens WR Jeremy Maclin, while Chris Moore justifies selecting Green Bay Packers WR Randall Cobb instead.
Jeremy Maclin (WR, BAL) - Brittany
Over the past two seasons, The Baltimore Ravens’ offense has featured a heavy-volume passing attack that, quiet as kept, actually led the league both seasons with nearly 700 passing attempts in each. Say what you want about Joe Flacco and the accuracy of the passing game, but the reality is that the Ravens have been tossing the ball all over the field a lot over the past few years, and this could very well be the trend for the upcoming season as well.
The Ravens went from having one of the most balanced attacks in the league in 2014, to running the ball only 34% and 35% of the time over the next two seasons. Since 2014, the Ravens have trotted out a medley of backs that has consisted of promising but injured rookies, card-carrying members of the 30-plus running back club, and generally average players that have struggled to stay on rosters. They cut their leading rusher from 2015 in the middle of the 2016 season. Their 2017 roster only has one holdover running back that was with the team in that balanced 2014 season, and he has had 14 total carries since then.
With the draft picks and offseason free-agent acquisitions showing the team’s defensive focus, the Ravens offensive skill positions have remained relatively untouched. This year’s backfield is pretty much the same group that divvied up the work last year when the team managed only 1,463 yards combined. They did make a solid addition with Danny Woodhead, but with his skill set and age this definitely won’t be the year he transforms in to a 15 carry-per-game, between the tackles back. So the run game that has put fear in absolutely no one the past two seasons is likely to remain mostly the same, and the Ravens will again have an offensive slant that systematically favors the passing game. Even if the Ravens’ defense finishes in the top-10 again this year, they could still find themselves having to abandon the run game at some point due to either it’s ineffectiveness, or to simply try to win ball games.
There aren’t too many other teams that could have been a better landing spot for free agent Jeremy Maclin. Remember the last time he was a part of a volume passing attack? To refresh your memory, with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2014 he caught 85 of his 143 targets for 1,318 yards and for good measure added 10 touchdowns for the second time in his career. He then carried that success over to his first year with the Chiefs, who in comparison to the 2015 Ravens’ 676 passes thrown, threw it 473 times, 30th in the league. As a part of the Chiefs’ feeble passing attack, he still managed to finish the season catching 87 of 124 targets for 1,088 yards, with eight more TDs.
Mike Wallace will presumably stay on the outside and continue to work with Flacco to stretch the field, leaving everything else as Maclin’s playground. And even though his bread and butter might be the intermediate game this year, Maclin does have game breaker ability. Back in that career year he had in Philadelphia, he had 12 plays that went for at least 25 yards. For comparison, the 2014 WR1 Antonio Brown had 15 big plays and T.Y. Hilton led the league with 17. Maclin also threw in 522 yards after the catch that year. It is this kind of versatility that allows Maclin to fill the role of the all-around receiver that the Ravens have a desperate need for this season.
With the retirement of Steve Smith and Dennis Pitta’s release, there are more than 200 targets that will be up for grabs, and Maclin very likely could step in and see at least 120 targets this year. He is still only 29 years old, but even when he was putting up career numbers he has always been an out-of-sight out-of-mind, under the radar pick. Being taken as the 38th WR off the board, he appears not to be on too many radars again this fantasy season, but you can be rewarded for taking him in the eighth round if he emerges as the Ravens’ number one receiver, which is certainly a realistic possibility.
Randall Cobb (WR, GB) - Chris
Stefon Diggs, Michael Thomas, Terrelle Pryor, Pierre Garcon, Jamison Crowder, Davante Adams, and Tyrell Williams were all selected outside the top 40 among wide receivers in fantasy drafts in 2016, yet these names were staples in fantasy lineups for most, if not all of last season. As we look at the wide receiver position in 2017, we should bear in mind that even outside of the top 40, similar opportunity exists for the coming year. Still in the dog days of summer, consensus rankings haven’t had a chance to completely settle into what they’re going to be, but a couple of players currently valued outside of that top 40 are Jeremy Maclin and Randall Cobb.
For my part, even though he’s less likely to lead his team in targets, Cobb is the player I’m more likely to draft.
If you look at Randall Cobb’s performance since his fantastic 2014 season that saw him finish 6th overall in fantasy points among WRs, you could be forgiven for believing he was in a steady, linear decline. After failing to eclipse 1,000 yards in 2015, he endured an injury riddled 2016 campaign in which he missed 3 games and was seemingly passed by teammate Davante Adams in Aaron Rodgers’s hierarchy of pass catchers. With only one 1,000 yard receiving season in his ledger and entering his 7th year in the NFL, it’s fair to be underwhelmed by his fantasy prospects heading into 2017.
Ordinarily, when you see a downward trajectory like the one Cobb seems to be on, it’s natural to wonder whether the player in question is past his prime- his best fantasy seasons probably behind him. In Randall’s case, however, I’d argue that this is a mistake.
The reasons I’m bullish on Cobb in 2017 are actually fairly simple. He’s entering his age 27 season and he plays with a potential 5,000+ yard, 40+ TD QB, in a situation that can certainly support three fantasy relevant WRs. We can also offer explanations for his recent dip in production that have nothing to do with age-related decline. In 2015, for example, he amassed 245 yards and four TD in his first three games, even after suffering a shoulder injury in preseason that saw him actively trying to protect himself. Whether he eventually aggravated the same shoulder, or if the wear and tear of the NFL season caught up to him, he only managed 584 yards and 2 TDs over the remaining 13 games.
In fact, long productivity droughts punctuated by threegame spikes have become Cobb’s thing over the past two seasons. In 2016, although his overall numbers were pedestrian, he had the following dynamite three-week stretches:
Weeks 5-7 (games 4-6): 27 catches on 37 targets, 256 yards, 2 TDs
Postseason (3 games): 18 catches on 24 targets, 260 yards, 3 TDs
While it’s hard to account for Cobb’s disappointing first three games in 2016, it’s important to remember that Cobb missed Green Bay’s Week 8 contest after popping up on the injury report with a hamstring issue that may well have stuck with him, to some degree, well beyond Week 8. The rest of the regular season saw Ty Montgomery’s move to a big pass-catching role out of the backfield and Davante Adams’s breakout/ascension to the de facto No. 2 role as a starter on the outside. Meanwhile, Cobb looked like an afterthought, with the momentum he was building in Weeks 5-7 having been derailed.
Was Randall Cobb’s disappointing 2016 largely, once again, a product of injury? WRs coach Luke Getsy gave us an indication that even Cobb’s fantastic postseason in 2016 wasn’t a fully healthy one. "You saw in those playoff games, and he wasn't even totally healthy, and you saw how impactful he was… That's why we say we have to get him the ball. He's going to do it again. He missed a few games with injuries, but the way he played last year down the stretch was incredible."
While it remains a distinct possibility that Cobb’s Pro Bowl season in 2014 will stand as the best of his career, we must acknowledge that at age 27, a healthy season could result in a return to high end WR2 territory, making him well worth a pick outside the top 40 at his position. The injury bug remains its own concern, but the potential rewards are too substantial to ignore.
