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Everyone knows the wide receiver position is deep with talent and you can find productive wide receivers in the later rounds of fantasy drafts. This year’s draft class added a lot of quality to the wide receiver pool. The extra depth at the position changed the way some fantasy managers play the game. Loading up at running back in the early rounds while also fading wide receiver has become the taboo draft strategy for 2020.
With there being a plethora of wide receivers to choose from there are going to be some interesting dichotomies in drafts. Players who are very similar in talent and in situation while also holding similar values. It’s a pick your poison situation that we are seeing it a lot in drafts this year.
There are a lot of hard choices to make in the middle of the tenth round. One of them is choosing between Darius Slayton and CeeDee Lamb. Both players are sitting next to each other in ADP with Slayton falling off the board as the WR37 and Lamb as the WR38.
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Darius Slayton (WR, NYG)
Slayton finished his rookie season last year catching 48 passes for 740 yards and eight touchdowns. He saw 100 air yards or more in five games and had nine games where he received five or more targets. Slayton owned a 16 percent target share and was the team’s deep threat with a 28 percent share of the air yards. Per PFF, 25 percent of his targets went for 20 yards or more.
His 4.39 40-yard dash is always on display whenever he is asked to run anything deep. Even though he’s asked to run a lot of deep routes, he still managed to obtain a 103.1 quarterback rating when targeted and a 60 percent catch rate.
The Giants quarterback, Daniel Jones, had 13.7 percent of his passes go for 20 yards or more, making him the perfect complement to Slayton’s game. The fact that Jones isn’t afraid to chuck it deep and Slayton has the elite level speed to consistently burn past the defense to earn a large share of those deep targets will always give him a chance to produce big numbers in the box score each and every week.
CeeDee Lamb (WR, DAL)
The Dallas Cowboys drafted Lamb with the 17th overall pick in this year’s draft. With Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup on the roster, they didn’t need to draft a receiver. This is more than enough evidence the Cowboys rated him as a top-tier talent while not being able to ignore his overall on-field potential.
When compared to the top wide receivers in the most recent draft classes, Lamb stacks up against the best of them. He was highly efficient at Oklahoma, averaging 3.99 yards per route run and posting a 147.7 quarterback rating when targeted. He was productive throughout his entire collegiate career and finished with a 35.4 percent dominator rating during his junior season.
Obviously, Lamb is entering his rookie season and will compete against Cooper and Gallup for targets who are both very good wide receivers. Dallas is expected to have one of the best wide receiver corps in the leagues this year. With Lamb being the third option in the passing game, will there be enough targets to make him a reliable option in fantasy?
With the departure of Jason Witten, Randal Cobb, and Tavon Austin there will be 190 vacated targets in Dallas’ offense. We should naturally expect to see Cowboys' tight end, Blake Jarwin, to see a larger share of the target this year. Since Lamb is a superior talent and has the potential to break out early in his career, there’s a good chance that he owns a large portion of the vacated targets. Talent usually wins out when there are extra targets up for grabs.
Competition for targets could be the downfall to Lamb’s ability to put up fantasy points, but it’s also a legitimate threat to Slayton’s workload. The Giants' offense endured injuries off-and-on throughout the season to Evan Ingram, Golden Tate, and Sterling Shepard. If those three players can stay healthy this year, then the target-well might dry up on Slayton.
Verdict
Even though Slayton has one season of NFL production under his belt, he is still not remotely close to being considered the same caliber of prospect as Lamb. Slayton was a fifth-round pick who never caught more than 35 passes in a season during his three-year collegiate career at Auburn. He’s not garnered as a superior talent. He does have home run hitting speed, but the odds of him ever developing into an elite-level player are slim to none.
Lamb, on the other hand, can turn into one of the top wide receivers in the league. It might not happen during his rookie season, but it’s definitely in his range of outcomes and could happen sooner than later. He has played at a high level his entire career and there’s no reason why he won’t do the same when he hits the NFL stage.
When you think about what the two prospects offer in terms of fantasy production, it’s hard to not pivot towards Lamb, because albeit he’s a rookie, he still has the talent to be on of the top wide receivers in the league if he builds a rapport with Dak Prescott. The Dallas Cowboys ranked 10th in the league with 597 pass attempts last season and if the passing volume continues to hold steady, Lamb should be an interesting asset in fantasy this year.
Both Slayton and Lamb have the same amount of risk. They could both be used sparingly in their respective offenses, making them not worthwhile options in fantasy. The difference between the two players is that Lamb has a much higher ceiling. He plays in a better offense and has a much stronger talent profile, making him a no-brainer decision when it comes to deciding between him or Slayton in the tenth round.
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