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What is a wide receiver without a target? A warm body on a gridiron, that's it. Each and every summer, we face the same question because most NFL franchises and also some players themselves decide to go try and test new assets and places. Every time a contract runs out, the possibility of finding a new team arrives for every wide receiver part of the NFL community, and with those changes of teams come changes in usage patterns. Some stud can turn into a dud only because he goes from being a go-to guy to become part of a wider offense in which more than one talented player takes snaps.
This is the most used cliché ever, and the most widely known advice and phrase to keep in mind, but opportunity trumps everything in fantasy football. With no chances to rack up points, well, points won't ever come. It doesn't matter if your favorite receiver logs 100% of the offensive snaps of his team if all he does is looking at his quarterback throw the football away from him and to other players. You'd rather watch your man fumble every target than not being targeted at all. The more targets a player is likely to see, the more receptions, yards, and subsequently fantasy points he will accrue.
With that deep knowledge in place, it's time to assess the market of fantasy receivers to come up with some of them poised for a decrease in targets due to different circumstances. Let's get to it.
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Stefon Diggs, Buffalo Bills
Things have not changed that much in Buffalo throughout the offseason. Yes, John Brown is now in Las Vegas, but it is not that he was a pass-magnet last season as he missed seven games entirely and could only finish fourth in targets (52), barely above RB Devin Singletary (50). Diggs and Cole Beasley were the only Bills to rack up more than 100 looks, and Gabriel Davis was third, already down to 62.
Entering 2021, Diggs will wave goodbye to Brown and welcome former Saint Emmanuel Sanders. Sanders got a healthy 82 targets in 14 games playing under Drew Brees and leading the Saints' receiving corps in 2020. No matter how you look at the Bills' offense, Diggs is undoubtedly going to see a decrease in targets--basically, because his 2020 season was a true outlier in and of itself.
Looking at historical data from 2000 on, Diggs' 166 targets in 2020 weren't that many, ranking joint-51st in that span. But no one got targeted more than 160 times last season other than Diggs, and only Michael Thomas' 2019 campaign saw the Saint log more targets than Diggs in a single season happening in either 2019 or 2020. Not bad, but hardly repeatable.
While Diggs had never experienced a guns-blazing offense playing five years in Minny, it is also true that he had topped at 149 targets prior to 2020. Sanders will see more than a few targets, Cole Beasley might not be the smartest guy around but is a reliable pass-catcher, and the backfield and the rushing prowess of QB Josh Allen will also take looks from Diggs. Draft Diggs as high as you want/can, but be sure you won't be getting a 165+ target-man.
Tyler Boyd, Cincinnati Bengals
Boyd played his fifth pro season last year. Had he not missed six games in 2017, it is probable that he would have logged five seasons with 80+ targets, including the last three in which he had 108, 148, and finally 110 in 2020. It's a little mindboggling that Boyd could only get 110 looks when looking at his partners in crime: A.J. Green and then-rookie Tee Higgins.
The Bengals were stubborn as hell in feeding Green targets as he finished with 104, only three and six short of Higgins' and Boyd's tallies. That was ridiculous, as Green only caught 47 of those passes compared to Higgins' 67 receptions and Boyd's 79. But the worrying issue here is the super-balanced target share among receivers, and the fact that RBs Giovani Bernard and Joe Mixon got 85 targets themselves--and that was with Mixon out for 10 games, mind you.
Cincy will welcome QB Joe Burrow back after he missed six games last year. His comeback will prove crucial to Boyd's upside, as the latter's target count cratered with Burrow injured and out of play. That being said, the truth is that Boyd will face stiff competition in 2021 with flashy WR Ja'Marr Chase joining the receiving corps. Every first-round receiver with at least 12 games played as a rookie (25 of them since 2011) got to see 43+ targets, and 20 of those 25 racked up 70+ targets. All top-five draftees in that group got at least 115 targets as rookies. No joke, folks.
The Bengals trusted a putrid receiver in Green, but have now vastly improved at the position with Chase, so they will have every reason to believe in him and throw a bulky number of targets his way. Repeating a 110-target season is not hard by itself--it has happened 128 times in the past 10 years--but it will definitely be while playing in such a loaded offense.
DeAndre Hopkins, Arizona Cardinals
Hopkins' 2020 season was pretty much on par with Diggs', although Hopkins could only reach 286.8 PPR points on the year compared to Diggs' 328.6 and WR2 finish. That's not bad by any means, and it was the same old Hopkins that we knew, only now playing in the desert under fantasy-QB2 Kyler Murray.
Changing places--and most importantly, quarterback--didn't affect Hopkins in the very least as he had his sixth consecutive season getting targeted 150+ times, and his fourth straight finishing as a top-five fantasy WR. If we're honest, Arizona lacked talent worryingly at the wideout position, and Christian Kirk and Larry Fitzgerald were the only two WRs with 100+ fantasy points over the year, yet distant threats to Hopkins' usage--Kirk was targeted 79 times and Fitz 72.
For 2021, and although it's still hard to believe, Fitzgerald will watch football from his couch. As if Hopkins needed more opportunities... right? Wrong. The Cardinals are moving on from Fitzgerald, but they're making up for his goodbye with a couple of additions--veteran A.J. Green and rookie Rondale Moore. Arizona has also signed James Conner as part of a two-man backfield featuring Chase Edmonds and the former Steeler.
What I mean is, the competition isn't going to be staggering or cloud Hopkins' projections, but he will at least have some warm bodies around poised to eat at least a bit more than others did last season. Hopkins is a career target-magnet, yes, but he has the same problems as Diggs (read above) going for him: a rushing-QB that just cheated the fantasy system, will keep on doing it, and deeper/stronger competition on the field. Tough to envision Hopkins racks up 160+ more targets in 2021.
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