Maclin’s move from Philadelphia to Kansas City will generally be viewed as a fantasy disappointment.

Jeremy Maclin entered free agency as one of the biggest prizes of the position. With Demaryius Thomas, Dez Bryant and Randall Cobb all staying home via a franchise tag or new contract, Maclin became the biggest name to change teams when he agreed to join the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs signed Maclin to a 5-year, $55 million contract, making him one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL.

A couple days after officially inking Maclin to his new contract, the Chiefs released Bowe. Kansas City now has three clear offensive leaders in Maclin, Jamaal Charles and Travis Kelce, and how those three mix will be a big story to watch as we approach the 2015 fantasy season.

Fantasy Impact

Coming off a career year, Maclin’s move from Philadelphia to Kansas City will generally be viewed as a disappointment. The Chiefs run a more conservative offense than the Eagles, giving Maclin less opportunity to put up big receiving numbers. It is true that Maclin’s move will make it hard for him to have another WR1-type season in 2015, but all is not lost.

In Andy Reid’s last season as coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2012, Maclin led the team in targets with 122. That Eagles team had DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy around, not to mention tight end Brent Celek (who finished second on the team in targets). In Kansas City, Maclin will still have a highly targeted tight end (Kelce) and a stud running back taking passes out of the backfield (Charles), but no real threats at wide receiver to steal targets.

The Chiefs have averaged about 520 pass attempts per season during Reid’s two years with the club. If Kelce gets 90-100 targets (a slight uptick from 2014), and Charles gets 60-70 (Charles had 59 in 2014 and McCoy had 67 in 2012; I’m going to call Charles’ 104 targets in 2013 an outlier), that will leave 350-370 targets for the rest of the Chiefs offense. I find it hard to believe that Maclin wouldn’t get at least one-third of those. A 120 target season for Maclin would be a drop-off from 2014 that saw him targeted 144 times, but it would still mean a healthy amount of passes are going his way.

Along with the target dip, the other fear with Maclin going to Kansas City is the prospects of playing with Alex Smith. Smith is no Aaron Rodgers, but he isn’t terrible either. In fact, I don’t think he’s a drop-off from the quarterbacks Maclin played with in Philadelphia. He may not be a long-ball type of quarterback, but neither were Nick Foles or Mark Sanchez. In fact, the yards per pass attempt was very similar for Foles (7.0) and Smith (6.9) in 2014. Sanchez had a higher mark, but most of Maclin’s success last season came with Foles at the helm.

That being said, I do expect Maclin’s yards per reception to drop given the nature of the Chiefs offense. In 2014, Maclin averaged 15.5 yards per catch. In 2012, he averaged just 12.4 yards per reception as the leading receiver in Reid’s offense. Bowe averaged 12.6 yards per catch as the top receiver in Reid’s 2014 offense.

For his career, Maclin has caught roughly 60% of the balls thrown his way. Given the expected number of targets and lower yards per reception, I feel comfortable putting Maclin around 72 catches for 900 yards in 2015. If he can post that stat-line along with 6-7 touchdowns, he would likely be flirting with low-end WR2 status in fantasy leagues. If he can improve on that loose projection (entirely possible), all the better.

Yes, we can expect a drop off from his huge 2014, but Maclin should remain a serviceable fantasy option heading in to the 2015 season.