It’s a “what have you done for me lately?” kind
of league and we’re the legion of optimistic amnesiacs who
eat, drink, and sleep it. One would think we’d be better at
forgetting the immediate past and focusing instead on what lies
ahead. As I document every summer, though, many of the guys we were
raving about last December are the same guys we’re buzzing
about now are the same guys we’ll ultimately bemoan come this
December. Did I say many? I meant most. In the seven years I’ve
been writing this article, 57% of Top 10 performers have failed
to retain Top 10 status the following season. Let’s take a
look at who disappointed last year, why, and who we should maybe
be wary of in 2018.
Note: All rankings are based on FFToday’s default standard
scoring.
Who Missed the Cut in 2017 (6/10): Jordy
Nelson, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., T.Y. Hilton, Davante Adams,
& Doug Baldwin
If you’re following closely, that’s now the No.1 QB,
the No.1 RB, and the No.1 WR from 2016 failing to stay fantasy-relevant,
let alone Top 10-worthy, last season. Jordy Nelson’s fate
was inextricably tied to Aaron Rodgers’, but the swiftness
of his decline was still rather alarming. Nelson scored six touchdowns
through Week 6, when A-Rodge succumbed to injury, but never scored
again in a Packer uniform. Nelson’s teammate, Adams, didn’t
have that same mind-meld connection with #12, and was therefore
able to stay very relevant with Brett Hundley at the controls. It
still wasn’t enough (he fell six spots to No.13), but a full
year with Rodgers back and Nelson in Oakland should augur plenty
of fantasy fireworks moving forward.
Doug Baldwin didn’t miss the Top 10 mark by much last year
either, dropping only four spots from No.10 to No.14. With Jimmy Graham now joining Adams in Green Bay, a whole bunch of red zone
targets are up for grabs in Seattle, meaning Baldwin has a very
good shot to jump back into the Top 10 this season. So do Mike Evans
and T.Y. Hilton, provided their respective quarterbacks don’t
miss a bunch of games again. Ryan Fitzpatrick is a very serviceable
fill-in while Jameis Winston serves his suspension and targeted
Evans plenty in Weeks 11 and 12 last season, the weeks Winston missed
due to injury. Hilton, meanwhile, stayed relevant with Jacoby Brissett
slinging it and even had several huge (175-yard+) games. Nevertheless,
he only scored four times, a career low, and managed a mere 120.6
fantasy points (also a career low).
That brings us to Odell Beckham Jr., pound-for-pound the best receiver
in the game. The only things preventing OBJ from a return to the
Top 10 are more ankle trouble and/or contract-related grousing affecting
his performance.
Most Likely Candidates to Fall from
the Top 10 This Year:
Tyreek Hill's efficiency last season will
be difficult to replicate even with strong-armed Mahomes at
QB.
Tyreek
Hill, KC: I’m sure you’re thinking I’m bearish on Andy
Reid’s Chiefs by now, but nothing could be further from the truth.
I actually think KC has a legit shot to be the most explosive offense
in the league, even with a brand new gunslinger and minus the guy
(Matt Nagy) who propelled them to great statistical heights late
last season. The issue I have with Hill is the same issue I have
with Kareem
Hunt. There are just a lot of mouths for Andy Reid and Co. to
feed and two very talented additions, Spencer
Ware and Sammy
Watkins, likely portend a more equitable distribution across
the board.
I was one of the few, it seems, who touted
Hill for Top 10 status last season and he did not disappoint.
Before you start proclaiming me a genius, though, understand that
he is the ONLY Top 10 riser I correctly identified last August.
Ouch! I figured Hill had a chance to shine with even a modest uptick
in touches, which is exactly what he got (92 v. 85 in 2016). However,
he also turned those touches into an even higher percentage of fantasy
points, upping his point-per-touch rate from 1.65 to 1.81, a solid
10% climb. Sustaining that higher rate could prove difficult this
season (Hill hit a bunch of homers last year), but even if he could,
it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be targeted as often in the passing
game (105) or utilized as frequently on jet sweeps and such in the
running game. His rushing yardage, in fact, declined significantly
from 2016 and he scored nary a rushing TD last season after scoring
three as a rook. Hill’s a great piece for the right price but shouldn’t
be valued as a top 5 WR this year.
Marvin
Jones, DET: Neither should Marvin Jones, who had never
even cracked the Top 20 at the receiver position until he exploded
for 164.1 fantasy points and a Top 5 finish last season. Jones’
target share has been remarkably consistent the last three seasons
(103 with Cincinnati and then 103 and 105 with Detroit), but an
18.0 yards/grab average and nine touchdowns vaulted him into the
fantasy stratosphere in 2017. To stay there, he’d need to maintain
that target share and that points-per-touch efficiency. Can he do
it?
The answer is “maybe,” but there are always concerns
when regime change has occurred, It’s at least encouraging
Matt Patricia retained OC Jim Bob Cooter, who engineered the Lions’
6th-rated passing offense last year, but the more immediate concern
for Jones and his pass-catching buddies is that Patricia seems intent
on breathing life into a moribund rushing offense. And it’s
hard to blame him when you consider Detroit averaged a league-worst
76.3 rushing yards/game in 2017. Enter Kerryon Johnson, a 2nd round
pick out of Auburn in April’s draft, and LeGarrette Blount,
the bulldozing, short-yardage specialist late of the Eagles.
Matthew Stafford gets paid a lot of money to sling the pigskin around
but he can’t do it all by himself and the additions of Johnson
and Blount should help bring offensive balance back to Motown, a
balance that’s been missing for a very long time. In the near
decade since Stafford’s been a Lion the silver and Honolulu
blue have never ranked higher than 17th in rushing offense and average
just over 26th overall. Yeah, it’s about time the rock toters
added some value to the Detroit bottom line and if they do that
in 2018, guys like Jones, Golden Tate, and Kenny Golladay will have
to take a fantasy hit.
Brandin
Cooks, LAR: For a guy who has such immense talent and
two straight years of Top 10 production in his back pocket, it sure
doesn’t seem like anyone wants him around for very long. Cooks is,
oddly, who I ended this same column with last summer (whoops), but
my reasons for closing with him then (new team, new system, new
QB) are still very much in play this summer. I was worried about
how he’d fit into an established offense and that’s exactly what
he’ll be trying to do again come training camp.
The fact we can even call the Los Angeles offense “established”
is a true testament to the miracle work Sean McVay et al. did with
the Rams last season. McVay took the league’s worst offense
two years running (2015 and 2016) and fashioned it into the highest
scoring outfit literally overnight (29.9 pts/game). He did this,
moreover, with a QB coming off one of the more disastrous rookie
campaigns in league history (Jared Goff) and an assortment of misfit
toys (Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, etc.) that wouldn’t have
caused any defensive coordinator to lose much sleep before the season
began.
Cooks feels like a natural fit for McVay’s system, which utilizes
lots of pre-snap motion and play-action, complicated/disguised route
combos, and plenty of vertical shots (Cooks’ specialty). In
other words, I could very well be eating a second helping of these
words come next summer. Then again, the Rams didn’t even place
a receiver in the Top 25 last season (!), despite all those points
and that widespread acclaim for the offense and its author. Cooks
wasn’t brought in to become a focal point (that’s still
Todd Gurley). He was brought in to put even more pressure on opponents
already flummoxed by a difficult-to-defend scheme. Beware.
