Three and Out: Desean Jackson, Jamal Charles and Fantasy Football History

April 4, 2014 Scott Smith — 11 Comments
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Three & Out

Three and Out will be a weekly column here at RotoViz featuring some quick hitting fantasy football food for thought. Every week I will cover three topics featuring facts, stats, projections, player profiles, ADP updates, draft strategies, tips and the latest news from around the fantasy football world. Think of this as a 5-Hour Energy for your fantasy brain. With that said…lets get it.

FIRST DOWN

425.1 - The most points ever put up in a fantasy season. Ladanian Tomlinson had that historical season in 2006, putting up over 2300 yards and 31 touchdowns. The following year he disappointed his owners with only 1900 yards and 18 touchdowns. I’m just kidding. That year was 2007. Since then, no running back has finished back-to-back years in the top spot. Jamaal Charles is the reigning king of grid iron grinders, but recent history tells us not to expect a repeat. I reference Tomlinson above to illustrate how a follow-up season can still be statistically good and leave owners in the top spot feeling disappointed. While there is no reason to expect Charles to have a bad season, he may not be the top dog if you draft first overall.

SECOND DOWN

The TE Whisperer. Norv Turner’s offenses have produced a top 7 fantasy TE in 6 out of the last 7 seasons. Jordan Cameron was the latest to put up career numbers under the guidance of Norval. Kyle Rudolph recently made waves for saying he is the best tight end in the league, although Jimmy Graham and Gronk might have something to say about that. Current MFL10′s show Rudolph going as the 10th TE, which seems like fair value. At 24 years old, with a Pro Bowl appearance and 9 touchdown season under his belt, it’s quite possible Rudolph sets new career highs this season. My advice is to target him in dynasty leagues as Turner coached offenses love 2 TE sets. The RotoViz TE Sim Score App has Rudolph with a median score of 9.6 ppg and a high of 11 ppg in PPR leagues. Rudolph actually rates higher than Gronk in Jon Moore’s weight adjusted agility rankings.

THIRD DOWN

Desperate in D.C. -  At least Desean Jackson might be next year.  D-Jax had a career high 5.1 catches per game in Chip Kelly’s fast paced offense on 119 targets. Pierre Garcon lead the Redskins in targets (182) and catches (113) this past season. Jay Gruden offenses have averaged 543 pass attempts per season. 30% of which is taken up by the WR1, with 17% going to the WR2. For Jackson’s career, he has averaged 17.2 Yp/C on a 54% completion percentage. If those numbers held up in Gruden’s offense next year, Jackson would put up about 854 yards. Even if we bump up Jackson’s targets to what he saw last year with the Eagles, he is still only looking at about 1100 yards. Personally I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, which brings us to Jackson’s career averages of 957 yards and 5 tds per season. Another thing to note is that in 2 of 3 years with the Bengals, Jermaine Gresham was the second most productive receiver in Gruden’s offense. A lot of this is just spit-balling possible outcomes based on the past history we know about Jackson and Gruden. The WR Sim Score App shows an 80% chance of regression next season based on the plot below. In MFL10 drafts, Jackson is going ahead of the likes of Michael Floyd, Vincent Jackson and Torrey Smith, all of whom I would choose over Jackson at this point.

 

DJAX

 

Fourth Down

As I punt it over to you, I’m putting the over/under on Jackson at 1000 yards and 5 touchdowns. Do you think he will top that mark? Tell me what you think in the comments section below. For more stats and projections check out our RB, WR and TE Sim score apps. If there is something you would like to see in this column in the future, let us know.

 

 

 

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11 comments
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scienergy
scienergy

On the subject of Rudolph, I'd love to see some figures on his YAC stats.  I owned him in dynasty.  I dropped him like a bad habit last year because every time I saw him get the ball, he would take a hit and fall down.  Despite impressive physical stats including WAA, I didn't see it.  I didn't see a guy that could make open field cuts or had breakaway speed like Gronk/Graham.  I saw a guy that catches the ball, takes one hit and falls down.  His pro-bowl MVP was a joke, if you watch the plays he scored on, the defenders hardly tried to tackle him.

I want to believe in the Norv factor (thanks for all the fish Gordon/Cameron 2013), but I am highly skeptical of this one.

Justin Winn
Justin Winn

Regardless, I think Pierre Garcon is being substantially overvalued, even before DJax came to town. Last year was by all measures a career year for him. They're likely to run the ball more this year. Jordan Reed will likely see more playing time. Jackson is a factor. Andre Roberts has been added.


But most importantly, the OC is no longer Kyle Shanahan. Historically, he has the fed the ball to the WR1 (even more than Gruden did in Cincinnati with A.J. Green).

zjdlmt
zjdlmt

On DeSean Jackson, I think he'll go over those marks, but not by much which won't really change your point. I ended up with him in a trade and tried to flip him quickly only to find that there isn't as much hysteria about him as I'd hoped. Your underselling his career a bit though. He's played 6 seasons and missed some games (played 87 of 96 possible games). He's got 6,117 yards in his career. Your 957 number dismisses last season altogether. Even then, if you give him per game credit and extrapolate his numbers out to a full season then he was averaging 1078 yards per season to go with 5 TDs. That's basically what your over/under is set to and his career best for targets was the 126 he got this year (not 119, at least according to ESPN). 


He led the Eagles in yardage every season of his career except the season where he only played in 11 games. Maclin beat him out by 150 yards that season. 


Jay Gruden's career as a coordinator coincides with AJ Green's arrival in Cincy so I don't know that it's fair to assume that a WR1 heavy target distribution will be the norm. So, I think Jackson does get in the neighborhood of the same number of targets he saw this season and breaks the numbers you're listing here. His downside is that he gets injured and his upside is that he could be the WR1 (as he's been with the Eagles most years) and get a ton of targets. I wouldn't break the bank for him, but I like him a little better than Torrey Smith who only ever caught more than half his targets once.


My fantasy brain is so energized right now.

Justin Winn
Justin Winn

I think this Washington offense is going to be incredibly hard to project in general. That being said, I think there's a decent chance DJax is actually the WR1 from a production standpoint. 

ScottSmith610
ScottSmith610

Thanks for the comments...your points are well taken...first and foremost I think DJax is the premier deep threat in the NFL...as tough as it is to say I am a Skins fan so I know how dangerous he is...it will be hard to project who is going to be the #1 in this offense...I think its likely both Garcon and DJax regress a bit. Garcon due to less targets and DJax due to playing with a less talented passer and the better talent around him in the passing game. It will be interesting to see but I think 1000yds and 5tds is a pretty close projection give or take a td and 100 yds

ScottSmith610
ScottSmith610

@Intercept  I agree about projecting the offense in DC this year...I am more excited about the value of J.Reed this year than Garcon or DJax...I just think it will incredibly difficult for either player to match the career high outputs they both put up last year. I think it is likely that both regress but still put up respectable numbers...It will be important to monitor ADP leading up to draft time to understand their true value.

zjdlmt
zjdlmt

@ScottSmith610  Wait, you've got Foles as a more talented passer than RGIII and you're a skins fan? I thought Foles was undervalued... I haven't done this yet but what's the DJax projection when you use the app to pull out the Foles vs Vick games?


I like this series because I like to argue. You should throw an over/under out there every week.

ScottSmith610
ScottSmith610

For much of last year Foles was the most efficient qb in the nfl...his final qbr of 119 lead the nfl...maybe its the system but he lead a few of my teams to championships so mayne I have a bit of recency bias lol

ScottSmith610
ScottSmith610

I have a problem as a skins fan watching rg3 read the defense...holding out hope it was because the interior line was putrid last year and didnt give him much time although I haven't studied exact league pocket times to this point

Justin Winn
Justin Winn

@zjdlmt @ScottSmith610  I'm not sure how you can see that Foles is a better passer than RGIII when you look at their freshman tape. RGIII was insane his rookie year, and it wasn't a case of the numbers looking better than the play. Meanwhile, Foles benefitted highly from the system and got sacked on a lot of ridiculously drawn out plays, that a better passer or more mobile QB would have been able to do something about.