NFL Consistency - A look back at 2018's Wide Receivers - 9/2/19

We’ve already taken a look at the differences in consistency around the quarterback position from 2018 and how certain QBs stack up going into this season.

We’ve also rolled through some Week 1 running games to use in Week 1 for FanDuel and DraftKings plus some air attacks to look at in the passing game for DFS.

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Also, tune into our NFL podcast, broadcasting twice a week during the season. Episode 2 from this season is below.

Now let’s glance at the top wide receivers from last season and how they stacked up against each other over the course of the season from a consistency and upside perspective. And like we said with quarterbacks, we’ll do this by comparing the DraftKings coefficient of variation (CV - standard deviation / average points) of each player’s performance over the course of the year. This will allow us to compare players at each position to their peers. The lower the CV, the more consistent the player was over the course of the year. The average DraftKings points, kind of speaks for itself.

Takeaways

Davante Adams FD 8700 DK 7700
Opponent CHI
Proj Points FD - 15 DK - 18.07
Considering the offense was stale and Aaron Rodgers did play banged up last season, Davante Adams was a pillar of consistency over the course of the sixteen weeks. He was obviously a monster and it helped that he caught at least one touchdown in 12 of his 16 games games. His lowest targeted games were seven twice and he had nine games of 11 or more targets.

That being said, it’s tough to imagine with another year of Geronimo Allison and Marquez Valdes-Scantling that Adams is the ultra-target machine we saw last season. Additionally, with a change of coaching out of the stale Mike McCarthy offense and into Matt LaFleur’s style we could see the ball spread more.

I very much doubt we see this level of consistency from Adams again though he’s clearly WR1 in this offense.

Juju Smith-Schuster FD 8100 DK 7500
Opponent NE
Proj Points FD - 15.36 DK - 18.56
The Steelers and Vikings both sustained two top 15 receivers in Antonio Brown/Juju Smith-Schuster and Adam Thielen/Stefon Diggs respectively. The latter obviously come back as a tandem but now Juju is thrust into Pittsburgh's WR1 role. It’s going to be tough making strides in the targets department considering he already finished fifth overall in that category last season. But we shoud see a moderate bump in the touchdown department. Among the 11 most targeted players, Smith-Schuster had the second fewest touchdowns with seven (Jarvis Landry-4). Considering Antonio Brown had 15 (most in the league) we should see a correction here for the Steelers’ number one wideout. It’s also worth noting that Juju was second (2nd!) overall in the league in red zone targets last season with 29. His 17% conversion rate on those for touchdowns was pretty easily the worst among the top tier guys. That they already have him in the plan down and close could have us seeing Juju as just ending as the number one overall receiver when it’s all said and done.

Tyreek Hill FD 7600 DK 7600
Opponent JAX
Proj Points FD - 14.43 DK - 16.77
Tyreek Hill is a WR1 of course, but he isn’t like the rest of the group. His 13.6 Standard Deviation on DraftKings points was easily the highest of the group of top wide receivers. That’s because when Tyreek was on, he was really on. Hill had three of the top five overall wide receiver weeks on DraftKings last season. But he also had lines like 1/13/0, 4/46/0 and 2/51/0. This is what you get with Hill who is the epitome of volatile when it comes to wide reciever. Factor this in weekly into your cash game philosophy.

Other Thoughts

Amari Cooper FD 7500 DK 7000
Opponent NYG
Proj Points FD - 13.98 DK - 16.67
Amari Cooper (not on the graph) is like a crazy man’s Tyreek Hill. After the Week 6 trade to Dallas, he had a standard deviation of 15.8 DraftKings points which makes Hill look sort of safe and reliable. Cooper had seven weeks where he combined for 35/328/1 and then had two weeks in which he combined for 18/397/5. The difference in this kind of output is frankly staggering and has been something of a hallmark for Cooper dating even back to his time on the Raiders. Does he gain any more consistency this season with a full year in the Prescott offense? I don’t think so.

Julian Edelman FD 7100 DK 6900
Opponent PIT
Proj Points FD - 13.12 DK - 16.12
It will be interesting to see what happens with Julian Edelman this season. He was the most consistent WR in the top tier but had almost the lowest DraftKings points per game average. With Rob Gronkowski out of the mix, maybe there are a few more targets, but I expect the same old, same old with the Patriots in which he’s a high floor-low ceiling play each week. Any other takeaways from these numbers? Wide receivers you think will be on this list when it's all said and done at the end of the season who aren't there now?