RADIO
As you are nearing the back-end of your draft, it becomes time to take fliers on players with uncertainty surrounding how productive they will be. Properly using your late round picks involves accepting the fact that even though the player you are selecting could develop into a serviceable fill-in or even a starter, it is just as likely that he will develop into an incredible disappointment. However, ensuring that no draft pick is wasted by making smart, high upside choices can mean hitting a home-run on a player you didn’t expect much from at best and dropping a pick that means very little at worst.
To use an example, I hark back to the 2014 NFL season when the Mr. Irrelevant in my hometown fantasy league was Kansas City Chiefs’ rookie tight end Travis Kelce. Kelce had shown off his ability as a receiver early in the preseason, though it was incredibly doubtful as to whether he would actually play on day one. Kelce went on to haul in 67 receptions for 862 yards and 5 touchdowns, finishing as TE-9 in standard and TE-8 in PPR scoring.
Now I find myself advocating for another Kansas City Chiefs’ player, this time a wide receiver who currently sits as an undrafted player in most mock drafts according to Fantasy Football Calculator. The release of Jeremy Maclin signals a great opportunity for one of his successors, third year wide-out Chris Conley, to grow into a useful fantasy asset sooner rather than later.
Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers won two writing awards and received 12 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. A big congrats to our very own Byron Lindeque (Golf) and Jordan McAbee (NASCAR) for both winning Writer Of The Year awards! Be sure to follow RotoBaller's analysis and advice all year long, and win more. Win More With RotoBaller!
Who Exactly is Chris Conley?
Coming out after four productive seasons for Georgia, Chris Conley entered the 2015 NFL draft possessing an extremely enticing skillset: a 6’3", 205 pound frame with 4.35 second 40 yard dash speed. Having just let under-performing wide-out Dwayne Bowe take his talents to Cleveland, the Kansas City Chiefs were hoping to fill the void with a player who was a much better athlete than Bowe and had plenty of room to be molded by coach Andy Reid. However, since being selected by the Chiefs in the third round, Conley has had a tough time living up to the hype over his first two NFL seasons.
|
Year |
Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
|
2015 |
17 | 199 | 1 |
| 2016 | 44 | 530 |
0 |
| 2017* | 61* | 729* |
1* |
*Projections from chiefswire.usatoday.com
Despite fairly pedestrian numbers, Conley saw an uptick in both his snap count and usage in his sophomore season and improved his receiving efficiency on the targets he got, increasing his 6.42 yards per target in his rookie season to 7.68. Seeing noticeable improvement from Conley is an indicator that he is becoming more comfortable with winning wide receiver/cornerback match-ups at the next level and a promising sign for his fantasy prospects in 2017.
Why Chris Conley Could Succeed and Why He Could Fail
Conley is physical and speedy enough to catch the ball and do more with his targets. Despite being touted as a speedster coming out of college, Conley`s deadliest weapon might be how much of a bully he can be off of the line of scrimmage. Against physical cornerbacks like Aqib Talib and Jalen Ramsey, Conley was able to find success in shoving back against the jam and give room for his routes to develop. What's more, when he was targeted, Conley displayed strong hands and the ability to win contested catches on the jump ball. With Conley lining up in the X receiver role opposite of Tyreek Hill, he will get plenty of opportunity to out-muscle cornerbacks with brute force and use his underrated speed to pick up extra yardage.
Conley will definitely get a greater piece of the target share, but he faces stiff competition. Quarterback Alex Smith is not well known for attempting the deep ball or being particularly accurate when he does, so expecting presumed first string wide receiver Tyreek Hill to be a target-hogging, 5’8 fantasy WR-1 is laughable. Until rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes (who had one of the strongest arms of the 2016 quarterback draft class) is under center, Hill`s ceiling will not reach its highest potential.
What does that mean for Chris Conley? Of Jeremy Maclin`s 73 targets that are left in the wake of his release, 28% were on short throws and 50% were on mid-range throws according to footballoutsiders.com. Funnily enough, Conley was targeted 23% of the time on short throws and 45% on mid-range throws, suggesting that he has a good chance of getting a significant portion of the 73 leftover targets. I won't pretend like Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce can’t compete for an increased target share themselves, but Conley could be a surprising beneficiary of more targets in a possession receiver role.
Of course, the overarching problem with Conley’s situation is that the Kansas City Chiefs aren’t exactly a prosperous offense for getting fantasy production out of wide receivers. In 2016, the Chiefs only averaged 233 passing yards per game and were 19th in the NFL in passing play percentage. They also face one of the hardest schedules for wide-outs with marquee games against Denver, Houston, and New England, all of which were top 12 defenses against the pass last season. That being said, the Chiefs still managed to rank 13th in the league in points per game at 23.8, meaning a third year breakout for Conley isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Is Chris Conley REALLY Worth A Late Round Flier?
It’s essential to remember that I’m not advocating for Chris Conley as a gem who will produce the same way Travis Kelce did in his rookie season and become a fixture in your starting lineup this fantasy season. In fact, this ‘fantasy sleeper’ lies in the much more volatile areas of sleeper rankings largely because of how high his ceiling and how low his floor could be. On one hand, Conley is a player with upside that reaches into the low-end WR2 territory in PPR formats and a floor that replicates his 2016 form when he finished as WR87.
I, for one, will be taking a shot with Chris Conley as a late-round flier who can round out my bench and is primed to explode onto the scene in his third NFL season. Although his ADP could improve to actually being drafted, it is incredibly likely that you’ll still be able to get him at an immense discount even if he has a solid preseason showing. Conley has both found his identity as a wide receiver and seen higher usage over the course of his first two years with the Chiefs, putting him in a situation that will finally allow him to be fantasy-relevant for 2017.
More Sleepers & Draft Values
Check out RotoBaller's famous fantasy football draft sleepers and waiver wire pickups list, updated regularly!
