RADIO
Plunging into the world of football analytics is without question the best way to find fantasy sleepers for the coming season. Especially in the case of wide receivers, where how they are lining up on the field has a direct correlation with production.
Slot receivers don't quite offer the boom-upside an outside receiver will deliver (unless he's called Cooper Kupp). What they do excel at is running high percentage routes and catching passes in traffic. Many of the game's best slot receivers are often regarded as some of the best and most undervalued options in PPR formats.
In this column, I will try to find the position's worst potential busts based on their team's tendency to target the slot, the player's slot volume, and the situation the offense is in getting into the 2022 season. Average Draft Position will play a role as well. Let's get it going!
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Robby Anderson, Carolina Panthers
I have to start praising Robby because of his recent "Noooo" tweet reacting to the possibility of the Panthers trading for Baker Mayfield in exchange for some draft picks. Imagine how badly Anderson dislikes poor Baker as to prefer Sam Darnold to throw him the rock next season. Oooff... but hey, it's not that Robby Anderson was helping Darnold excel at his job last year, either!
Anderson is a burner, and probably not the player you picture in your brain when you think about the term "slot receiver." I know, but I also trust the numbers (data from RotoWire) and they are telling me that Robby got 27% of the Panthers' RB/WR/TE slot snaps for himself--although it is also true that he had a 55/45 split when it came to his total snaps aligned from the slot/outside. Terrace Marshall should be the one manning the slot for Carolina--keyword: should--but that's not the case for now so here we are hating on Robby.
Anderson is coming off what clearly was the worst year of his career in 2021. After debuting his Panthers tenure with high grades in 2020 (top-20 WR, 95-1,096-3 receiving season), whatever it was Anderson did in 2021 wasn't remotely close to that year: 53-of-110 receptions, a measly 519 yards, and five TDs over 17 games. Ugh. Worst of all, almost 75% of Robby's total PPR points last year actually came on snaps in which he ran his route off the slot, so imagine how bad he was outside for that to be the case! If you have to trust a slot receiver, you definitely don't want any shares of Anderson in your team. He might be used there (and it's actually where did the most damage, as stupid as that sounds), but he's just not worth the profile that alignment demands and fits much more the boom/bust outside-receiver role. Not the worst late-round flier, but definitely a super volatile WR stuck in a muddy offense.
Marvin Jones, Jacksonville Jaguars
What should we make of Marvin Jones? Are we sure Marvin won't be starvin' in Jacksonville next season after the Jags added Christian Kirk to the fold? At the end of the day, Kirk manned slot-ran routes in 80% of the snaps he tool with the Cards last year, and he got a staggering 43% slot share in Arizona. The only good news for Jones is that he actually played a fewer percentage of slot snaps last season (43% of his total 978) than he did from outside positions (50%). Even then, though, the Jags handed him the most slot alignments with Laviska Shenault clocking in second down at a 24% share.
Jones has been around forever, and he played for the Jaguars in his debut season in Jacksonville last year. Truth be told, though, Jones only has one top-12 season on his resume and the Jags signed him in 2021 most probably because of his WR18 finish the year prior in his last campaign with the putrid Lions. He got more targets last season than in 2020 (120 to 115) but he caught fewer passes (73 to 76) and the yards cratered from 978 in Detroit to 832 in Jax--not to mention the obvious and expected TD-regression going from nine scores to just four playing under rookie QB Trevor Lawrence.
While Jones wasn't horrific and still found his way toward a low-end WR3 finish in PPR leagues, his average FPPG dropped to a good-not-great 10.6 mark (career lowest since his rookie season) and he only scored 58% of his total PPR points from the slot--although, as in Robby Anderson's case, he is probably not the best or most suited player for the role/alignment. There is a chance the arrival of Kirk shuffles the offense, Jones moves outside permanently, and Trevor Lawrence improves his all-around game. There is a chance, which means I don't want to have anything to do with Jones at least for the next eight months until he proves he's finally worth it (doubt it).
Tim Patrick, Denver Broncos
The Broncos pulled off the highest-impact transaction of the season this side of Tampa Bay bringing back Tom Brady from the death. Russell Wilson will be manning Denver's pocket from 2022 on, and that's an automatic boost for all of the Broncos' receiving corps members. That said, watch out for competition and WR/TE battles happening all across the TLOS next year with Patrick, Jerry Jeudy, Courtland Sutton, and new TE1 Albert Okwuegbunam fighting for targets.
Patrick was Denver's no. 1 slot receiver last year, running 405 of the 1,556 total slot routes schemed by the Broncos. That accounted for a reasonably high 26% slot share among TE/WR/RB in Denver. In Patrick's case isolated, he ran 48% of his total routes from the slot while putting up 75.8 PPR of his total FP in those plays. Patrick, though manning the slot quite often, was one of the worst receivers doing it in 2021: he only averaged 0.19 PPR/Slot-snap (eighth-fewest among WR with 400+ slot snaps) and racked up the sixth-lowest yardage mark with 368 receiving yards on 33 receptions on 405 slot snaps.
Of course, Patrick ran 44% of his routes from outside positions though he was worse running off the boundaries than doing so from the slot alignment. He only got 36% of his total PPR points from those outside-aligned plays compared to 48% when aligning inside. Wilson will definitely help Patrick all things considered, but the competition will be tough as neal to beat in terms of targets and actual touches, so you'd be better off looking into other options instead of getting fooled by the Broncos-Russ trap.
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