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This post was originally featured on Rotoback.
Is Alshon Jeffery Being Undervalued?
Someone on Rotoballer's chat was asking some questions about whether to take Alshon Jefferey or some other players: Keenan Allen, Randall Cobb, Victor Cruz and the like. There was a huge overwhelming majority that felt like Alshon was worth less than the other players. One person pointed out that Alshon got most of his points last season from his time spent with McCown, which is true but the stats I'm about to show you will tell you there's really not that much of a difference between Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery's receiving statistics with Jay Cutler.
So first, lets start with Jay Cutlers stats last season. I've removed the Redskins game since he only had 8 attempts before leaving.
| Name | Attempts | Completions | Yards | Touchdowns |
| Jay Cutler | 327 | 221 | 2593 | 19 |
Now, lets take a look at Alshon Jeffery's and Brandon Marshall's stats with Jay Cutler from 2013:
| Name | Targets | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
| Alshon Jeffery | 91 | 52 | 798 | 3 |
| Brandon Marshall | 101 | 63 | 809 | 10 |
10 Targets, 11 Receptions, 11 yards, and 7 touchdowns is all that separates Jeffery from Marshall. The touchdowns are definitely a significant number but the rest of it? Not so much.
Breaking them down into percentages of Jay Cutlers stats, it looks like this:
| Name | Target % | Reception % | Yards% | Touchdown % |
| Alshon Jeffery | 27.8 | 23.5 | 30.8 | 15.8 |
| Brandon Marshall | 30.9 | 28.5 | 31.2 | 52.6 |
There isn't much of a significant difference between the players except for Touchdown %. This includes games before Alshon 'got it all together' and became the monster we now know, so lets break it down to games after Alshon had his first 100 yard game in week 4.
Here's Jay Cutlers stats without the first 3 games of the 2013 season:
| Name | Attempts | Completions | Yards | Touchdowns |
| Jay Cutler | 236 | 143 | 1900 | 13 |
...and here's Alshon Jeffery's and Brandon Marshall's stat's from weeks 4-17 in games played with Jay Cutler:
| Name | Targets | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
| Alshon Jeffery | 70 | 39 | 694 | 3 |
| Brandon Marshall | 73 | 43 | 540 | 8 |
Percentages:
| Name | Target % | Reception % | Yards% | Touchdown % |
| Alshon Jeffery | 29.7 | 27.3 | 36.5 | 23.1 |
| Brandon Marshall | 30.9 | 30.1 | 28.4 | 61.5 |
The gap gets even closer between them when we compare all their games after week 3. I'm not saying that Alshon is going to be better than Marshall or should be drafted as such, but it's kind of crazy to assume that he isn't worth his value as WR8 (ADP of 26). Jeffery had only 3.1% less opportunities than Brandon Marshall over the course of the season, and only 1.2% less after he began breaking out. That's not significant enough for me to take him out of the conversation for being a top 10 fantasy wide receiver - he's being drafted as such, and he's not someone I will shy away from in my drafts.
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