RADIO
It's not the easiest thing to distinguish between legitimate hype and preseason buzz. Kenny Golladay should not be a legitimately hyped prospect. Not yet.
While he makes for a tantalizing dynasty pick, he's gaining traction enough that he's appearing on ADP lists in re-draft leagues. This is a clear call to stop the hype train for a previously unheralded rookie who enters the year as the WR3 on a mediocre passing team.
Let's run down the reasons why Golladay simply doesn't make sense as anything but a deep-round flier at best and could wind up being an ADP bust.
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Golladay, Not Today
Golladay is not particularly fast or agile, but he does have better straight line speed than most guys of his size. At 6'4, he can be a go up and get it type guy, but watching him play, I don't see that type of mentality. More concerning about Golladay is the depth chart.
Golladay's hype started when he snagged three balls for 53 yards and two touchdowns in the Lions' opening preseason contest. Let's calm the jets a bit. Three catches for 53 yards is nice, but plenty of non starting WRs are going to do that type of thing in the preseason. The reason Golladay caught everyone's attention is because two of those three receptions went for scores. Golladay certainly has the physical ability to be a red zone force, but this guy should be firmly off the redraft radar.
I mentioned the depth chart. Let's go deeper into that. Golden Tate and Marvin Jones are the starters on this team. They are the top two options in the passing game. Third on the receiving depth chart is TJ Jones. At best, Golladay can hope to eclipse him. Even if we grant Golladay that spot, he is still behind Tate and Jones at WR. He is also behind Theo Riddick and Eric Ebron as they are the next two targets Matt Stafford will look for.
In 2016, Stafford attempted 594 passes. 238 of those passes went to Tate or Jones. Ebron and Riddick combined for 152 and that's with Riddick missing the final six games of the season. If we extrapolate Riddick's targets over the remainder of the season, that's another 40 targets. We have now already accounted for 430 of Stafford's 594 passes. Ameer Abdullah is healthy, for now, and will certainly see a fair share of targets. Even if we allot some of Riddick's targets to Abdullah, it's probably fair to say Abdullah will see at least 40 targets over the course of the season of his own right. That leaves approximately 124 targets for the rest of the Lions' receivers. They are not all going to Golladay. Anquan Boldin saw 95 targets last year and he was not a fantasy viable WR. That is probably best case scenario for Golladay. More likely is that Golladay sees somewhere in the 70-80 target range, which simply won't be enough volume to be worth owning, let alone starting for your fantasy team.
Golladay has talent and could be a starter in 2018, but there is just too much congestion on that depth chart to expect any sort of reasonably effective production in 2017. If you are taking shots on late round WRs, you want someone with a clearer path to targets than Kenny Golladay.
