Don't Stop Believing - Allen Robinson as a Top-10 WR in 2021

Bruce Matson evaluates Chicago Bears wide receiver Allen Robinson's fantasy football value heading into 2021 to determine if he can remain a top-10 WR with Andy Dalton at quarterback.

Allen Robinson signed his $18 million franchise tag, making him a Chicago Bear for the 2021 season. There’s still a possibility that he will get traded to another team, but as for now it appears, he will be catching passes from either Andy Dalton and/or Nick Foles.

With that recent change to the Bears offense, can he remain a top-10 WR in fantasy? What should fantasy gamers expect to see from his production in 2021?

These are all questions we must ask ourselves as we maneuver through the off-season and into our drafts.

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Same As It Ever Was

The story that resonates with Robinson’s career is that he has endured bad quarterback play throughout his whole career. The list of “bad’ quarterbacks starts with three years with Blake Bortles, two seasons with Mitch Trubisky, and a cup of coffee with Nick Foles. Even going back to his days at Penn State, he was a magnet for bad quarterback play, receiving targets from Matt McGloin and Christian Hackenberg.

Robinson knows how to persevere through tough times. He has produced three WR1 seasons despite playing with some of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. During his career, he has accumulated 20 WR1 weeks and 18 WR2 weeks. He has played in 88 games throughout his career and only has 35 games where he ranked outside of the top-36 at his position.

Betting on Robinson to finish the 2021 season isn’t too farfetched, considering he just produced back-to-back WR1 seasons. It doesn’t appear the Bears’ lackluster quarterback situation isn’t going to affect his output.

It doesn’t matter who is under center, whenever Robinson is on the field, he is going to command a large share of the targets. Excluding the 2017 season when he suffered a torn ACL, he has never experienced a season where he received less than a 22 percent target share.

The best route to becoming a WR1 in fantasy is to own a large share of the passing targets. Robinson has been steady in this department. Opportunity is everything and if passes are not going your way, then it’s going to be harder for a wide receiver to provide fantasy-relevant results.

Air yards is a metric that displays a wide receiver’s usage. Excluding Robinson’s 2017 season when he tore his ACL, he only has one season with less than 1,000 air yards. He has an 11.86 aDOT on his career. When you factor in that he’s receiving a large portion of his team’s pass attempts and seeing a steady amount of the passes downfield, it’s easy to see why he’s one of the most productive wide receivers in the NFL.

Being heavily targeted doesn’t mean much if you are not efficient. Robinson made the most of his touches by averaging 2.06 yards per route run, per PFF. He also has a 90.1 quarterback rating when targeted. We saw him do his most impressive work catching deep passes last season. According to PFF, he reeled in 50 percent of the targets that traveled 20 or more yards.

Dalton is projected to be the team’s starting quarterback for 2021. For the Cowboys, he completed 29.4 percent of his passes that went for 20 or more yards. However, when he had an alpha deep threat with AJ Green in Cincinnati his deep ball completion percentage was boosted to 45.9 percent in 2016. Even though this suggests that he can connect with his receivers downfield his yards per attempt have been dropping steadily each season all the way to a dismal 6.5 yards per attempt in 2020.

We could see Robinson’s average depth of target decrease this season. If this happens, it will be harder for him to produce consistent WR1 numbers and the odds of him providing top-ten production at his position could drift away. Even if he has a 25 percent target share, Robinson will need an increase his touchdown output in order to keep pace with the top-tier producers.

Bottom Line

Robinson is one of the few alpha wide receivers in the NFL. It doesn’t matter who is at quarterback, he’s going to command a large share of the targets. One thing that could get in his way is that he will be 28 years old at the start of the season. He isn’t exactly over the hill, but he’s not far away from the age apex either. There’s a chance he could experience a steep decline sooner than later. It might not be this season, but father time is still undefeated.

Even if he’s getting older, Robinson is an elite wide receiver. There’s still a chance the Bears find a trade partner and trade him to a more favorable situation. It’s highly likely that he will receive an upgrade at quarterback considering the Bears have one of the worst passing games in the league. If this dream scenario happens, we could see a massive increase in Robinson’s fantasy value.

Just like any true WR1, Robinson has the upside to finish the 2021 season as a top-10 fantasy wide receiver. There are some variables that could reduce his production. As we all know, Robinson is a target monster and will be the team’s target hog as long as he’s on the field. Fantasy managers should expect a dependable wide receiver asset who has a good chance of providing consistent WR1 production.

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