RADIO
You need to grab David Njoku now. You should have grabbed him last week, because his breakout potential for week 6 was high. Fortunately for you, he did not deliver and is still available in nearly 90% of Yahoo leagues.
Here is your opportunity to pick up a player a week or two early and avoid spending FAAB for a potential breakout candidate. Before you read on and find my list of reasons, quickly go visit the wire, find David Njoku, and offer him a contract to play for the "Dakstreet Boys" or "Game of Jones."
Who else do you have filling that last spot on your bench? Mohamed Sanu, Cordarelle Patterson, Ted Ginn or even worse, some handcuff that will never see the field? Give me a guy that is displaying the potential for fantasy gold within the next 2-4 weeks and let me pick him up a week or two early. I want to win it all and I won't settle for placeholders. If you too are looking ahead at playoff success, always consider picking up a few players like Mr. Njoku. These are players with high risk because they haven't broken out yet and are taking a valuable roster spot on your team, but also could bring high reward that may not deliver for a few weeks. So how do we determine if the potential reward is worth the risk?
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Why Njoku Time is Now
First and foremost, I think we need to look at opportunity. Most people pay attention to injuries for depth chart changes and look at weekly point totals to determine a players viability and trajectory. But dig a bit deeper and look into targets and carries and the trajectory of these targets and carries. Are there players out there who are seeing an increase in action over a two or three week period? Of course, targets and carries don't equate to fantasy points but they should serve as strong indicators of breakout potential while also providing insight into the team's perception and outlook for that player. My man Mr. Njoku has had 2, 2, 3 and 5 targets over Weeks 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively and I believe he is going to start doing a lot more with those targets as the season progresses. QB play can't get worse for Cleveland, can it?
I think the next indicator to look at is talent. If you find a player who is seeing increases in opportunity we must evaluate if he has the potential to boom with those opportunities. I'm not wasting a roster spot on someone with a low ceiling. My favorite place to evaluate the talent and/or athletic ability of these players is PlayerProfiler.com. Now many times we see players who aren't the most talented or athletic succeed with opportunity or visa versa, which is why this metric is secondary to opportunity in my eyes. However, both of these criteria together for me adds up to to a very strong case to be made for breakout potential. Now just take a peek at David's profile page. Not that familiar with him? Let me paraphrase by saying he is an absolute athletic and talent phenom. He led college football at the University of Miami with 11.2 yards AFTER the catch in 2016. He stands 6'4", weighs in at 246 lbs and was a high school high jump champion! Oh, and he has a 35 1/4' arm length, which is in the 97th percentile. There were a number of rookie TE phenoms in this draft class, but none quite measure up to Njoku. We've already seen splashes of this ability with three TD in Weeks 2-5 with Kizer at the helm and two huge catches; one was a spectacular one handed grab for a 21-yard TD in Week 5.
The arguments against David Njoku are that he is in a timeshare with Seth DeValve, the Cleveland Browns are awful and the quarterback situation is poor. I believe Seth DeValve serves one purpose and that is to facilitate Njoku's gradual ascendance and learning curve. I also think that a poor game-script favors the TE position and in particular a large, fast, agile TE with very long arms and incredible jumping ability. Lastly, it appears Kizer will be the QB from here on forward, which hopefully will allow Njoku to be more consistent in his trajectory and in his success once he breaks out. David Njoku will be a top-five TE for the second half of the season and the only question is whether or not he will be on your roster. I guarantee he's already on mine.
