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The New York Jets selected wide receiver Elijah Moore with the 34th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. The team spent significant draft capital with the choice, snagging the fourth-highest-ranked wideout in the class by ESPN’s grading. Moore trailed only current stars Ja'Marr Chase, DeVonta Smith, and Jaylen Waddle in this regard, recognized as a “rare prospect”. Moore could have very well been a first-rounder that year.
For the first half of his rookie season, the Ole Miss product struggled to see consistent playing time even on a Jets roster without a ton of positional opposition. The shifty receiver eventually scored his first NFL touchdown during a Week 7 blowout loss in 2021, and Moore never looked back. From that point on, the youngster appeared to be evolving into an every-week fantasy starter over his final seven games of the year. A quadriceps strain would halt that momentum, costing him the remainder of the campaign.
Moore signified a popular fantasy sleeper in 2022 drafts for his exciting conclusion to 2021, but he was never able to rekindle that level of excellence. The second-round pick's sophomore year was an unmitigated disaster which included a trade request and benching for the disgruntled Moore. He easily gave way to rookie sensation Garrett Wilson in the target pecking order, and an offseason trade to the Cleveland Browns hopes to spur a third-year leap for Moore. Let’s find out what Moore’s chances are at a 2023 rebound year.
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What Happened During Elijah Moore's Jets Career?
The story of Moore’s “Gang Green” career was focalized on how much greater he thrived without quarterback Zach Wilson at the helm. Moore logged multiple catches in 11 career games sans Wilson - excluding the final game of the 2022 season where New York was officially eliminated from playoff contention - and put up a solid 4.4 receptions for 56.7 receiving yards per game over this span. In 15 career games where Wilson played, Moore scuffled to a fantasy irrelevant 2.1 catches and 23.3 yards per try.
In six games following his first career end-zone visit in 2021, Moore piled up 5.7 receptions for 76.5 yards per contest to wrap up his promising rookie campaign. Four of those outings came without Wilson under center. Moore scored six touchdowns across the entire seven-game revelation from Weeks 7 to 13 that year, helping the pass catcher flourish to a whopping 17.7 full-PPR fantasy points per game over this period. This hot streak was highlighted by a 141-yard afternoon against the Dolphins during Week 11, 2021.
Moore’s numbers catching passes from signal-callers other than Wilson tentatively put him on pace for a respectable 60-catch, 800-yard campaign across a prospective 16-game interval. This is an extrapolation made in order to support Moore's per-game averages for his career without the inaccurate Wilson quarterbacking.
After demonstrating a nose for the end zone with a whirling 12.5% touchdown rate in 2021, Moore lost this knack the following year in holding a woeful 2.4% clip. Due to New York’s quarterback carousel last year, Moore’s catchable target rate was an unfair 54.5%, per PlayerProfiler. The reliable wideout was actually fifth in true catch rate (102.8%), staying with PlayerProfiler, which divides total receptions by catchable targets.
Moore’s microscopic target rate of 14.1% simply doesn’t correlate with his ability to create separation, as the speedy playmaker was 12th at his position in average yards of target separation (2.14). The agile wideout failed to exceed both the six-catch and 60-yard thresholds in 2022, scoring just two double-digit efforts in full-PPR settings.
What Will Elijah Moore's Role Look Like On The Browns?
For the sake of Moore's 2023 outlook, we should probably take his uneven 2022 with a bit of a grain of salt due to clear friction with the Jets organization, making it harder to evaluate his on-field performance. The 23-year-old joins the Browns for a relieving change of scenery, and he’ll operate alongside vertical threats Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones in three-wideout sets.
Deshaun Watson represents the most talented quarterback Moore has ever caught passes in the NFL. Watson was awesome in his last full season of action, leading the league in passing yards and yards per attempt on the lousy 4-12 Texans back in 2020. It looks as though Moore is positioned to function as the team’s primary slot receiver, a role that has become a fantasy gold mine in recent years league-wide for its propensity to furnish high-percentage targets.
Moore didn’t play much in the slot during his rookie year with Braxton Berrios and Jamison Crowder around, but he still managed an elusive 6.1 yards after the catch per reception in that concept in 2021. In 2022, he saw increased snaps out of the slot, notching PFF’s 10th-best drop grade (90.6) of 75 qualifying wide receivers. It's praiseworthy that Moore was able to maintain this level of composure and get into the conversation with some big names, as we can see in the table above, even amidst such a tumultuous season.
Cooper is likely established as Watson’s number-one receiver, leaving Moore to jockey with Peoples-Jones and David Njoku for the role of the field general's preferred secondary target. He will need to stave off Cleveland’s Round 3 draft choice of Cedric Tillman for playing time as well, but the rookie’s size and play style likely pose more of a threat to DPJ’s role on the outside rather than Moore’s.
Cooper is going to handle a multifaceted role while Peoples-Jones, featuring distinguished explosiveness with 16 yards per catch for his career, acts as the team's top deep threat. Njoku should serve as a chain-moving presence (6.8 ADOT in 2022), but Watson is not known as a check-down passer. The gunslinger possesses an air-yards-per-attempt average exceeding 8.8 in each season prior to his 2022 debacle, so the tight end might be the odd man out of the equation if a potential Moore breakout case were to come to fruition.
As we know, Cleveland is a run-heavy group with an ever-efficient Nick Chubb in the backfield. The Browns played at a voluminous pace in 2022, though, placing sixth in overall plays per game with 65.6. Cleveland ran 31.8 pass plays per outing, which makes it manageable for a pass catcher besides Cooper to emerge as a weekly fantasy starter.
From left to right, the table above depicts yards after the catch per reception, yards per route run, and the average depth of target from 2021. Moore was accompanied mostly by household names in each of these facets. The wideout's 1.75 yards per route and 4.7 yards after the catch per reception from his rookie year while dealing with second-rate quarterback play should alone give you a glimpse of what he’s capable of.
Is Elijah Moore Worth Drafting At His ADP In 2023?
At a 12th-round cost (113.7 FFPC ADP) in this year's fantasy drafts, Moore screams "2023 post-hype sleeper." 2022 couldn’t have gone any worse for him, and his ADP is still seeing him selected in virtually all 10-team leagues, which should portray an idea of how talented fantasy managers believe the versatile playmaker to be. Moore should have every opportunity to leapfrog the one-dimensional Peoples-Jones as Watson's new favorite number-two weapon.
If Moore takes most of his snaps in the slot as we anticipate, he should feature a nice blend of floor and ceiling as an occasional downfield target to amplify his chances at spiked weeks for fantasy purposes. The 23-year-old profiles as a young Tyler Lockett clone for their similar frame, style of play, route-running savviness, and even degrees of college success.
Moore is being treated as a WR4/5 as we enter training camp, but that status could rise dramatically if he has a buzzy preseason and the fantasy hype train gets back on the rails. Moore is certainly worth a flier in the double-digit rounds with at least high-end WR3 upside, a forecast only tempered by the nature of a run-first offense. It’s hard to not to be above consensus on his depressed price tag, as Moore is a gifted receiver who flashed those skills the last time he wasn't playing through chemistry issues.
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