Path to WR1: D.K. Metcalf

Gage Bridgford breaks down D.K. Metcalf's fantasy football outlook with the Seattle Seahawks heading into the 2021 season and how he could finish as WR1.

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver D.K. Metcalf has had one of the more wild rides in the NFL over the last two-and-a-half years. After exploding for one of the best combine performances in recent memory, he proceeded to slide all the way to the end of the second round where the Seahawks snagged him with the 64th pick. Now, after two years, he became just the 16th player in NFL history to record 2200 or more receiving yards in their first two seasons. He also accomplished this feat while being 10th among those 16 in receptions to accomplish the goal.

Heading into Year 3, he’s being drafted as WR6 off of the board near the middle to late portion of the second round. Considering the names ahead of him, it makes sense that he’s not going sooner just yet. However, it seems as though we could see a case for him to go even earlier, especially if we’re forecasting ahead to a year from now. He has an elite quarterback throwing him the football, and he’s a physical freak that makes life difficult on every corner he matches up with. Why shouldn’t he be drafted higher?

That’s what we’re here to look at today. There is a very realistic path to Metcalf finishing as an every week top-10 option along with possibly falling into the WR1 overall position if things break the right way for him. His path is not the most clear among some of the other wideouts around the league where there is a lack of competition on their team, but he is still just as qualified as any to make a push for the top spot at the position. 

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He’s Not Far Off

For one, we’re not projecting Metcalf to make the jump from WR25 to WR1. He finished as WR7 last season, and there were fewer than 20 points separating WR4 through WR7 in PPR scoring. He’s already right there in the realm of the other players that finished at the top of the position. Looking back to 2019, we saw Green Bay Packers wideout Davante Adams finish as WR23 before finishing as WR1 in 2020. However, he missed four games in 2019. If you extrapolated his score out to a full season, he was WR2 on the year. The jump wasn’t that crazy. Metcalf wasn’t WR2 last season, but he could make the jump to WR1 this year. 

The impressive part of Metcalf’s season was the fact that he didn’t even see the amazing workload that other top wide receivers saw. He caught 83 passes on 129 targets last season. Among the six wide receivers that finished ahead of him, he was last in receptions among those seven players, and only rookie wideout Justin Jefferson saw fewer targets. Metcalf was punching with the top dogs at the position, and he wasn’t even seeing the same workload that they were. 

Heading into Year 3 with quarterback Russell Wilson throwing him the football, he should have the trust of his quarterback even more in tough situations. The main threat for targets in the Seahawks’ offense remains wideout Tyler Lockett, who led the team with 132 targets last season, but Lockett was rarely the team’s true WR1. The main differential in targets was the team’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals where Lockett saw 20 targets compared to five for Metcalf. Metcalf is the team’s alpha wideout just like the other top wideouts in the league. 

Eliminate the Bad Games

Last season, Metcalf was a big play and a big game waiting to happen. In games where he had 40 or more receiving yards, he averaged 19.93 PPR points per game on 5.85 receptions. A few down games were the difference between a top-three or four finish and the WR7 finish that he ended up with. Metcalf was averaging 15.7 yards per reception last season, which was the 11th-best mark in the NFL. When he was catching the ball, he was making big plays happen, which is why he was able to make it into the top-seven without the volume of the guys ahead of him.

The main way that Metcalf can improve his finish is with catch consistency. Metcalf caught only 64.3 percent of his passes last season, which was an improvement over his rookie season, but it was still the second-worst mark among the top-seven finishers last season. He was also tied for sixth in the NFL last season for most drops with six. With his ability to make big plays happen, he can’t afford to drop opportunities that he can turn into huge fantasy-point plays.

While he’s still matching up with Jalen Ramsey of the Los Angeles Rams twice a year, it will be interesting to see his play in the other two games he struggled. In one matchup with the San Francisco 49ers, he had three catches for 21 yards compared to 12 for 161 and two touchdowns in the other. Against the Arizona Cardinals, he had two of his lower-end games, but Patrick Peterson is now with the Minnesota Vikings. Will that remove those low output games from his range of outcomes?

More Volume is Coming

At a certain point, the best players get to a spot where you have to get them the ball. For one, there’s an extra game this year. If you just take Metcalf’s per-game averages, that would give him eight more targets, five more receptions, and a good chance at another touchdown, as he averaged .63 per game last season. Yes, every other player on the list ahead of him is also going to get that volume, but they don’t all have the big-play ability that Metcalf possesses.

In the games the Seahawks won last season, Metcalf saw a significant bump in his production. In the team’s 12 wins, he averaged 18.95 PPR points per game compared to a 6.5 point drop in the team’s four losses where he averaged just 11.47 PPR points. He also saw fewer targets, receptions, and yards in all four of those losses. While some of that can be attributed to the matchup, at a certain point, Russ has to give his guy a chance.

In the team’s Week 5 win over the Minnesota Vikings, when the team was in the two-minute drill for a chance to win the game, Metcalf was the only player Wilson targeted more than twice on the final drive, including for the game-winner and multiple times down in the red zone. Wilson has often relied on Lockett, and rightfully so considering their production together, but after being nearly balanced last year in targets, the scales seem primed to tip in Metcalf’s favor. Additionally, while Lockett has dealt with some injury issues, Metcalf’s size allows him to absorb more hits over the course of a season. If Lockett was to go down with an injury this year, Metcalf’s targets would increase tremendously. 

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