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Antonio Losada evaluates wide receivers for fantasy football that should be prioritized in Standard leagues while faded in PPR due to their lack of targets and receptions but high efficiency on low volume.
Fantasy draft season will will be upon us before we know it. Aside from evaluating ADP and staying in tune with training camp reports this summer, it's also important to study differences between league types. Some still play standard leagues but these days, PPR (point per reception) formats are the norm. The only difference between those leagues comes down to a simple matter of awarding one extra point to players that catch a pass.
With both Standard and PPR-scoring systems in mind, it's time to discover which players are surefire bets in one system but potential duds in the other. Today, I'm highlighting four wide receivers who are primed to become studs in Standard leagues but lose some value when used in PPR formats.
When you're done here, take a look at the other side of the equation with wide receivers to prioritize in PPR.
Editor's Note: Discover RotoBaller’s top Fantasy Football Sleepers to gain an edge in your drafts. Our free who to draft tool and expert picks spotlight undervalued players, breakout candidates, and late-round gems for all league formats.
Kenny Golladay, Detroit Lions
Let's start with the least "interesting" of the players covered in this column. The truth is you won't be able to hide your plans to draft Golladay no matter the type of league you play in. The Lions have a good passing attack and Golladay should lead it in every receiving category, plain and simple. But when it comes to prioritizing players, you should definitely give Golladay an edge in Standard leagues because of his playing traits.
In 16 games last season, Golladay was somehow able to turn 11 of his 65 receptions in touchdowns. You can expect some regression there, sure, but even with that, his scoring prowess is key in Standard leagues that don't award extra points for receptions and instead rely solely on yardage and touchdowns. Speaking of yards, Golladay racked up all of 1,190 last year averaging a monster 18.3 per reception, the third-highest mark in the whole league.
Golladay projects (via PFF stats) to finish 2020 with 84 receptions and more than 1,400 yards while scoring eight TD. If that materializes, Kenny Golladay will again average both a high Yds/Rec mark (16.8, third-highest) and a high Yds/Tgt number (10.4, also third-highest). Golladay is a surefire player to have in your roster no matter the league, but given his big-play magic, he is more than worth considering in the Standard format above all.
Breshad Perriman, New York Jets
The Jets lost no time in fixing their loss of Robby Anderson this offseason by inking Perriman to a one-year deal. Don't overlook that tiny bit of info; Perriman will play this season in a contract year and will need to show everybody he's worth a big check come next year when he hits free agency for the second offseason in a row. New York will make a seamless change in flipping Anderson for Perriman, as the ex-Buc pencils in as the new deep threat of Sam Darnold's offense.
It took a while for Perriman to explode last season, but once he did his production was otherworldly. In just the last three games of the year he racked up more yards (349) than he did in the prior 11 games combined (296) while scoring four TD. And he did all of that while only getting 17 receptions in those three games for an average of 20.5 Yds/Rec. That's an insane number coming from a small sample, but his season-long 17.9 Yds/Rec and 9.3 Yds/Tgt weren't much lower marks.
Only Mecole Hardman and Adam Thielen scored more receiving touchdowns (seven) than Perriman (six) while being targeted fewer than 70 times. While Jameis Winston probably helped him reach those heights and he will have it harder this year, even if Perriman's numbers regress a bit he still projects to 670-plus yards and 4 TDs in 2020 with an average of 16 yards per catch. He might not be the best option to use in PPR formats (Jamison Crowder will get the bulk of targets/short-catchable passes in New York) but he's a very palatable deep threat to consider in Standard leagues.
Mike Williams, Los Angeles Chargers
Philip Rivers is out of Los Angeles. That, undoubtedly, will affect Mike Williams and the rest of the Chargers offense as they will go from playing under a perennial star at the position to a rookie or a career-backup in 2020. Something won't change, though, and that is the role both Keenan Allen and Mike Williams will have in LA's attack, even more with a lesser quarterback at the helm. That's why Allen projects to receive 123 targets and Williams only 85.
Catching only 49 passes last season Williams was still able to top 1,000 yards. Only 25 receivers reached that mark but he was the only one to did so under such a low reception number (Stefon Diggs followed him with 63 receptions). Williams' catch rate was bad (54.4%), but you have to forgive him considering the way he's used on long routes and deep throws. That's why he finished the year with the second-highest average on yards per reception (20.4) only behind Mecole Hardman (although it must be said that Williams kept up that average on 90 targets while Hardman was only targeted 41 times).
The only thing Williams' lacked was scoring punch: he only scored two touchdowns on the year. If that gets back to the mean and he reaches his projection of four scores in 2020, he should see his fantasy numbers boosted. Perhaps the loss of Rivers has an impact on his raw stats and he doesn't reach the 1,000-yard mark again (he projects to 785 yards on PFF) but even with that he'll keep his big-play profile in the Chargers offense and his game has steadily improved each passing season.
Terry McLaurin, Washington Redskins
The Redskins had a horrid season last year. That withstanding, McLaurin hit the ground running in his first season as a pro and, if not been for A.J. Brown's late-season explosion, McLaurin would have finished the year with the most yards among rookies. You might wonder why I picked Scary Terry (15.8 Yds/Rec) over Brown (20.2) here.
While Brown is a good proposition for Standard leagues given how easy he found to rack up yards after the catch, 2020 could see him blossoming into a do-it-all, much-more-targeted receiver in Tennessee. McLaurin, on the other hand, will probably maintain his 2019 usage/production profile if only because of his environment.
Washington will play second-year QB Dwayne Haskins, and the reality is that he was pretty much atrocious in his first NFL games. With such a passer throwing to McLaurin, the most probable outcome is a low reception number with high yardage only because of the receiver's own work. That is why McLaurin's projects to reach 975 yards in 2020 even when PFF only gives him around 65 receptions on the upcoming season for an average of 15.3 Yds/Rec.
One more thing to consider which bears a great deal of importance in standard leagues, scoring touchdowns, is going McLaurin's way. No other skill-position player from Washington except RB Derrius Guice projects to score more than 75 fantasy points next season, and even with that, he's projected to get three touchdowns. McLaurin (expected to score 6 TDs) should be the go-to option near the end zone and that boosts his upside in Standard leagues provided he won't be rewarded for catching the ball often (something that shouldn't even happen in this offense).
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