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Mark Wemken dives head-first into 2017 slot receiving data to find the wide receiver position's best sleepers and ADP values for 2018 fantasy football drafts.
Plunging into the world of football analytics is without question the best way to find fantasy sleepers for the coming season. Especially in the case of wide receivers, where how they are lining up on the field has a direct correlation with production.
Slot receivers don't quite offer the boom-upside an outside receiver will deliver (typically). What they do excel at is running high percentage routes and catching passes in traffic. Many of the games best slot receivers are often regarded as some of the best and most undervalued options in PPR formats.
We're going to dive head-first into some grade-A slot receiving analytics courtesy of Pro Football Focus. Also featured will be each team's slot receiving data as a unit. The goal will be to find the position's best sleepers based on the team's tendency to target the slot, the player's slot volume, and the current situation the team is in. Average draft position will play a role as well, considering many of these players can be had at a deep late round bargain.
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Slot Winners
Randall Cobb - Green Bay Packers
Just like every other Green Bay WR that wasn't Davante Adams, Randall Cobb's season was essentially lost once Aaron Rodgers went down. Cobb averaged over 5.5 receptions and eight targets per game with Rodgers directing traffic compared to just 4.1 catches and 5.5 targets without him. Health was also a factor that played into Cobb's struggles in 2017.
Cobb opted for offseason ankle surgery to clear up the issue. Also impacting GB is the departure of Jordy Nelson, which opens up a hefty target share for the rest of GBs pass catchers. While Adams will open the season as the teams WR1, there's a massive question mark regarding who will assume the role as the team's WR2. The best bet at this point has to be Cobb.
Only the Oakland Raiders targeted the slot on a higher percentage of pass attempts than the Packers did last year. Cobb took the lion's share of the slot work, drawing 60 of the teams 188 total slot targets. Cobb ran over 77 percent of his routes out of the slot. The departed Nelson actually drew the team's second-most slot targets with 27 of them.
Cobb isn't the only slot guy worth noting on this roster, however. Given the Packers' knack for targeting the slot, as well as Cobb's ankle situation, there is an incentive to include Ty Montgomery on your radar. While Montgomery had his own share of injury woes last season, he has eaten out of the slot over his past two seasons. He was a perfect 10 for 10 on slot targets in 2016; both metrics were second at the RB position behind just David Johnson. Montgomery's receiving usage has seen an uptick over the past two seasons with Cobb off the field as well. In the three games Cobb has missed that Montgomery was active in since the start of 2016, he has averaged five catches and nearly 7.5 targets per contest.
Cole Beasley - Dallas Cowboys
Slot receivers genuinely do not come more prototypical than Cole Beasley. The 5'8" veteran ran a whopping 87 percent of his routes out of the slot last year and garnered the positions 18th-most slot targets. Beasley didn't actually lead his team in slot production, however. The now retired Jason Witten led Dallas in both slot targets and slot receptions, while Dez Bryant placed third on the team in both metrics.
The slot is wide open for Beasley to patrol full time with Witten and Bryant both gone. Assuming Allen Hurns was brought in to convert from his slot role in Jacksonville, Beasley has a much clearer path to volume than his current WR87 ADP is indicating.
Unlike the situation in Green Bay, Beasley doesn't quite measure up in terms of upside. He is best drafted as a final round dart throw or streaming option to cover bye weeks. He should be viewed as a WR4 with WR3 upside if he can build on his volume from a season ago.
Kenny Stills - Miami Dolphins
Just when we thought slot receivers couldn't get any less stereotypical, out breaks Kenny Stills. Stills saw the positions 17th-most targets and caught the second-most touchdowns while running out of the slot last season. That's impressive for somebody that shared a huddle with one of the league's premier slot receiving threats in Jarvis Landry.
Stills is in the best position of his tenure to set career highs in targets and catches. Landry was the second-most targeted receiver in all of football last season, meaning there are nearly 160 targets up for grabs in that offense just from Landry's departure alone. Relative to this, MIA was one of just four teams to attempt at least 600 passes last season, and they targeted the slot on 171 of those attempts.
This situation gets even juicier when we account for game theory. Miami is expected to be a bottom-ten team, which could mean plenty of positive game scripts for Stills to eat in Landry's role.
With all of this in mind, it'll be interesting to see how MIA deploys their newest receiving weapons in Albert Wilson and Danny Amendola. While Amendola is almost strictly a slot receiver, Wilson possesses the versatility to motion outside and make plays after the catch. He ran nearly 42 percent of his routes on the outside last season, so it should be expected that all three of these players will get plenty of action from there. Despite the presence of two other slot guys on the roster, Stills will create the biggest mismatch on the inside. Look for him to be utilized all over the field and peppered with plenty of targets all season long.
Julian Edelman - New England Patriots
In terms of raw targets, only one team managed to throw towards the slot more times than Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. While Julian Edelman lost his season before it began to a torn ACL, both Chris Hogan and the since-departed Amendola filled the role with grace. Amendola ran over 80 percent of his routes from the slot last season, while Hogan ran closer to 45 percent of his routes from there. Also contributing to account for Edelman's loss was Rob Gronkowski, who was an absolute matchup nightmare. Gronkowski finished second on the team in slot receiving yards and caught three of his touchdowns from there.
His lost 2017 season and four-game suspension have both contributed to Edelman's disrespectful ADP. Edelman is being drafted outside the top 30 at his position despite finishing as the WR14 in 2016. Edelman caught 98 passes and accounted for over 1,100 receiving yards that year.
Edelman is being drafted late enough that he can be stashed for the first month of the season without necessarily hurting your team. He's about as high-end as WR2s come, and he no longer has to worry about Amendola vulturing potential slot volume. From 2014 through 2016, Edelman averaged over 11 targets and 80 receiving yards per game with Amendola off the field.
