Wide Receivers To Avoid in Drafts?

Fantasy football drafts are all about finding value. As important as it is to find undervalued players, breakouts, sneaky late-round picks and sleepers -- it's equally important to avoid fantasy landmines and potential busts.

Today we're looking at some wide receivers who may be overvalued, or disappoint fantasy football managers, and you may want to think twice about before drafting them. This list may include wide receivers in bad situations on bad teams, players coming back from injuries, WRs with playing time concerns, or other concerning factors that should be analyzed.

In all of these cases, you're either looking at a risky pick that can potentially backfire on you, or an ADP that is too high. The latter may cause you to overlook other different players on draft day -- alternative options that can provide a better returns on investment in the same rounds.

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D.J. Chark, Jacksonville Jaguars

Chark's arrow looked to be pointing up initially. The Jags have a new franchise QB and offensive-minded coach that could help Chark rebound from a down 2020 season. Then the reports came that Urban Meyer wasn't impressed with Chark's tape. Then came the added weight; this was a request by Meyer that Chark add muscle to get stronger but it doesn't usually result in positive gains. Finally, Chark suffered a broken finger on his right hand that kept him out of preseason action completely.

Despite all this, Chark's draft stock hasn't dropped. He sits inside the top-30 receivers according to ADP consensus, ahead of Laviska Shenault Jr. and Marvin Jones Jr. As it stands, Jones appears to be the WR1 in the Jags offense with Shenault close behind. Chark will have to work his way into his coach's circle of trust while developing chemistry with Trevor Lawrence in the regular season. Easier said than done.

There are many other wide receivers in the ~100 ADP range that come with less question marks and less risk than Chark -- players like Michael Pittman Jr., Jarvis Landry and Antonio Brown. You may want to look around and see what's available before drafting Chark, unless he slips and provides better draft value.

-- Pierre Camus

Marquise Brown, Baltimore Ravens

Following a promising 2019 season that saw Lamar Jackson win MVP honors, expectations climbed higher than Hollywood Brown could match in 2020. It’s more than fair to say that fantasy managers felt like they wasted draft capital on Brown after a disappointing 58 catch, 769-yard receiving season. The Ravens' front office responded promptly by signing Sammy Watkins to a one-year deal and drafting Minnesota rookie Rashod Bateman in the first round of this year’s draft.

Why did the Ravens do this? In 2020, Brown only managed to produce a 71.7% catchable target rate (81st among WRs) and a super-low 26.7% contested catch rate, ranking him 96th in the league in that category. This should be interpreted as Brown not having the ability to make the plays he should make, and not being big enough in stature to win his share of 50/50 balls. So it’s no surprise that Baltimore is trying to replace 5’8 Marquise Brown with 6’0 Bateman and 6'1 Watkins.

This roster shakeup could end up terribly for Brown, who could move from the No.1 receiving target that saw 100 targets last year, to the No.4 option working out of the slot while having to compete with Mark Andrews for targets over the middle, similar to how Willie Snead has been used the past few seasons. While the ~140 overall ADP isn’t too expensive, there just aren’t many slot receivers that will end up paying off that price tag. Better deals can be had by drafting players like Jarvis Landry, Michael Pittman, and DeVante Parker, all who project to be more productive than Brown this season.

-- Josh Hayes

Henry Ruggs III, Las Vegas Raiders

One of the most head-scratching decisions in the 2020 NFL Draft was the Raiders making Henry Ruggs the first wide receiver off the board. Unsurprisingly, the guy who was never better than the third-best wide receiver on his own college team that doesn't have a breakout age (because he never broke out) did a whole lot of nothing as a rookie.

Historically, rookie wide receivers need to reach 500 yards in order to go onto successful NFL careers. There will always be outliers, but generally, we'd like to see rookie wide receivers hit that threshold. Ruggs finished with 452 receiving yards in just 13 games. Given that he was hurt for a bit, I'm not willing to completely write him off. However, Ruggs remains a mediocre prospect that did not produce as a rookie despite a wide-open receiving corps.

The Raiders have an alpha pass catcher in Darren Waller, but not much behind him. The second most targeted pass-catching spot is up for grabs. I just have zero confidence it will be Ruggs. The Raiders added Willie Snead in free agency and they're returning Hunter Renfrow and Zay Jones. Fellow sophomore Bryan Edwards was disappointing as a rookie as well because I believe his odds of breaking out are significantly greater than Ruggs'. I won't go so far as to peg Edwards as a must draft, but he profiles as a WR1 that can win on the outside. I wouldn't be surprised if Ruggs had a low-volume efficient season, but the most likely outcome is he's good for a couple of splash plays and not much else.

-- Jason Katz

Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Where to start with Mike Evans? Last season, Evans received 109 targets. This was the lowest of his career, by far. Prior to 2020, he averaged 9.3 targets per game. This past year, that fell to 6.8. That would be concerning at face value, but the surrounding context of the Buccaneers' 2020 season will add even more apprehension.

Chris Godwin missed four games and played the majority of the season at less than 100%. Antonio Brown missed eight games and OJ Howard missed 14. And for good measure, the Buccaneers also added Giovani Bernard, a running back in the mold of James White, a personal favorite of Tom Brady. If we saw his targets per game drop by 2.5 a game in 2020 with less competition, what happens in 2021 when all of those guys are healthy and on the field all the time?

Having too many mouths to feed is an awesome problem for an NFL coach to have, but it's a troubling one for fantasy managers and it is awfully crowded in Tampa Bay. If that weren't the only problem, Evans' 2020 touchdown rate is just not at all repeatable. He had scored double-digit touchdowns on two other occasions in his career. The first was his rookie season when he had 123 targets and 12 touchdowns, a 9.7% touchdown rate. The other was in 2016 when he had 173 targets and 12 touchdowns, a 6.9% touchdown rate. In 2020, he had 13 touchdowns on just 109 targets, an 11.9% touchdown rate.

Even when we look at just the two other seasons he scored double-digit touchdowns, fantasy managers should be expecting some solid regression in terms of his touchdown rate, but he has four other seasons in the NFL.

Mike Evans had the most TD’s of his career in 2020 on the lowest amount of targets he’s ever had. His TD rate for his career was 5.74% prior to 2020. In 2020 it was 12%. If he had scored at his career average last season, he would’ve been WR26, not WR10. In 2019 he…..

— Rob (@RobFFAddict) May 24, 2021

His career touchdown rate prior to 2020 was 5.7% and he more than doubled that in 2020. Regression is coming and to make matters even worse, so is a bunch more target competition.

-- Robert Lorge

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