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After all the injuries and off-season surgeries, is Jordan Reed ready to re-emerge as an option for fantasy football owners? Is the same injury to Alex Smith on the same date 33 years later and after the same 301 pass attempts which ended Joe Theismann's career going to give Jordan Reed life once again?
If we know anything, we know two things. First, we know when Jordan Reed is healthy, he can be a top-five tight end in the NFL. He has the talent which has been shown on the all-too-rare occasion when he is on the field. The other thing we know is the tight end position is a dumpster fire for the most part. So, if we can get anything out of the talented Reed, it would be better than what we get out of a lot of other players at the position, maybe even Gronkowski this season.
While fantasy owners have been mostly frustrated by Reed this year, let's see if that is all about to change heading into Week 12.
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The Case for Trusting Reed Again
After the TE1 season Travis Kelce put up in Kansas City last season with Alex Smith, thoughts were abounding that the same would happen with Jordan Reed in Washington in a tight end-friendly Jay Gruden offense. We have seen Jordan Reed, and, in his absence, Vernon Davis have solid if not good seasons with Kirk Cousins and with the familiarity of Smith and Davis we thought the same would come in 2018. Unfortunately, all of the injuries to the receiving group have left no one else to cover but the tight end position, making them mostly irrelevant for the first 10 games of the season.
With Colt McCoy now taking the helms at quarterback, this will not matter as he will have to use any weapon possible to get the ball to. Especially behind an offensive line with three missing starters and journeymen filling in at this point, you need to go to your best weapons and for the Redskins, this is Adrian Peterson and Jordan Reed.
There is not a lot of historical data to show Jordan Reed will be significantly better with Colt McCoy than he has been with Alex Smith, but there is some. In nine full games with Alex Smith behind the helm this season for Washington, Reed has 37 receptions for 391 yards and one touchdown while being targeted 59 times in the offense. If you extrapolate this out for a full season his numbers would be 64 receptions for 691 yards and two touchdowns on just under 105 targets. While these are decent numbers for a tight end, they are not the numbers of someone who is the best player on an offense.
Comparing this to another tight end who is the best player on an offense leads us to Zach Ertz. Already this season, taking out Week 11 to make it a sample size of nine games each, Ertz has 75 receptions for 789 yards and five touchdowns on 100 targets. This would give him a season of 135 receptions for 1,402 yards and 10 touchdowns on 178 targets. These numbers, while incredible, are closer to the numbers which should be expected from a fully healthy Jordan Reed fully engrained in the offensive game plan.
On the other hand, there have been four games in Jordan Reed’s career in which Colt McCoy was the starting quarterback. These games took place in 2014, but thanks to the internet we can easily see his stats from way back then and see how he was used. In a season in which Jordan Reed had a total of 50 receptions for 465 yards on 65 targets, 31 of those targets came in the four games he played with Colt McCoy. In those four games he combined for 24 receptions with 247 yards, meaning a possible stat line for Reed of 96 receptions for 988 yards. Although he did not score a touchdown in those four games, he averages only .4 touchdowns a game in his career and he did have a touchdown this past week on McCoy’s first pass completion since 2015. A pace of 96 receptions for 988 yards on 124 targets sounds a lot better for a TE1 than 64 receptions for 691 yards on 105 targets, wouldn't you agree?
In a close game in Week 11, we saw this start to take effect. Reed had seven receptions for 71 yards and a touchdown on 11 targets as Washington finally got him more involved in the offense. Going forward, look for these types of target numbers to continue in their remaining games against the Cowboys this week. Likewise in two games left against the Philadelphia Eagles, whose pass defense has gotten worse through the season with a rash of injuries to their entire secondary and linebacker Jalen Mills. These games will give Reed ample chances to be a week-winning tight end with a positional advantage only seen this season by Zach Ertz and Travis Kelce.
If Jordan Reed is on your waiver wire and there is a small chance that he still is, go and get him. If you are in a league whose trade deadline has not passed yet you should see if you can get him from his owner. With the obvious exceptions of Ertz, Kelce, Kittle and maybe Howard, I would be willing to move any tight end for him, as his ceiling is as high as any of them and his floor should remain much higher than players like Eric Ebron or Jack Doyle in Indy or someone like Greg Olsen in Carolina who seems to be losing targets to D.J. Moore.
Whether Reed turns out to be a top-five tight end the rest of the season or whether he stays as one of a sea of mediocre plays at the position, he is a player who should be looked at closely, as his talent is higher than most others at the position. Whether you go so far as to trust him or not, his outlook much brighter than that of others like Ben Watson, Vance McDonald or Ricky Seals-Jones.
