Stop That Hype Train! Keke Coutee

August 30, 2019

A lot of wide receivers are seeing their fantasy football stock rise this preseason, but many will fail to live up to the hype. Kipp Heisterman looks at Texans WR Keke Coutee and explains why fantasy owners should steer clear.

The Houston Texans went 11-5 in 2018 en route to winning to the AFC South Division crown. They were able to do this in large part thanks to a relatively balanced offense that finished 15th in the league overall with 5,802 total yards. The passing game accounted for 3,781 yards, which was approximately 65% of their total offense.

The passing attack was far and away led by DeAndre Hopkins, who caught 115 balls on a whopping 163 targets for 1,527 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. Aside from Hopkins, the other main contributors in the passing game were Will Fuller, Ryan Griffin, Keke Coutee, and trade deadline acquisition Demaryius Thomas. They accounted for 503, 305, 287, and 275 receiving yards, respectively.

The Texans enter 2019 with Hopkins as the number one ahead of Fuller and Coutee. Thomas has moved on to New England, and Griffin to the New York Jets. They have also added pass-catching specialist, Duke Johnson to their backfield, who looks to lead the way in the Texan backfield after the recent injury to Lamar Miller. The question for them moving forward is, who (if anyone) will garner the second biggest workload in the receiving game behind Hopkins? Based on industry ADP, that answer seems to be Fuller, but Coutee is also getting a lot of love for a third-string wide receiver. Coutee is currently being drafted in the early to middle of round 12, which seems rather high for a guy that is third on the depth chart and plays behind a monstrous target hog in DeAndre Hopkins. Should we hop on the Hype Train for him? Let's take a deeper look at the former fourth-round draft pick and find out.

Keke Coutee, Houston Texans | ADP: 146 WR: 53

Keke Coutee suffered through an injury-riddled 2018 where he was continuously battling a hamstring strain. The hamstring kept him out of 10 games at various points in the season. When he did play, you could say he was somewhat effective at best. In six games, Coutee caught 28 passes for 287 yards and one touchdown. The injury bug has carried over to 2019 as well. He sprained his ankle in the preseason opener and was unable to participate in practice last week, or in their most recent preseason game vs. Dallas. It will become increasingly difficult to trust in Coutee if he is unable to prove he can stay healthy and get on the field.

Aside from the constant injuries, advanced metrics also do not favor Coutee. In 2018, Coutee had an awful drop rate of 7.3%, which placed him in the bottom 21% of wide receivers. In terms of raw numbers, this equated to Coutee dropping three of his 41 targets, which is not ideal. He also struggled with air yards in 2018. He accounted for 34.8% of the Texans' air yards, which was only good for five percent of the team's total air yards. This placed him in the bottom 39% and 15%, respectively. This is rather telling because Watson was in the top 22% of quarterbacks in average depth of target (aDoT). This means that Watson was not looking deep very often when targeting Coutee, and Coutee's three total catches of 20-plus yards confirm this. Compare this total to Hopkins (23) and Fuller (7) and it is clear that Watson trusts those two more on deeper routes.

One final item to consider is the recent injury to Lamar Miller. The injury to Miller means that Duke Johnson will almost certainly be the lead back unless the Texans can make a trade for a more established running back. If Johnson leads the way, this means there will be even fewer targets for Coutee as Johnson is a well-known pass-catching back that Watson can rely on. Had Miller not gotten hurt, Coutee's outlook would still have been bleak, but now it is even worse.

Overall, Keke Coutee is being drafted too high as far as ADP is concerned. I would not draft him at all in a 12-team league, but understand why some may consider using a late-round pick on him. For those looking for a receiver in the 12th round, consider players like Donte Moncrief, Michael Gallup, or Tyrell Williams.

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