For those who’ve listened to our episode covering all of our Trap, Treasure and Trap players. I wanted to give you the notes I took on all of my players. Definitely a lot more through than what I could give on air as well as filled with stats. Enjoy!
Odell Beckham, Jr.:
Oh how the mighty have fallen. The once Rockstar of NYC has been relegated to the Browns and it’s not going well. To paint the larger picture on why OBJ is TRASH we need to look at his full history. His career is maligned with injuries and off field issues. During his tenure with the NYG he only managed to finish 1 season. He set a franchise record of missing 21 games in his first 5 seasons. In order of injuries; aggravated Hamstring (4 games), Ankle Sprain (1 game), fractured that same Ankle (12 games), and finally a bruised Quad (4 games). While in CLE he also got a Sports Hernia (0 games) and has needed off season surgery (2020). Excluding the fracture, he on average misses 3 games a season. That is completely unreliable.
Now let’s look at his off field antics. He was suspended for a game (2015) for starting a fight with Josh Norman. He’s been caught on video losing a fight to a net (2016). He’s also been caught on video doing illegal substances (2018). Recently it’s also come out that he committed Battery on a Police Officer back when he played for LSU (2014) and has an active arrest warrant out on him (2020). During this last season he got into another fight with a DB and got choked out (2020). On top of all that he started the whole “come get me” shenanigans. Literally going to other teams and asking to be on their team. He clearly has ego issues and doesn’t even want to be in CLE.
Up to this point you’re thinking okay so he gets injured and is a troublemaker but he still produces. WRONG!! He USED to produce, now he’s TRASH. Back in NY he was the only show in town. Not including his ankle injury year he averaged 145 targets a year, which is fantastic. But he has a career 61.5% catch rate. But last year it was 55.6%. Which is unmitigated TRASH. He didn’t even make the top 100 WR in catch % last year. To continue on, his YPG has gone down pretty much every year with last year being the worst at 65 y/g. His TDs have also dropped from consistent double digits to an average of 5 in the last two years.
The hope is that with a new HC and OC in Stefanski they’ll be able to turn things around and OBJ will ascend. WRONG!! As we know Stefanski comes from MIN, so let’s take a look at what he did there last year. It’s simple, they ran the damn ball. They also passed to the RB a lot, with 27.1% of the total target share going to that position. The comparable player to OBJ in this system was Diggs. Diggs got 20.2% of the targets all year. But Theilen was injured and missed several games. Let’s use the data from when they were both healthy and playing together. Through the first 7 weeks they have 42 and 40 targets so you could call it 50/50. Which over the year would have yielded around 15% of the target share each. Cousins had 444 passing attempts last year versus Mayfield’s 534 attempts. The average would be 489 attempts. If we use all that data above we could argue that OBJ would get 45 receptions, 630 yds and maybe 5 TDs. That’s TRASH!! Let’s be generous and say he gets the same target percentage as last year of 24.7%. This would give us 75 receptions, 1050 yds and 5 tds. Which is TRASH! You expect me to pay an ADP of 15 overall for a player who finished 23rd in his position last year, will likely get injured or suspended and will be outproduced by Landry and the RBs. TRASH!!!!!
Matthew Stafford:
I find it disrespectful that a player, who since 2012 has finished in the top 10 at his position in 5 out of the last 8 years, is ranked so low. Last year alone he was on pace for 5,000 yds and 38 TDs. That was still good for top 10 through the first 9 weeks and would have finished as QB2 if he didn’t get injured. In those 9 weeks which included a bye week, he had 5 top six finishes. This man is a TREASURE!
The biggest concern with Stafford this year is his back injury. This will be the second year with some sort of back injury. In 2018 he fractured part of his back but played through the pain and finished out the year. In 2019 when he received the back injury against the Raiders he was already nursing a hip injury. In the seasons leading up to this injury he held a record number of consecutive starts, currently the 6th longest streak. He played through many injuries those seasons and the prognosis for this “current” injury is very good. In January 2020 the Lions and Stafford’s wife, Kelly, stated that he was healthy and ready to play. I don’t see the injury being an issue this year.
The Lions have actually done something to help and protect Stafford. Through free agency and the draft they have picked up 6 O-Line men including Vaitai, which should be a huge help not only in protection but in the run game. They also drafted Swift, a prolific rusher who can catch but also drafted Quentin Ciphus who’s an underrated WR. This in conjunction with Hockenson taking a step forward as a TE should give Stafford one of the more prolific offenses in the league. Golladay is a top 10 WR and that’s with any trash QB the Lions can throw out there. Add in Jones who was a Top 15 WR when Stafford was playing and you have everything you need to find yourself a TREASURE.
Aaron Jones:
Jones had a whopping 19 TDs last season on his way to the #2 RB in the league. You’re probably thinking that’s amazing, give me some more! But we need to take a deeper look at what was going on in GB. Per our metrics we would like an RB1 to produce around 15 pts a game. Jones’ average last year was 18.1 which is great but it’s highly skewed. He had 7 games where he failed to meet or exceed our exceptions. But was able to counter it with 6 games of 23+ points including 45.7 and a 38.1 games. Per the Fantasy Footballers that’s good for a consistency rank of #18. That is terrible for an RB1.
Most of this is due to the TD totals. We love to preach that record setting performances don’t happen every year and I believe he is the first RB to score that much on so few touches. If he regresses to the mean we would be looking at 10 total touchdowns which puts him in line for an RB2. He also only had 1,084 rushing yards on 236 carries. He was wildly more efficient than what the data would indicate.
Next up is the looming debacle in GB. LaFluer has come straight out and said he wants to use a committee. We saw countless times last season they’d have Williams come out and take touches for some unknown reason. Then they go and draft A.J. Dillion in the second round. This dude is huge and will absolutely eat into Jones’ Redzone attempts of 34 and TDs where he scored 14. Currently Jones is still ranked as a top 12 RB with some experts having him as high as 5. With the regression that has to come naturally and the fact he will have overall less touches and Redzone attempts, he is a TRAP!!