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Jacksonville Jaguars Team Report

July 28, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

The Jacksonville Jaguars envision rookie RB T.J. Yeldon as the starter and a workhorse type back. We like his prospects, but the story is eerily similar to the preseason fantasy hype for Toby Gerhart last season.

QB Blake Bortles

Taken 3rd overall in last year’s NFL Draft, Bortles was thrust into the starting lineup in Week 3 and, not surprisingly, struggled mightily in a Jaguars offense that was devoid of much proven talent. In 2015, the offensive line has been bolstered, RB T.J. Yeldon was taken in the draft to improve the team’s rushing attack and tight end Julius Thomas was signed in free agency to pair with a trio of promising young wide receivers in Allen Robinson, Allen Hurns and Marqise Lee. Unfortunately, that probably isn’t going to be enough to help the Jaguars emerge as a solid offensive team, although they are getting closer. Coming off a season in which he threw for just 2,908 yards with 17 interceptions and just 11 touchdowns in 14 games while struggling with his accuracy (completion percentage of 58.9%), Bortles isn’t likely to be fantasy relevant in 2015. While it’s nice that his rushing ability helps pad his fantasy production (419 yards last season), we still rate him as a lower tier QB2.

RB T.J. Yeldon

After the Toby Gerhart debacle from a year ago, Jacksonville addressed the running back position in this year’s draft, taking Yeldon with the 4th pick in the 2nd round. A big back at 6’2” and 221 pounds, Yeldon figures to open the season in the starting lineup and all the signals out of Jacksonville are that the team envisions him as a workhorse type back. That all sounds great if it didn’t seem like such an obvious case of déjà vu. In 2014, Gerhart was signed by Jacksonville, they envisioned him as a workhorse type back given his solid size and receiving ability. We all know how that ended. While we aren’t going to anoint Yeldon as a bust just yet, Gerhart does serve as a cautionary tale when drafting Jacksonville running backs. Although their offense is improving, it still isn’t expected to be very good in 2015. That limits Yeldon’s upside. And we’re also not sold on the workhorse predictions since Denard Robinson emerged as a solid contributor last season and Gerhart has had some success as a backup during his stay in Minnesota. Yeldon rates as a solid dynasty prospect but we like him as just a high end RB3 in redraft formats.

RB Denard Robinson

After struggling with his conversion from college quarterback to NFL running back as a rookie in 2013, Robinson emerged as a decent playmaker in his second season last year. With Toby Gerhart ineffective and nicked up, Robinson took over as the Jaguars starter in Week 7 and had a solid four game run through Week 10 during which he gained 419 yards and scored four touchdowns. However, he struggled in Weeks 12 and 13 before suffering a season ending foot injury in Week 14. In 2015, Robinson seems destined for backup status as the Jaguars felt that his 6’0”, 197 pound frame wouldn’t hold up as a starter leading to the draft selection of T.J. Yeldon. Since Toby Gerhart remains in the picture and will likely steal some touches from him, Robinson isn’t anything more than a late round flyer serving as Yeldon’s backup despite his improved performance in 2014.

RB Toby Gerhart

Arguably the most over-hyped player for fantasy purposes last season (you didn’t read the hype here, folks), Gerhart crashed and burned as the Jaguars starter after signing a ridiculous three-year, $10.5-million contract. Touted as a breakout candidate given his perceived lack of competition in Jacksonville along with a career yards per carry average of 4.7 (working mostly as a 3rd down back, this should have been discounted), Gerhart failed to stay healthy and was ineffective when in the lineup, gaining just 326 yards while averaging 3.2 yards per carry and gaining 186 yards on 20 receptions. With Denard Robinson showcasing his superior playmaking ability last season and rookie running back T.J. Yeldon anointed the team’s starter, Gerhart isn’t likely to even warrant handcuff status in 2015. He has no fantasy value unless Yeldon goes down with an injury, in which case Gerhart would likely split time with Robinson but get the majority of the work in short yardage situations.

WR Allen Robinson

Acquired with a late 2nd round pick in last year’s NFL Draft, the 6’3”, 210 pound Robinson emerged as the Jaguars most consistent receiving weapon as a rookie before being lost for the season in Week 10 with a broken foot. By then he had amassed 48 receptions on 81 targets for 548 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Lacking solid deep speed, Robinson is clearly a possession receiver on a Jaguars squad desperate for playmakers. However, he figures to enter training camp as their top rated wide receiver and given his rapport with quarterback Blake Bortles, Robinson has some breakout potential in 2015. Since Robinson lacks upside, we expect Jacksonville to also utilize Marqise Lee and Allen Hurns which would limit Robinson’s target count. He rates as a low end WR3 or high-end WR4 in redraft formats and is an intriguing dynasty prospect.

WR Marqise Lee

After a dynamic 2012 season at USC, Lee has watched his stock plummet with an underwhelming final collegiate season and a less than stellar rookie season in Jacksonville. Taken in the 2nd round of last year’s draft, Lee was expected to step into the starting lineup opposite Cecil Shorts but he finished the season with just 37 receptions for 422 yards and a touchdown in 13 games as he was outshone by fellow rookies Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns. In 2015, he will battle Hurns for a spot in the starting lineup but he must overcome the injury issues that have plagued him over the past two seasons. At 6”0” and 192 pounds and with solid but not outstanding speed, it is fair to wonder if Lee will emerge as the solid, consistently receiving option the Jaguars envisioned when he was drafted. Having missed most of the offseason with a lingering knee injury, we’re not about to predict a breakout season in 2015. Lee is waiver wire material in standard 12 team leagues and his dynasty prospects hinge on his ability to remain in the lineup and become more consistent in his second season in the league.

WR Allen Hurns

An undrafted rookie free agent last season, Hurns burst onto the scene in Week 1 with a four reception, 110 yard, two touchdown performance against the Philadelphia Eagles. As it turned out, the Eagles weren’t that good on defense and Hurns wasn’t all that great as a rookie, despite leading the Jaguars with 677 receiving yards. Over his final 15 games, he amassed just 47 receptions for 567 yards four touchdowns while being targeted 88 times, topping 40 receiving yards six times. In 2015, he will battle fellow second year player Marqise Lee for a spot in the starting lineup opposite Allen Robinson. While Hurns was decent as a rookie, he lacks top end speed and doesn’t have great size at 6’1” and 198 pounds. With Robinson more of a possession receiver than a burner, we expect Lee to relegate Hurns to a backup role, limiting his fantasy value.

WR Rashad Greene

Despite having a solid trio of promising second year wide receivers, the Jaguars selected Florida State’s Rashad Greene in the 5th round of this year’s NFL Draft. Greene was productive in college catching passes from Jameis Winston but, at 6’0” and 180 pounds, he is destined for a slot receiver role in Jacksonville which caps his upside. The Jags like him enough that they released his main competition for that role in Ace Sanders, who caught 51 passes as a rookie. However, with Julius Thomas trolling the middle of the field, we don’t see Greene catching anywhere near 50 passes as a rookie. He rates as a lower tier prospect in dynasty formats.

WR Justin Blackmon

It looks like it is over and out in Jacksonville for the 5th overall selection in the 2012 draft. With three promising 2nd year players at wide receiver, Blackmon likely won’t get another shot in Jacksonville even if Blackmon is reinstated from his suspension by the NFL. Blackmon might be worth a stash in deep dynasty formats.

TE Julius Thomas

While it wouldn’t be fair to say that Thomas has gone from the penthouse to the outhouse after leaving the Denver Broncos to join the Jaguars, that analogy might be fair when it comes to his fantasy prospects. Touted by many to finish as a top two tight end last season in Denver, Thomas missed four games due to injury and amassed just 489 receiving yards but still managed to finish the season as the 7th ranked fantasy tight end due to his ability to find the end zone. He scored 12 touchdowns for the 2nd consecutive season despite being targeted just 62 times. Let’s go out on a limb and say that he won’t come anywhere close to scoring 12 touchdowns in 2015. It would take a giant leap of faith to even predict a top five fantasy season from Thomas this season given the state of the Jaguars offense. While Jacksonville clearly features ascending offensive talent at many positions, we expect their offense to finish in the bottom third in the league. That renders Thomas a mid-tier TE1.

Also see: Jacksonville Jaguars IDP Team Report · Tennessee Titans Team Report

Pre-Preseason Projections and Rankings Update, Team Notes

August 2, 2014 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

It’s a new month – August! NFL preseason is about to get going and this is the biggest month of the fantasy football calendar all year when the majority of fantasy drafts take place. Our projections and cheatsheet rankings are in need of an update. Check them out, and here are the team news and notes from the last week to accompany those changes.

For Draft Buddy users, I will update a copy of Projection Pal and make it available to download, so you can import our updated projections.

Arizona Cardinals

RB Stepfan Taylor worked ahead of Jonathan Dwyer with the first team offense while starter Andre Ellington sat out with a sore neck. Noting this here to keep tabs on next man up should anything happen to Ellington.
Glowing reports continue for WR John Brown. Could be something to see here.

Atlanta Falcons

RB Steven Jackson is dealing with a hamstring injury and missing practice time. The veteran doesn’t really need much training camp time anyway, but if he’s struggling to stay healthy this early that is a concern to fantasy players.

Carolina Panthers

WR Kelvin Benjamin is missing time with what coach Ron Rivera described as a bone bruise on his knee. They don’t seem that concerned but generally when a rookie misses time, it is at least some concern. He is expected back relatively soon.

Cleveland Browns

WR Josh Gordon‘s suspension hearing was scheduled for August 1st, although last note I read was not to expect to hear the outcome of that meeting just yet. More waiting, but there should be a decision soon.

Dallas Cowboys

WR Cole Beasley is drawing good reviews from training camp. He’s down the pecking order, for sure, but a name to keep in mind in the event of injury and because the offense is anticipated to be very pass heavy.

Detroit Lions

WR Golden Tate was removed from the PUP list to take part in regular training camp practice. He was on there with shoulder soreness.

Indianapolis Colts

RB Vick Ballard is out for the season after tearing his Achilles’. Unfortunate. We felt Ballard could press for touches against Trent Richardson and Ahmad Bradshaw. Bradshaw becomes a more attractive commodity at this point.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The more I think about it the more I think Chad Henne starts and plays all season barring injury, while Blake Bortles sits, watches and learns. We had their projections relatively close to a split, but changing that up so majority is Henne.
Conflicting reports from Jacksonville that the team wants RB Toby Gerhart to have 20+ carries per game, but then they want to be careful he doesn’t surpass 300 carries. Regardless of the exact usage, Gerhart is in line to be a work horse back, a more rare commodity in this age of the NFL and for fantasy football. We just aren’t optimistic on Gerhart’s ability to be overly productive with those carries.
Marqise Lee is getting lots of reps in practice with Cecil Shorts sidelined (hamstring) and Ace Sanders out (personal). Fellow rookie Allen Robinson is also out a couple weeks with a hamstring injury.

Miami Dolphins

RB Knowshon Moreno is still recovering from issues with his knee, and says he may not play in the preseason at all. His value drops further. Unless he’s an absolute bargain on draft day I would have a tough time pulling the trigger and using a roster spot on him.
WR Mike Wallace is missing practice with hamstring tightness. Hamstrings are the injury du jour for wide receivers this summer.

Minnesota Vikings

Matt Cassel is in the lead as the projected starting quarterback, but Teddy Bridgewater is apparently closing the gap. An early week report indicates Bridgewater will get some time with the starters during preseason games.
Reviewing our projections and rankings, Bridgewater we have projected as the starter but ranked slightly lower. That’s a mistake. Don’t draft Cassel. Draft Bridgewater in dynasty, deep keepers and late in 2-QB redraft leagues.

New England Patriots

Initial timetable on WR Aaron Dobson recovering from foot surgery in March was two to three months, but it seems that was optimistic. He isn’t showing any change of direction work while rehabbing and on the PUP list currently. He might not be ready for the start of the season, so I’m pulling him out of the rankings and distributing about half his earlier projections across other receivers.

New York Giants

News on the comeback of RB David Wilson from neck surgery took a bad turn this week. An upcoming surgeon’s evaluation has called into question, and reports definitely leaned more pessimistic, on whether Wilson can continue his football career. More news is needed but this drops major red flags on Wilson right now.
Reuben Randle had some hamstring issues earlier in the week but appears okay. Rookie Odell Beckham Jr. on the other hand, he’s out at least a week with a bothersome hamstring. He also missed time during OTAs for the same reason, drawing the ire of head coach Tom Coughlin.

New York Jets

Large majority of first-team reps are going to Geno Smith, and little to none to Michael Vick. This is the quarterback training camp battle that never was. It is Geno Smith time until he gets hurt or the coaches – rightfully so – feel forced to switch in an effort to keep themselves employed.

San Francisco 49ers

RB Kendall Hunter tore his ACL and is lost for the year, while LaMichael James dislocated his elbow. Even though James is expected back Week 1, he wasn’t going to be a big factor backing up Frank Gore. We dropped Marcus Lattimore last week in our rankings on the heels of not very encouraging rehab reports. Given that, it looks like Carlos Hyde is the clear cut handcuff for Gore, and could earn a good number of touches with suddenly little competition behind him. Hyde moves up.

Seattle Seahawks

RB Marshawn Lynch ended his holdout. No one holds out like they used to. Remember Joey Galloway? We hadn’t changed Lynch’s projections or ranking anyway, so no need to change it back now.

Washington Redskins

WR Pierre Garcon is sitting out with … you guessed it … a strained hamstring.

Projections vs. Rankings Discussion, Plus an Update and Supporting Team Notes

July 25, 2014 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

In anticipation of this week’s projections and rankings update, Thursday I asked Dave for some bullet points suggesting necessary changes to ensure I didn’t miss anything. I was thinking recent news items when I asked him, while Dave took more of an overview approach.

A few of Dave’s points were, for example, “Tom Brady projected too low for his ranking,” or, “gap between Cordarrelle Patterson’s projection and his ranking is too much.” You see, we do have some differences between rankings and projections, and the reason for that is because, while the projections are a best approximation of what stats we think a player will produce, a ranking can sometimes better reflect risk and upside not easily captured in projections.

Take Bernard Pierce for example, prior to the Ray Rice news he is only suspended two games (we were expecting perhaps six to eight). While we had Pierce projected about 40th amongst RB with a 150-600, 3 TD rushing plus 25-190 receiving line, he was ranked a little higher – 32nd – to reflect the upside of him possibly stepping into the starter’s job for an extended time, and maybe even holding that role when Rice comes back. This will now change with recent news, but it provides a possible scenario where projections and rankings are justifiably not exactly in sync.

So, Dave’s comments got me to thinking about which players have the biggest difference between our cheatsheet rankings, and rankings based purely on the player projections. Perhaps each of these players requires a bit more investigation. Well, I plunked both our draftbuddy.com projections and rankings into Draft Buddy and figured out who these guys are at each position.

QB

Robert Griffin III (projected: 4th; ranked: 9th; difference: -5)
Tom Brady (15th; 7th; 8)
Ryan Tannehill (17th; 24th; 7)

We are bullish on Griffin to rebound from his injury slowed 2013 season and thanks to the addition of Jay Gruden, but he is ranked lower than the projections because of risk since he can take a beating with his rushing, and due to learning a new offense.

As noted above, Dave mentioned Brady is projected too low and that looks like an accurate statement to the point an adjustment is necessary.

Need to review Tannehill’s projections, but if they seem reasonable and we can draft him outside the top 24 QB, then that is a value pick.

RB

Arian Foster (6th; 10th; -4)
Ben Tate (20th; 16th; 4)
Rashad Jennings (22nd; 30th; -8)
Stevan Ridley (25th; 35th; -10)
Joique Bell (27th; 33rd; -6)

Similar to Griffin, Foster is a risk due to a lot of wear and tear, although he has a great opportunity to return to his former self if he can stay healthy. Hence the high projections, slightly more conservative ranking.

Ben Tate is slightly up from his projections given his upside in a new offense that appears committed to running the ball.

We are not true believers in Rashad Jennings as the Giants starter, so while he is projected high based on positive recent reports he’ll receive a high number of touches, we offer a more skeptical ranking of his prospects.

Stevan Ridley probably shouldn’t be this different, other than it is tough predicting what the Patriots will do with their running backs from week to week.

Joique Bell is not a player we are very interested in adding to our fantasy squads this year, although many other experts are keen on his prospects.

WR

Roddy White (16th; 22nd; -6)
Torrey Smith (19th; 28th; -9)
T.Y. Hilton (26th; 36th; -10)
Cordarrelle Patterson (30th; 15th; 15)
Tavon Austin (32nd; 49th; -17)

The lack of depth amongst Falcons receivers kind of forced our hand to put more targets, catches and yards on a now healthy Roddy White, but in terms of ranking we’re not ready to put him into the Top 20.

Similarly with Torrey Smith, he is the top receiver on the Ravens, but seems to get over-drafted each year. We’d rather avoid drafting Smith altogether, so we pushed him down the rankings.

It is difficult to get a read on the split of targets amongst Colts receivers right now, so Hilton is projected 26th, but risky to draft there.

Dave and I disagreed on where to rank Patterson (and Wes Welker, for that matter) from Day 1 creating our projections and rankings. Patterson represents one of the biggest boom-bust picks on the board this season. He probably should be moved down a tad given uncertainty about his targets and potential rushing stats.

Austin is another big question mark about how much the Rams will use him. The talent is there to support the projections and quite possibly exceed them. The high expectations, low production last year still stings, resulting in the low ranking.

TE

Jared Cook (16th; 22nd; -6)
Scott Chandler (20th; 26th; -6)

Cook is someone we expect to churn out okay stats over the course of a season based on volume, but not one to help win us many weeks.

For Chandler, see Cook, the only difference being Chandler is so off the radar I’m inclined to add him extremely late in best-ball format leagues.

That gives some more insight into our combined projections and rankings process, and highlights some players for us to review prior to the update. And now, the team notes to accompany the changes:

Arizona Cardinals

Andre Ellington‘s receptions appear low at 40 since he had 39 as a rookie and backup.

Baltimore Ravens

Very surprised Ray Rice only received a 2-game suspension, but that is what happened, earning him a bump in his projections and rankings, while anticipated replacement starter Bernard Pierce gets knocked down.
Hmm… it seems we were pretty low on the combined Ravens running game in the projections to begin with. Change is Rice up, and Pierce down but not by much.