Everyone has their secret shames. My wife is a high school biology teacher who has a master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Central Florida. However, every Friday night she cracks open a couple cans of her preferred adult seltzer and binge watches those Housewives shows. She is nothing like the larger-than-life personalities featured on Bravo! but it helps her zone out I guess. My secret shame is much like the Housewives in the scale of drama and infighting: professional wrestling. If you have ever found yourself glued to your favorite cable television station on a Monday or Wednesday night in the last thirty years, you know sometimes the best action occurs before the wrestlers ever enter the ring. I am talking about the elaborate entrances wrestlers make into the arena before the matches even begin. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s glass shattering, CM Punk’s needle scratch leading into Living Colour’s ‘Cult of Personality,’ and my personal favorite, Atsushi Onita’s often imitated Tokyo Dome “Wild Thing” entrance. All shining examples of starting off a match on the right foot to get into your opponent’s head even before the bell rings. Your entrance into the 2021 fantasy season needs to be just as grand!
If you read the two prior A Man For Early Seasons articles, you are familiar with the format here. We are looking at early-season matchups to avoid, fade, or stream entering the 2021 fantasy football season. Today we focus on the wide receiver position which league-wide allows the most points on average to opposing teams of any position. Nineteen out of the thirty-two NFL teams gave up at least thirty-five PPR (points per reception) points per game to receivers in 2020. Only the Los Angeles Rams allowed less than thirty points to receivers per game last year. Below is a chart of each team’s first four weeks of the season, where their weekly opponents ranked in allowing fantasy points to the running back, and the average ranking of those teams. Also, throughout this article and going forth in future pieces when I refer to average draft position (ADP), I will be using NFC’s Current ADP.
GREAT STARTS
Robby Anderson – Carolina Panthers
Start: NYJ (13th), NO (16th), @HOU (7th), @DAL (2nd)
The Carolina Panthers not only have the best first four-week schedule to start the season, but also seven incredible matchups out of their first eight weeks of 2021. The first two meetings will be against the Jets and Saints, both finishing in the top half of teams who gave up the most points to wide receivers. Five out of the next six weeks they will face the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, and 9th ranked teams at giving up points to wide receivers. Both returning Carolina receivers, D.J. Moore and Robby Anderson, are poised for breakout starts with these matchups. While I plan on drafting both, I am most fond of Anderson in 2021 based upon his similar target share in 2020 to Moore, his ADP being thirteen spots lower at the position and twenty-eight spots overall of the two. Anderson will also be reunited with former quarterback Sam Darnold from his days as a New York Jet. Moore excelled last season averaging a career-high 18.1 yards per reception, almost seven full yards more than Anderson who had a career-low 11.5 yards per reception. If both players regress back to their career averages, they could be identical. In those cases, I want the latter pick. I would still draft Moore at the round four-five turn, but am fully targeting Anderson where he is going over two rounds later. I do not believe it is out of the question to pull the trigger on Anderson before higher ADP players like Odell Beckham and Courtland Sutton as to not miss out on those great matches to start the season.
Adam Thielen – Minnesota Vikings
Start: @CIN (17th), @ARI (20th), SEA (10th), CLE (6th)
All the wide receiver attention last season in Minnesota seemed to go towards rookie Justin Jefferson. He finished as the sixth-best wide receiver with 274.2 PPR fantasy points aided by 1400 receiving yards, the most by any rookie wide receiver in the Super Bowl era. It was a great season to begin what could be an all-time great career and he absolutely deserves to be taken as a top-six wide receiver on draft day. However, there was another particularly good receiving performance in 2020 in the Land of 1000 Lakes. Adam Thielen finished as the tenth best wide receiver in PPR leagues and instead of yardage like Jefferson, his was a career-high fourteen touchdowns bolstering his numbers. Thirteen of those fourteen touchdowns came inside the red zone where Thielen was targeted nineteen total times, fifth-most in the league. Only Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams had more red-zone touchdowns last season. Other than Thielen’s injury-shortened 2019 season, he has finished no worse than the eleventh best wide receiver in fantasy. That is tremendous value on draft day for someone going as the twenty-second wide receiver off the board. His early-season schedule ranks seventh in terms of ease against teams giving up the most fantasy points to wide receivers last season. With added attention to Jefferson’s side of the field and a possible easing into action following an AC joint injury scare on Friday for Jefferson, Thielen is poised to greatly outperform his current ADP and get your season started on the right foot.
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Julio Jones – Tennessee Titans
Start: ARI (20th), @SEA (10th), IND (14th), @NYJ (13th)
It’s a fresh start in Tennessee for Julio Jones and one where he is set up to flourish. Jones will be entering his eleventh NFL season in 2021. Jones finished as at least a top-nine wide receiver in seven out of his ten NFL seasons, with two of those outlier seasons being because of an injury-shortened year. The other season was his rookie year where he still finished as the WR18. Jones is a stud and is used to being the lone stud on his team, with the exception of two years where he played alongside Roddy White in Atlanta. Things are different in Tennessee and Jones will be lining up across the field from 2019 and 2020’s WR9 AJ Brown. One might think because Jones is new and playing beside Brown his production will begin moving towards the downslope of his career and they could be right. However, Tennessee parted ways with three out of their top five target getters from 2020 freeing up 41% of their 468 targets. You do not bring someone like Julio Jones in without giving him a substantial portion of those targets. Jones has a great start to the season-facing opponents who gave up an average of over thirty-eight PPR fantasy points per game to wide receivers. While I have Brown ranked sixth at wide receiver, it is Jones who holds more value for 2021 going as the eighteenth wide receiver off the board, a ranking he has never not justified when he has been on the field.
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PLAYERS TO FADE
Tre’Quan Smith – New Orleans Saints
Start: GB (26th), @CAR (22nd), @NE (27th), NYG (24th)
Prior to the Michael Thomas landing on the PUP list, Tre’Quan Smith was a player fantasy players had their roster as either a sleeper or bench stash. In best ball leagues during the early summer, he was a last-round dart throw if he was drafted at all. Now he has been thrust into what appears to be the leading receiver role for the Saints and I really have no interest in him until he returns from his bye in Week Seven. The five weeks prior to their bye, the Saints face a nightmare of fantasy matchups with the most difficult strength of schedule of the first five weeks. They will be facing opponents who gave up less than a touchdown and one-hundred-fifty receiving yards per game. Those numbers look troubling for a receiver who has never had more than fifty targets in a season for a Saints team who still has not indicated who their starting quarterback is going to be. While I do not think Smith is worth the risk starting your season out with, his schedule does lighten up with only two of his final eleven matchups not being against teams who allowed fifteenth-most fantasy points or greater.
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Juju Smith-Schuster – Pittsburgh Steelers
Start: @BUF (28th), LV (11th), CIN (17th), @GB (26th)
My hesitancy with the beginning of Juju Smith-Schuster’s season lies not only in a pair of difficult matchups, but how good the game script looks like for the Pittsburgh running game in weeks one through four. Both the Bills and Packers ranked in the top seven against receivers with Green Bay excelling against the slot where Smith-Schuster most often plays. All four matchups present an issue in terms of receptions allowed to receivers as the Bills, Raiders, Bengals, and Packers all finished within the twelve most efficient against the stat last season. Smith-Schuster also struggled last year with career lows in yards per reception, yards after catch, and average depth of target. He was second on the team last year in receptions, he just could not seem to do much with them once he caught them. Currently, Chase Claypool and Smith-Schuster are going one spot apart in ADP. Between the two receivers, I favor Claypool due to his ceiling and skill set he provides for the offense.
Curtis Samuel – Washington Football Team
Start: LAC (23rd), NYG (24th), @BUF (28th), @ATL (1st)
If you have been following me on Twitter or read any of my previous Best Ball ADP Review articles, you know I love Curtis Samuel for 2021. So why am I now saying you should fade away from him? Well, it is a temporary break and one that will be over after the first three weeks. The bad news first, Samuel is joining the Football Team a new member already missing camp on the Reserve/COVID-19 list with no sign of a date of return. I expect Samuel shows up soon and by Week Four is ready to exploit 2020’s worst team against receivers, the Atlanta Falcons. Those first three weeks though will be difficult with all three opponents ranking in the top ten most efficient teams against receivers. Once those three weeks are over, the matchups are much more favorable. Especially for the slot receiver in Washington, the position quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick has targeted more over his career than any other. Also keep an eye on those final four weeks of the season as it is a double feast of the teams giving up the second and ninth-most fantasy points to wide receivers, division rivals Dallas and Philadelphia.
DON’T PANIC AFTER WEEK ONE
Allen Robinson -Chicago Bears
Start: Â @LAR (32nd), CIN (17th), @CLE (6th), DET (3rd), @LV (11th)
I do not want to sound like a broken record when it comes to the Week One matchup between the Bears and Rams, but I am not playing any Bears. Period. The Rams defense terrifies me, especially when it comes to the receiving game of their opponents. Now it will be hard for anyone drafting Allen Robinson to bench the star wide receiver due to his draft position, but daily fantasy players should absolutely avoid him at all costs. Only two times did the Rams allow a receiver to top one hundred yards against them in a game last season and in both cases, the receiver did not get a touchdown. Robinson himself only managed four receptions for seventy yards in the meeting with the Rams last season. Once the Bears get past Week One things open up a lot more and you can put Robinson in your lineups without much worry. A week four matchup against the Lions, who gave up the third-most fantasy points to wide receivers last season, is particularly enticing.
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DYNAMIC LATE-ROUND DUOS
Jalen Reagor – Philadelphia Eagles & Gabriel Davis – Buffalo BillsÂ
Start: @ATL (1st), @MIA (8th), @DAL (2nd), HOU (7th)
Here is a pair of receivers with ADP past pick 140, who together have four matchups against opponents averaging over forty PPR fantasy points per game. Jalen Reagor is moving up draft boards with DeVonta Smith sidelined for up to four weeks with an MCL injury, but still has an ADP of 146th. This means you should be able to take him in the third to last round assuming you wait until the last two rounds to take your kicker and defense. Gabriel Davis is coming off a respectful rookie campaign where he finished the season with touchdowns in four of his last six games and at least five targets in those matchups. You might need to reach a round earlier for Davis if his current ADP were to hold, but that could change if Smith remains sidelined into the season. At this point, Reagor would be the player to take earlier, but you can target them both in the back half of your draft with surefire WR3 upside. Â
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Next week we will be looking at the early schedules of tight ends. I’ll cover what matchups are great to start the seasons and which you might want to avoid. As we approach draft season, let me recommend you check out Razzball’s Site Tools created by Rudy Gamble. There you will find everything you need to master your draft rooms, project players, and win you fantasy leagues. We are offering a free three-day trial of both our Roto and DFS packages to help you bring home your 2021 fantasy championships. My various rankings can currently be found on FantasyPros. This article also marks the last time I will probably be allowed to mention pro wrestling again on this site, although doesn’t Razzeling have a nice ring to it? Hello… HELLO?!
