Final Fantasy: Marvin Jones

Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Marvin Jones.

When it came to the Cincinnati Bengals, outside of A.J. Green, who was one of the top fantasy wide receivers, they did not have any other quality options at that position. That being said, they did have a player with sleeper appeal in Mohamed Sanu. In his rookie season (2012), he had 16 catches for 154 yards and four touchdowns on 25 targets. It was the final three games that had me intrigued, where he drew 3.6 catches for 32.6 yards and 1.3 touchdowns on 6.3 targets per game. The stat that really jumps out is the touchdowns, as he scored four touchdowns during this stretch, and had at least one touchdown in each game. Well, if you read this post, you know were I’m going with this. The Bengals did end up having a sleeper at the wide receiver position. And like my post on Jordan Reed, it wasn’t who I thought it was going to be in Mohamed Sanu. Instead, that status went to the other second year wide receiver– Marvin Jones.

Let’s take a look in the 2013 game log:

– Week 1-14 (13 games): 2.7 catches, 39.84 yards with 0.6 touchdowdns on 4.4 targets per game.

– Week 15-17 (three games): 5.3 catches, 64.6 yards, 0.6 touchdowns with 7.6 targets per game.

His final numbers in 16 games was 51 catches, 712 yards, 10 touchdowns, all on 80 targets. Those numbers placed him 24th among wide receivers in standard (Non-PPR) scoring.

There are two things that stand out when you look at the game log for Marvin Jones in his first 13 games. The first is his week eight performance versus the New York Jets. He had eight catches, 122 yards, four touchdowns on eight targets. Those numbers earned him 36 fantasy points in standard (Non-PPR) scoring. That placed him in a tie for first place with Calvin Johnson for all players in week eight. Pretty nice company if you ask me. Not only that, but it was also a top-10 total for points in one week for the entire season. Unfortunately though, the second point isn’t a positive note and is best described as a headache. And that was Jones never seemed to be able to stay on the field for a consistent amount of snaps (week to week). In these 13 games, Jones only played 42% or less of the teams offensive snaps in eight games. It left me scratching my head because the guy (Mohamed Sanu) playing in front of him had a stat line of three catches, 29.84 yards, 0.1 touchdowns on five targets per game.

Enough with the headache, let’s pop a couple of Advil and talk about the final three games. The first thing that jumps out is the increased time on the football field, as he played at least 59% of the offensive snaps in all three games. With the additional snaps, he was thrown the football at least seven times in each game. He did not let these extra passes go to waste, as he produced double digit fantasy points (standard Non-PPR scoring) in two of the three games. His best fantasy game was in week 17 vs the Baltimore Ravens– he had five catches, 61 yards, one touchdown on seven targets. Those numbers earned him 12 fantasy points and a tie for 17th among wide receivers in standard (Non-PPR) scoring. I should also bring up one more game, and that was the playoff match-up vs the San Diego Chargers. In this game his stat line was eight catches, for 130 yards on 12 targets.

You add his final three games with the playoff’s, and a lot of momentum is with Marvin Jones. Add in the fact that with a new offensive coordinator in Hue Jackson, we hopefully will not have the headaches of segmented playing time. Right now, I see him as a good WR4 option due to his upside, with the chance to bring a lot more value on top of that.