Justin Jefferson 2020 Outlook

[apap414 256]

On 4/26/2020 at 10:53 AM, Impreza178 said:

🤔 I have Ceedee as pretty much the worst landing spot among the top guys.  
 

Ceedee will prob work in as the slot-  and have to earn every scrap in 2020.   

 

Why? Gallup has had one good year and Cooper disappears in big games.  Seems like he'll have a ton of opportunity.

[mmcc1029 1,462]

10 hours ago, apap414 said:

 

Why? Gallup has had one good year and Cooper disappears in big games.  Seems like he'll have a ton of opportunity.

Also read like 190 targets are gone between cobb/witten/austin. Ceedee will have some big games.

[El_Chingon 1,797]

25 minutes ago, mmcc1029 said:

Also read like 190 targets are gone between cobb/witten/austin. Ceedee will have some big games.

Agreed....but scroll up a few replies, I was told it was not that simple and my view was short-sighted.  We shall see.

[Flyman75 4,848]

13 hours ago, apap414 said:

 

Why? Gallup has had one good year and Cooper disappears in big games.  Seems like he'll have a ton of opportunity.

 

2 hours ago, mmcc1029 said:

Also read like 190 targets are gone between cobb/witten/austin. Ceedee will have some big games.

 

2 hours ago, El_Chingon said:

Agreed....but scroll up a few replies, I was told it was not that simple and my view was short-sighted.  We shall see.

Just a friendly reminder that Lamb has his own thread . 

[hockeyfan77 679]

9 hours ago, Flyman75 said:

 

 

Just a friendly reminder that Lamb has his own thread . 

LOL, yeah I still don't understand why this is in the Jefferson thread 

[MadMaxMariota 178]

What's the argument against Jefferson at his current ADP? Some posters said they're staying away but no real explanation as to why. I really think he could be a steal if his ADP remains where it is right now.

Edited June 8, 2020 by MadMaxMariota

[Gohawks 9,938]

12 hours ago, MadMaxMariota said:

What's the argument against Jefferson at his current ADP? Some posters said they're staying away but no real explanation as to why. I really think he could be a steal if his ADP remains where it is right now.

In redraft the argument is rookie WRs are rarely fantasy relevant and the ones that are tend to be exceptions not the norm.

I highly doubt a WR who isn’t some crazy prospect and is the WR2 at best on a run first team is going to be an exception. 

[pushaZ 1,374]

21 hours ago, Gohawks said:

In redraft the argument is rookie WRs are rarely fantasy relevant and the ones that are tend to be exceptions not the norm.

I highly doubt a WR who isn’t some crazy prospect and is the WR2 at best on a run first team is going to be an exception. 

Is that the best scenario that he's the WR2?

I highly doubt you can make the argument that he's the WR3.

Wouldn't take much to make him the WR1 either. Thielen is old and couldn't even get through half the year last year. What if the team has a down year and misses the playoffs?

[Gohawks 9,938]

14 minutes ago, pushaZ said:

Is that the best scenario that he's the WR2?

I highly doubt you can make the argument that he's the WR3.

Wouldn't take much to make him the WR1 either. Thielen is old and couldn't even get through half the year last year. What if the team has a down year and misses the playoffs?

What are you even talking about with Thielen? 29 is not old for a WR and that’s still in the prime. Prior to last year he never missed any games and was the furthest thing from injury prone you could be. 

[chance182 9]

29 is old for any position except QB and ol on o... Receivers historically fall off at 29.. obv not all but def want to move thielan while u can

Edited June 10, 2020 by chance182

[pushaZ 1,374]

9 minutes ago, Gohawks said:

What are you even talking about with Thielen? 29 is not old for a WR and that’s still in the prime. Prior to last year he never missed any games and was the furthest thing from injury prone you could be. 

Furthest thing from injury prone would be getting in a full year. Thielen's injuries last year were soft tissue injuries, he tried to come back and reaggrivated them. You're right not totally injury prone, but I can name quite a few players that have spent the last several seasons playing all 16.

But even then, he's put up 2 out of 6 seasons over 1000 yards. Averaged less than 6 touchdowns per year. Never passed 10 touchdowns once. 4 consecutive years of declining Y/Tgt. Age 29 isn't quite over the hill, but it's past the receiver peak of 26 or 27 where declines start to set in. The idea that he can't be replaced by a first round draft pick for targets is not established, and you could make the case that the team never wanted him to be the no. 1 receiver at any point in his career. 

Now Thielen begins the year facing opposing no. 1 corners, including double matchups against Jaire Alexander and Jeff Okudah. But what about Jefferson you say? Not some crazy prospect?

Jefferson doesn't have a weakness. 86th percentile 40 time, 82nd percentile height adjusted speed, 80th percentile burst. NINETY TWO percent contested catch rate in the SEC. Average contested catch rate is just over 50 percent. Second in missed tackles by receivers only to CeeDee Lamb. Eighteen touchdowns last year in 15 games.

Rookie WRs not planning out? I made it to the fantasy championships losing Godwin and had only AJ Brown and Deebo as my starters, both who started the year on waivers. Terry McLaurin, DK blew up and would have been much better if not for PPR rules. This isn't the era where rookie WRs can't make a difference.

So a guy, first round pick in a loaded draft class, comes into a skiddish QB situation with a guy like Cousins who only wants to make sure throws, is a guaranteed catch in tight windows virtually every time, is no threat to a 29 year old who barely played half the year last year? I don't know about that. Sure maybe he starts off as WR2, but I'd rather have Jefferson come playoff time.

 

[Boudewijn 4,288]

2 hours ago, pushaZ said:

I can name quite a few players that have spent the last several seasons playing all 16.

Yeah? Thielen played 90 games since 2014. How many WRs do you think had that many games?
Because that's not a very long list, and most of the names on that list are the paradigm of durability.

Rk    Player    From    To    G    Rec    Yds
1    Julio Jones    2014    2019    92    623    9388
2    DeAndre Hopkins    2014    2019    94    580    7800
3    Mike Evans    2014    2019    90    462    7260
4    Jarvis Landry    2014    2019    96    564    6188
5    Demaryius Thomas    2014    2019    90    484    6065
6    Larry Fitzgerald    2014    2019    94    532    5716
7    Golden Tate    2014    2019    90    495    5695
8    Adam Thielen    2014    2019    90    323    4315
9    Kenny Stills    2014    2019    91    267    4058
10    Mohamed Sanu    2014    2019    93    340    3898
11    Cole Beasley    2014    2019    94    332    3553
12    Cordarrelle Patterson    2014    2019    95    150    1486

It's more interesting that with that many games, he still has only half the yardage of Julio or Nuk. He barely has more than Kenny Stills.
Edit: in any case, the only guy to play all 16 each season during that period was Jarvis Landry. Go figure.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Boudewijn

[RunCMC 2,345]

8 hours ago, pushaZ said:

Furthest thing from injury prone would be getting in a full year. Thielen's injuries last year were soft tissue injuries, he tried to come back and reaggrivated them. You're right not totally injury prone, but I can name quite a few players that have spent the last several seasons playing all 16.

But even then, he's put up 2 out of 6 seasons over 1000 yards. Averaged less than 6 touchdowns per year. Never passed 10 touchdowns once. 4 consecutive years of declining Y/Tgt. Age 29 isn't quite over the hill, but it's past the receiver peak of 26 or 27 where declines start to set in. The idea that he can't be replaced by a first round draft pick for targets is not established, and you could make the case that the team never wanted him to be the no. 1 receiver at any point in his career. 

Now Thielen begins the year facing opposing no. 1 corners, including double matchups against Jaire Alexander and Jeff Okudah. But what about Jefferson you say? Not some crazy prospect?

Jefferson doesn't have a weakness. 86th percentile 40 time, 82nd percentile height adjusted speed, 80th percentile burst. NINETY TWO percent contested catch rate in the SEC. Average contested catch rate is just over 50 percent. Second in missed tackles by receivers only to CeeDee Lamb. Eighteen touchdowns last year in 15 games.

Rookie WRs not planning out? I made it to the fantasy championships losing Godwin and had only AJ Brown and Deebo as my starters, both who started the year on waivers. Terry McLaurin, DK blew up and would have been much better if not for PPR rules. This isn't the era where rookie WRs can't make a difference.

So a guy, first round pick in a loaded draft class, comes into a skiddish QB situation with a guy like Cousins who only wants to make sure throws, is a guaranteed catch in tight windows virtually every time, is no threat to a 29 year old who barely played half the year last year? I don't know about that. Sure maybe he starts off as WR2, but I'd rather have Jefferson come playoff time.

 

Good stuff PushaZ . I’ve always viewed Thielen as an over glorified slot reciever. Who only balled out by virtue of Diggs pulling coverage his way. Theres never been anything special about Adam , least of all his athleticism or physical attributes. If I was in that situation and Cousins peppered me with targets , I might just pull a 1,000 yard season as well. That being said, do you want Thielen in the early rounds, or JJ in the final rounds ?  I think the answer here is pretty clear. My personal opinion, Justin starts off putting WR3 numbers from the start of the season. But as we progress further into the year, WR2 with upside is definitely a possibility in his range of outcomes. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by RunCMC

[joshua18 7,028]

6 hours ago, Boudewijn said:

Yeah? Thielen played 90 games since 2014. How many WRs do you think had that many games?
Because that's not a very long list, and most of the names on that list are the paradigm of durability.

Rk    Player    From    To    G    Rec    Yds
1    Julio Jones    2014    2019    92    623    9388
2    DeAndre Hopkins    2014    2019    94    580    7800
3    Mike Evans    2014    2019    90    462    7260
4    Jarvis Landry    2014    2019    96    564    6188
5    Demaryius Thomas    2014    2019    90    484    6065
6    Larry Fitzgerald    2014    2019    94    532    5716
7    Golden Tate    2014    2019    90    495    5695
8    Adam Thielen    2014    2019    90    323    4315
9    Kenny Stills    2014    2019    91    267    4058
10    Mohamed Sanu    2014    2019    93    340    3898
11    Cole Beasley    2014    2019    94    332    3553
12    Cordarrelle Patterson    2014    2019    95    150    1486

It's more interesting that with that many games, he still has only half the yardage of Julio or Nuk. He barely has more than Kenny Stills.
Edit: in any case, the only guy to play all 16 each season during that period was Jarvis Landry. Go figure.

Largely because he didn’t get significant snaps until Norv Turner quit on the team in the middle of his 3rd season in the league. 

[Boudewijn 4,288]

4 minutes ago, joshua18 said:

Largely because he didn’t get significant snaps until Norv Turner quit on the team in the middle of his 3rd season in the league. 

Not exactly true. He already had 92/88/89% snap counts the weeks before Turner left. 

[Breesus 482]

He hasn’t been on my radar for this season, but this forum has changed my mind. Dude has a lot of potential to win you leagues come December 

[Fort4242 739]

https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/07/fantasy-football-at-what-age-does-a-wide-receiver-decline-2019/

 

Only one resource, but according to Tagliere WRs don't necessarily decline at age 29.  

[Boudewijn 4,288]

6 hours ago, Fort4242 said:

https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/07/fantasy-football-at-what-age-does-a-wide-receiver-decline-2019/

 

Only one resource, but according to Tagliere WRs don't necessarily decline at age 29.  

I made a bit of a study on this last year. The problem is that there is a lot of variation in the data and it's very hard to draw firm conclusions. In the end, this chart represents most what I see in the data:

I did the following.

- First I collected the data of the past 20 years for receivers from Pro Football Reference. I concentrated on yardage, not TDs.
- I summed all that data in xls (in a pivot chart, for the fans), and ordered them by career yardage. 
- then I summarised the data for three groups of receivers: the top100, the players from place 100-200, and 200-400
- for each group, I calculated the average yards for those players at that age group. 

As you can see there's still quite a lot of noise in that data, even though it's a lot of players and a lot of data. But you can draw some rough lines through the dots, which is what Excel did for me, and that does give an indication. What I see is:
- I think the top performance is around age 27. This is more or less consistent with what you see in other sports (ie soccer)
- but it's not a peak, it's a plateau. There's no hard cliff to fall off. Players at age 27 do maybe 10% better, and after age 30 you can expect a drop of around 5% per year. That's not massive. In any case, all this probably belongs in the Thielen thread, not Jefferson.

Point is, Thielen is not necessarily carted off to the retirement home just yet, and Jefferson won't be a WR1 in 2020, but obviously the normal progression of things is for Jefferson to slowly take Thielen's place. Or at least, that's what the Vikes would be hoping, I guess.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Boudewijn

[The G Man 980]

Vikings offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak said Justin Jefferson is "exactly what we drafted."

Andrew Krammer added that Jefferson was "running with the 2's for now" but Kubiak's comments indicate Jefferson should have no problem becoming a starter. The Vikings drafted Jefferson with the No. 22 overall pick they acquired by trading Stefon Diggs to the Bills. Jefferson is expected to see a lot of work from the slot in his rookie season. He played in the slot for 90 percent of his snaps at LSU last year and set the school record for receptions (111). Jefferson's biggest competition for the job could be Olabisi Johnson, who played a third of his snaps from the slot in Minnesota last year. He recorded 294 yards over 13 games.

SOURCE: Andrew Krammer on Twitter

Aug 16, 2020, 2:48 PM ET

[JAG_challam 232]

Any predictions that Jefferson becomes flex worthy in time for byes?

[Eaglesflyhigh11 450]

9 minutes ago, JAG_challam said:

Any predictions that Jefferson becomes flex worthy in time for byes?

4 for 60+ and a TD today. 

[JAG_challam 232]

5 hours ago, Eaglesflyhigh11 said:

4 for 60+ and a TD today. 

2/26/0 ... So to repeat my question lol - do we think he'll get to a point where we can safely flex him in time for the bye weeks?

 

[lolcopter 7,761]

no. easy drop.

[JAG_challam 232]

Those are my thoughts as well - will give him another week at least, but he's def the bottom of my bench currently.

[Big Tuna 169]

seems like he was out there enough to be a factor - just didnt get his name called....im giving him a few more weeks...