DeVante Parker

[StableOfRBs]

Anyone else been buying shares of him everywhere you can? I was buying before Cutler came in and now his price seems to have gone up.

Nope.

[Madadamus]

He's by far the most sought on player on my teams in recent weeks. I have a ton of shares so I'm hoping he continues to progress.

[captain caveman]

Anyone else been buying shares of him everywhere you can? I was buying before Cutler came in and now his price seems to have gone up.

Redrafts, keeper leagues and trading bids for him in dynasty

[StableOfRBs]

Wasn't buying in a month ago and I'm definitely not buying in now that his price is higher

[ZPalmtree]

I actually sold him for the Juju and a 18 1st during my rookie draft a few months ago, I am somewhat bummed because I think I moved him a year too early. Time will tell.

[ColdZealDonkeyStrike]

When personal maturity/development meets increased opportunity meets a change to a QB that perfectly suits his game, beautiful things happen. I am buying anywhere his cost is still less than a top 5 rookie pick.

[lukkynumber13]

A young, highly talented first round wr who I could see putting together a line of 70/1080/8 in his third season would be worth his first round value to me.

Last year people swung too high for him, and now they're doing the opposite after not meeting their expectations. Realistically he should be a solid wr this year but ready to rise up the wr ranks fast. He seems serious and improving, which is the biggest thing for him since he holds the talent in spades

I don't see him getting over 1000 yards if he's only gonna have 70 catches since averaging 14.5 yards per catch over a full season is very difficult to do and he'd need almost 15.5 Yds/catch for the number you listed above. The 8 TDs could happen but he'd need a lot of those targets to be RZ targets or he'd need to dramatically increase his catch rate (worst on the team last year for RZ targets with 55.6%)

I could see 70/~930/6-7 but don't see much more than that unless he starts to overtake Landry

Not saying he will get those numbers, but Parker is absolutely that type of player. He's not a slot guy who gets 7-12 yard easy catches, he's a big play guy on the outside. He has a lot of growing up to do, and that's on him, but he absolutely has the ceiling to be a poor man's Dez

[StableOfRBs]

When personal maturity/development meets increased opportunity meets a change to a QB that perfectly suits his game, beautiful things happen. I am buying anywhere his cost is still less than a top 5 rookie pick.

How is this QB any different than the one he had before, look at their career numbers, the main difference between Tannehill and Cutler is their interception rates

[flashgordon12]

When personal maturity/development meets increased opportunity meets a change to a QB that perfectly suits his game, beautiful things happen. I am buying anywhere his cost is still less than a top 5 rookie pick.

How is this QB any different than the one he had before, look at their career numbers, the main difference between Tannehill and Cutler is their interception rates

Cutler is waaaay different. He loves throwing it up to big receivers ala Marshall and Alshon. And he's competent with the deep ball. These should fit perfectly with Parker. Tannehill was much more conservative, which explains the interceptions. Can't just look at the numbers when comparing QBs

[StableOfRBs]

A young, highly talented first round wr who I could see putting together a line of 70/1080/8 in his third season would be worth his first round value to me.

Last year people swung too high for him, and now they're doing the opposite after not meeting their expectations. Realistically he should be a solid wr this year but ready to rise up the wr ranks fast. He seems serious and improving, which is the biggest thing for him since he holds the talent in spades

I don't see him getting over 1000 yards if he's only gonna have 70 catches since averaging 14.5 yards per catch over a full season is very difficult to do and he'd need almost 15.5 Yds/catch for the number you listed above. The 8 TDs could happen but he'd need a lot of those targets to be RZ targets or he'd need to dramatically increase his catch rate (worst on the team last year for RZ targets with 55.6%)

I could see 70/~930/6-7 but don't see much more than that unless he starts to overtake Landry

Not saying he will get those numbers, but Parker is absolutely that type of player. He's not a slot guy who gets 7-12 yard easy catches, he's a big play guy on the outside. He has a lot of growing up to do, and that's on him, but he absolutely has the ceiling to be a poor man's Dez

Yes he's the kind of guy who runs those routes, go's, corners, posts, etc. but this is a receiver who has never had more than 55 catches in any season, college or pro level (and never had more than 885 yards in either)

Last year he had 87 targets and 56 catches, if he bumps up to 110 targets, which is certainly doable, he can get to 70 catches based on his 64% catch rate last year (coincidentally his lowest yard/catch year at 13.3) and based on his average last year he'd end up with 930 yards on that volume

We can compare him to a couple players that are known for their deep balls, DJax, the quintessential 9-route runner, and Amari Cooper, who size/speed-wise profiles closer to Parker (although Coopers agility scores are off the charts).

DJax has had 1000+ yards in 5 of his 9 NFL seasons and only once was he over 70 catches (2013 with 82, his career best season) and his yard/catch average was also a full 1.5 yards lower than his career average (16.2 compared to 17.7) with Parker's size and speed, hitting those kind of receiving averages is nearly impossible given any sort of meaningful volume in an offense, yes he had 19.0 yards/catch in his rookie season but it was off of 26 catches, not great for fantasy. Jackson has the straight-line speed to get behind a defense and get open easily and he's largely known as an inconsistent fantasy option even though he's the best deep ball receiver in the league right now (also incidentally Stills profiles much closer to DJax than Parker does)

Amari Cooper is a better comparison to Parker in terms of size, there's about a 1 inch height difference, and speed, Cooper is a couple tenths of a second faster, and they were taken in the same draft ten picks apart. Cooper led the league in 30+ yard TD catches last year with 5 and of his 11 TDs over the past 2 seasons only 2 have come inside 20 yards and none closer than from 15 yards out so he's certainly a deep ball/big play guy that you hope Parker can be. Cooper even hit 1000+ yards in both seasons (while averaging 14.9 yards/catch his rookie year, no less) and needed 130+ targets and 70+ catches to do so. Part of reason Cooper can even hit those numbers is because he can play in the short-intermediate area of the field just as easily as he can on the outside/deep downfield. Cooper is slightly faster, a much better route-runner, with a better grasp of every route on the tree, and clearly the better overall WR of the two and even he needs volume to hit the kind of numbers you're talking about.

Sure, Parker could/should see a bump in targets from the 87 he had last year but he won't hit the 131 Landry had last year as the top target on the team (coincidentally the same as what Cooper gets each year) partly because Parker's role isn't one that lends itself to a high target volume and also partly because Landry is still on the team and even if Cutler zeroes in on Parker he'll still throw the ball to Landry at least some of the time, same with Stills. It's not impossible that Parker hits the numbers you mentioned but it's incredibly unlikely, he probably won't see the volume necessary for it and it's highly doubtful that he'd be able to maintain the level of efficiency required to reach those stats without volume.

This also putting aside his poor success rates against different types of coverage: https://twitter.com/MattHarmon_BYB/stat ... 9447664641 Granted it's from last year, I couldn't find a more recent one, and you can ignore the double coverage rate because the sample size is so small but it's really not a ringing endorsement for his future success.

[flyersfan1981]

Good post OP. I will add some comments/ replies to the points you brought up (since I am pretty sure you were referring to my post in the camp superstar thread).

Miami ran the least amount of plays of any team last year, being under the league average by more than 100 plays. A big reason for that was their atrocious run defense last year. A big reason they went as run-heavy as they did was to keep the defense off the field. With the LB and DL additions, they should have a much better run De this year, which should result in play quantity to be closer to the league average. Based on Gase's history and comments about wanting a more balanced offense, I think that will mostly result in more pass plays. They won't be the Saints, but I am at least expecting a couple more attempts per game.

As for Landry, I think you more highlighted concerns with Landry than with Parker. He has put up numbers on a crazy amount of targets. Part of that is because he is a really good option on the safe short throws, which can help offset a poor run game. Until Ajayi broke out, Miami had a pretty poor run game during Landry's Miami tenure, so if Ajayi continues to produce, I think Miami will find themselves not needing to feed Landry as many targets. I am not sure more pass attempts by the dolphins will equal more targets for Landry by the same factor.

There is also Landry's contract situation. Miami hasn't offered him an extension and they have made a point of hyping up Parker (which of course should be taken with a grain of salt). Reading the tea leaves, I see that as the Dolphins want to see if they really need Landry before they back the truck up for him. I think a big part of that decision will how Parker plays after his first healthy offseason, so I think he will have plenty of opportunities this year.

Thomas is about the same as Sims, and they basically traded an injured LT who just retired for him. I don't see that as a huge investment or promise of use. He should still be Parker's main competition for targets in the red zone. As for Landry in the red zone, yeah he is terrible. There is no way Parker is behind him. The 23 targets in 2015 were mostly 2-yard crossing patterns from the 10 on 3rd and goal. I remember each one of them getting my heart rate up like it was yesterday...

TL/DR: I think there are a lot of different ways targets could come for Parker to have a breakout year. I am not saying any specific one will happen, but if Parker is actually refining his routes and playing up to his athleticism, available targets shouldn't be an obstacle to him having a good year and out producing his current price.

You do realize that last year Parker had the worst RZ completion % of anyone on the Dolphins aside from Arian Foster who had 1 target. Parker was 5 for 9 on RZ targets last year and 2 for 9 the year before, last year Landry was 7 for 9, sure Parker is a bigger target but if he's not gonna catch it then why would they throw it to him?

Amari Cooper was 5-13 in the Red Zone last year, yet nobody talks about how awful he is in the Red Zone (besides me of course who has been worried about this for two years). He was 3-7 as a rookie, so let's not pretend that Cooper is a Top-5 WR (he shouldn't be Top-10) and that Parker is JAG because of this stat, please! Cooper's career Red Zone Catch % is 40%. Parker's is 39%.

[Never Veto1]

3 words ---- Smokin' Jay Cutler

[PingPwng]

3 words ---- Smokin' Jay Cutler

/swoon

[Valhalla]

Cooper's career Red Zone Catch % is 40%. Parker's is 39%.

Throw them both out, I say

[StableOfRBs]

When personal maturity/development meets increased opportunity meets a change to a QB that perfectly suits his game, beautiful things happen. I am buying anywhere his cost is still less than a top 5 rookie pick.

How is this QB any different than the one he had before, look at their career numbers, the main difference between Tannehill and Cutler is their interception rates

Cutler is waaaay different. He loves throwing it up to big receivers ala Marshall and Alshon. And he's competent with the deep ball. These should fit perfectly with Parker. Tannehill was much more conservative, which explains the interceptions. Can't just look at the numbers when comparing QBs

No you can't just look at the numbers but they certainly tell a story. First off, Tannehill and Cutler have career adjusted yards/attempt of 6.68 and 6.69 respectively and in 2015 when they both played at least 15 games they had the same air yards/attempt of 3.8 (13th in the NFL that year) so Tannehill hasn't really been more conservative than Cutler at all, they both take shots down the field

Then there's this tweet by Scott Barrett about Cutler that he put out a few weeks ago: https://twitter.com/ScottBarrettDFB/sta ... 1624918016 which kinda torpedoes the argument that Cutler has a nice deep ball since he's not even average when throwing downfield anywhere but deep right

And since I know someone will ask Parker was targeted deep right 6 times last year as opposed to 11 times deep left and 5 times deep middle, he primarily lines up as the X-receiver which is on the left/weak side of the field so the odds of him benefiting from Cutler's strange acuity at throwing deep right aren't great either, that's typically where Stills will be in 3WR sets