Is Landry a Sell high ?

[Ghosted]

Ghosted, where are you finding the stats on efficiency based on depth of target? I would be interested in looking at those.

There's quite a few places, but I've been using airyards.com most of this year, because I like the layout. Josh Hermsmeyer is a good follow on twitter too if you like that kind of stuff.

[Goddard]

He’s not even projected to get to 1,000 yards on the season and people are defending him bc all he does is produce? In what world does that make any sense.

Unreal. It just doesn't seem to stop with you does it? Frustrating.

DeVante Parker averages ~50 yards/game and he's a bust. Jarvis Landry averages ~50 yards/game on roughly twice as many targets and "all he does is produce." Just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy is all.

I don't think anyone here called Parker a bust. Also, you just continue to use yards as your argument and ignore the receptions and TDs, along with availability. I don't know how many games Parker has missed, but I don't think Landry has missed any.

[Ghosted]

The bottom line - Landry has led the team in receiving yards the last two years and is doing so again; given his numbers are on pace to be lower than they have been.

Landry is one of those cases where his owners know they have an undervalued producer whereas those that do not are quick to point out the "flaws".

Many players are polarizing and there are arguments to be had on both sides. With that said, this community has Landry ranked around the low end WR2 ranks despite him finishing at worst as a high end WR2. You will not be able to pay low end WR2 prices for him, bottom line.

There are some people here saying he is overvalued which I do not understand. Most players that many are high on is because they project improvement, but Landry is one of those players that already has the projected decline baked into his consensus cost.

I don't think that has to be the bottom line. I have owned him for years, and I don't enjoy putting negative connotations on him, honestly. But it's an important time to really evaluate him, given his upcoming F/A. Landry seems to be one of those players around here where people get so dug in on both sides, and that shouldn't be the case.

[Vcize]

Once again by him only having 472 yds shows how PPR leagues overinflat the value of receptions. He's 38th in receiving yards and 1st in receptions and 25th in YAC

Well you can kind of say the same about TDs and standard scoring leagues, right?

Prior to Rodgers' injury Jordy Nelson was WR6 because he was 1st in TDs, despite being 58th in the NFL in receiving yards, 58th in receptions, and 86th in yards per reception.

[Jfever]

Well, the truth is never really black or white, it's usually in that grey area. Landry isn't a physical specimen by metrics standards. He isn't overly tall nor is he overly fast or strong. He is fairly quick in short area, runs smart routes,(routes that he is asked to run based on make up of his offense) - and has good to great hands. DISPITE his lack of height and speed - He wins contested balls and plays hungry. He will be the, or one of the most sought after FA wr's. I'd imagine he gets franchised and stays in Miami, but, that's just a guess. Sure, he isn't an elite wr - but - we as a fantasy community shouldn't down play his production through 2.5 seasons. If he does go somewhere else, I'd like to think that he'd go somewhere where they'd have a plan to use his areas of strength (otherwise why pay the kind of money it'll take to get him?) Not saying his production would remain what its been, but, we don't know that it won't. For all intents and purposes, considering metrics, considering coaching changes, level of qb play, etc - we wouldn't have expected the numbers he's produced - But, game in and game out, he's shown toughness and resiliency and production. Not sure why some are down on him. He is what he is; A young / experienced, clean on and off the field - great wr3, or a good wr2 with upside and a high weekly floor in ppr.

[Vcize]

Think of Landry like an elite RB with a bad QB. Hard to be ultraproductive when every defense you play knows you are getting the ball more often than not. Kenny Stills and Parker are OK but I think it is clear teams would rather take their chances against them downfield rather than let Jarvis catch the ball short and get YAC for first downs all day long. Too easy for Jarvis to move the chains if you don't keep a close eye on him.

NE or NO as offenses that spread the ball around well would probably be ideal places for Jarvis from a productivity stand point but neither are likely. I think him in Carolina would be pretty interesting and he would be a superstar in Seattle, maybe not the best for PPR but I guarantee his depth per target would change dramatically with a QB who can extend plays. But if he goes to a bad team just expect more of the same. 80-100 catches for about 1,000 yards.

Except that it won't because it's something that he's been historically bad at.

Which efficiency stats are you using to determine that? His catch rate is below average, but not horribly far behind a guy like DeAndre Hopkins. His RACR, which is the efficiency stat that site really seems to push as important, doesn't drop below average until you get to 40+ yard targets (Antonio Brown's drops below average at 35+ yards, Odell Beckham's at 30+ yards, Julio's between 27 and 40 yards).

Granted, I'm still figuring out how to use the site, but while downfield targets certainly aren't his strength I have found much yet to say he's been historically bad with them.

[Goddard]

How much data is there for his downfield targets when he's hardly targeted downfield? I think we need to see more before we actually decide if it's good or bad.

[Never Veto1]

Once again by him only having 472 yds shows how PPR leagues overinflat the value of receptions. He's 38th in receiving yards and 1st in receptions and 25th in YAC

Well you can kind of say the same about TDs and standard scoring leagues, right?

Prior to Rodgers' injury Jordy Nelson was WR6 because he was 1st in TDs, despite being 58th in the NFL in receiving yards, 58th in receptions, and 86th in yards per reception.

That's fair to say. Personally I think going to whole ppr is too much, .5 is more of a fair indication and evens the field out

[Sterling Archer]

This debate ends if leagues stop giving points for a meaningless stat...

[skip]

This debate ends if leagues stop giving points for a meaningless stat...

So throw the receptions away and focus entirely on yards (since that seems to be the bee in the bonnet of so many) when Landry was #10 last season and #12 the year prior. I'm still going back to a comment a made a short bit ago. Those "hating" on Landry are focusing on this year only and ignoring his production from prior years.

I'm curious if there is this much "anti" sentiment out there for Amari Cooper as well.

[Cameron Giles]

That stat (ALEX) was created specifically to paint Alex Smith in a negative light. It is interesting, but it really just highlights individual players' styles. I don't think it's a knock on Landry here.

Think about it from a football perspective. I'd take 7.8 yards on a play any day. That's a first down or close to it. Mix a few of those in a drive and you're set.

I don't absolutely love Landry and think he's a stud, but I can see why a team would want to add him and what he would bring to a team. Throwing to him is like a good gain on the ground (4.9 yards per target).

I understand why a team would want him. He's one of the top slot receivers in the league. But, I don't understand why a team would make him the primary option and pay him a huge chunk of money, if their goal was to have a really good offense. Unless of course...they're going to use him completely different.

Football Outsiders also has Defense-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement for WR's:
Wide receivers are ranked according to DYAR, or Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. This gives the value of the performance on plays where this WR caught the ball, compared to replacement level, adjusted for situation and opponent and then translated into yardage. DYAR (and its cousin, YAR, which isn't adjusted based on opponent) is further explained here.

For the amount of WR's with at least 40 receptions this season (64 qualified), Landry ranks 61st in DYAR.

[Vcize]

The 170 target thing is a bit of a non-starter anyway because Landry was a high WR2 last year with 130 targets. His buying price is of a barely WR2 anyway. No one is paying four 1sts for Landry or whatever it would cost to get a 24 year old high WR1 that people expected to continue putting up that truly top level production.

Beyond that, this whole 170 targets for 800 yards is such a weird thing to harp on too. It's like you keep ignoring that this isn't the only season he's played and it's clearly an outlier with the most miserable offensive situation possible. He had 1136 yards last year on 131 targets.

This season is not an outlier. I've already shown you that in terms of YatC, he has always been among the league worst at the WR position. You're correct that it's an exaggeration of how he's been used. However, the consistency is still how he's been used. In past seasons he got more YAC, but that's still so hard to rely on when you're catching the ball so close to the line of scrimmage.

You're doing that thing again where you respond to a point about something with "evidence" of something completely different. Comparing apples to suspension bridges, and all that.

I said that him requiring 170 targets for 800 yards this year is an outlier, and you responded by saying that his yards at the point of catch is not an outlier. Umm.....OK. That's great, and also irrelevant to the point I was making.

Here are the number of receptions it took him to reach 800 yards each of his seasons.

Rookie: 117
Year 2: 114
Year 3: 92
Year 4: 162 (pace)

I don't know what it is about this discussion that you refuse to acknowledge how terrible the situation is in Miami this year. You keep referencing stats from this year as if they are his career averages, when in fact the majority of them are quite different than his career averages and even far worse than his rookie year.

[Vcize]

Football Outsiders also has Defense-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement for WR's:
Wide receivers are ranked according to DYAR, or Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. This gives the value of the performance on plays where this WR caught the ball, compared to replacement level, adjusted for situation and opponent and then translated into yardage. DYAR (and its cousin, YAR, which isn't adjusted based on opponent) is further explained here.

For the amount of WR's with at least 40 receptions this season (64 qualified), Landry ranks 61st in DYAR.

And last year it had him in the top 20 ahead of Odell Beckham (among many others) while Hopkins and ARob were near the bottom.

Strange how a couple of great WRs like Hopkins end up near the bottom of the list when playing alongside terrible QB play. It's almost like that stat isn't as good as filtering out poor QB/team play as you're advertising.

But hey, sorry I forgot that this year is the only year that happened. Unless we're talking about YatC I guess, then since that's like the one stat that is near his career averages this year it's OK to talk about the rest of his career there too.

[ArrylT]

This debate ends if leagues stop giving points for a meaningless stat...

I assume you're referring to the idea of giving points for receptions.

Alas you're arguing an opinion on whose ship has sailed. PPR is the new norm. Owners that do not want PPR can always create non-ppr leagues, or 1/3, 1/2 PPR. There is no rule against creating non-ppr leagues. But in todays NFL where a ton of short & intermediate passes are thrown, expecting that to change is like expecting Barry Sanders or Calvin Johnson to come out of retirement.

Besides even if you did eliminate ppr all that will do is change who the controversial player is. It wont solve the issue, which is obviously that different people have different ideas on what equates to the proper way to score fantasy football. And that issue is solved every time X number of owners join a league (assuming each owner actually pays attention to the scoring settings ).

In any case Landry is still a WR2 in non-ppr - so he's still relevant regardless of scoring system.

One other thought - and I wonder if people who dislike PPR realize this - but one of the major benefits of PPR is that it makes it easier, not harder to distinguish WR1, WR2 & WR3 which in turn makes it easier to value WR better.

I believe that last year the difference between WR1 and WR36 in std scoring was

WR 1 - 209.70
WR 6 - 176.90
WR 12 - 148.30
WR 18 - 138.30
WR 24 - 132.10
WR 30 - 124.50
WR 36 - 119.40

WR 1 to 6 - 23 points
WR 12 to 36 - 29 points

whereas in PPR it was

WR 1 - 307.30
WR 6 - 259.90
WR 12 - 237.30
WR 18 - 216.90
WR 24 - 200.80
WR 30 - 193.50
WR 36 - 184.40

WR 1 to 6 - 47 points
WR 12 to 36 - 53 points

As you can see, with PPR the difference between WR12-36 is now greater. In other words WR3s in NON-ppr have more value in relation to WR1s than they do in PPR, so removing PPR bunches up more WRs and makes it harder to put them in tiers & give them seperate values, not easier, imho.

Personally I have never understood the dislike for PPR. It doesnt take away from Receiving Yards or Touchdowns, it merely adds another way to reward players in fantasy. And when you get a guy who is a stud in all 3 categories, that just makes them even more "elite" than a guy who is only good in 1 or 2 scoring categories. Yes you get more WRs who have value, but the value between tiers changes positively not negatively with the addition of PPR.

Plus it gives birth to great discussions like this as to the current & future value of WRs like Landry, rather than lumping them in a giant flat tier of WR2s. And the more ways to have discussions the better. Too much standardization and homogenization of scoring leads to too much uniformity and apathy, whereas variety leads to more spice and more growth of fantasy football.

[Cameron Giles]

You're doing that thing again where you respond to a point about something with "evidence" of something completely different. Comparing apples to suspension bridges, and all that.

I said that him requiring 170 targets for 800 yards this year is an outlier, and you responded by saying that his yards at the point of catch is not an outlier. Umm.....OK. That's great, and also irrelevant to the point I was making.

Here are the number of receptions it took him to reach 800 yards each of his seasons.

Rookie: 117
Year 2: 114
Year 3: 92
Year 4: 162 (pace)

I don't know what it is about this discussion that you refuse to acknowledge how terrible the situation is in Miami this year. You keep referencing stats from this year as if they are his career averages, when in fact the majority of them are quite different than his career averages and even far worse than his rookie year.

Miami uses Landry the same way, no matter the quality of offense. This has rolled over through two different coaching staffs. Statistically, this season is an exaggeration of the point, but he's been used the same. Landry's role in the offense has always been to catch passes close to the line of scrimmage and to hopefully create yards afterwards. Get the ball out quick, avoid sacks from a questionable line and Landry is essentially the checkdown on most plays. THAT is apart of the downside with this strategy. This season, those YAC aren't there and it shows the downside of relying on a player who catches passes so close to the LOS at high volume. That is what this discussion is about.