Nowhere in this piece will you read anything knocking Odell Beckham Jr’s talent. The 2014 Rookie of the Year had a tremendous first season in the NFL. No, this piece is to tell you that we should all cool off on him for fantasy purposes. Beckham is many things, but the third best fantasy wideout he is not. He is being drafted ahead of Demaryius Thomas, Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, and Jordy Nelson. There is no way he should be drafted ahead of any of them, let alone all of them.
Yes, his numbers were outstanding, 91 catches. 1,305 yards. 12 touchdowns. Let’s compare him to the other names above:
Demaryius Thomas: 111 catches. 1,619 yards. 11 TD’s
Julio Jones: 104 catches. 1,593 yards. 6 TD’s
Calvin Johnson: 71 catches, 1077 yards. 8 TD’s
Jordy Nelson: 98 catches. 1,519 yards. 13TD’s.
Only Calvin Johnson’s numbers were worse than ODB’s. Yet the other three are going after? How come? Thomas and Nelson clearly have better quarterbacks, and all four of these receivers have done numbers like this for more than one season. The key in round one is avoiding a bust, and drafting as safe as possible is the smartest move.
Will Beckham bust? I highly doubt it. But I don’t believe he will match the production of the top tier like he did last year. Everything came together for him in 2014.
First off, the Giants were terrible. They were 6-10 last season, and could not run the ball. Eli Manning threw, and threw, and threw some more. Manning averaged 37.5 pass attempts per game last season, almost five more than his career average of 32.7. Tom Coughlin will not want to throw that much again this year, if he can help it. Beckham had an absurd 130 targets in 12 games last season. After Cruz went down he averaged 12.9 targets per contest. It’s not like Eli only looked at Beckham either. Reuben Randle had 127 targets last year. Larry Donell had 92! More importantly, Victor Cruz had 41. In 5 ½ games. Push that out to a full season and that’s 123 more targets this season.
There are not that many passes to go around this season. ODB, Cruz, and Randle are expected to be heavily involved in the offense. The Giants made an excellent pickup in free agency in Shane Vereen, who caught 52 balls himself last year. Vereen is sneaky and can get open out of the backfield, and should thrive as a security blanket in the Giants’ offense.
So let’s assume that the Giants offense falls closer to its norms, and Eli throws 523 passes this coming season. Last season’s targets totaled 543, and that’s just the players we named. So everything will come down some. ODB was targeted on 21.6% of passes thrown by Manning last season. That comes to 110 targets in 2015 if you believe that percentage is a sustainable number. With Cruz healthy and Vereen in the backfield I do not. So that pushes his target projection even lower for 2015, closer to 100.
Can Beckham excel with 100 to 110 targets? Absolutely. But I don’t think he exceeds last year’s numbers with that drop in targets. 75 to 85 catches, 1250 yards, and 10 TD’s will be a fine season for 2015. They just aren’t mid first round numbers. Let someone else take Beckham that high. Take Jones or Thomas instead and thank me later.