This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
By Matt Morrison (@dynastyjerk)
Week 5 is history. It’s officially in the books. With the conclusion of it, we have a single undefeated team remaining, and a single winless team remaining in each conference.
The undefeated team comes from the best conference (speaking in terms of wins), and it is the Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals won a close, defensive game against the San Francisco 49ers last week. The 1972 Dolphins will have to put away the champagne for now and wait at least one more week to ensure their undefeated record remains intact.
On the other hand, the Jacksonville Jaguars (as well as the Detroit Lions) remain winless. The Jags lost by 18 in a game that felt closer than that up until the end. The Jags defense continues to be one of the worst in the league as they allowed 37 points and multiple touchdowns to Derrick Henry. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to think the Jags won’t get the 1st overall pick for the second consecutive year.
Today, I’m going to be continuing my “Incredibly True Statistics” articles. I will be writing about a few wide receivers that have some baffling stats as we are close to a third of the way through the season. Let’s do it…
Incredibly True Statistics
There are a plethora of wide receivers I could talk about for this article. It’s no surprise that’s the case either. Wide receiver is the deepest position in fantasy football as teams often have at least two relevant players for that position. I’m going to limit my ramblings down to three players today, and at the end I’ll give a list of players that deserve mentioning but not necessarily a full write up on.
Mike Williams
“Wow!” What else can I say about what Williams has done this year. He is currently tied as the WR1 in Dynasty Owner with Cooper Kupp. He has 119.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (DOFP) which is good for 23.82 points per game. What’s also impressive is the fact that he went for more than 36.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in two of his five games. He leads all wide receivers in the NFL with 6 touchdowns. He is also Top 5 in targets and yards.
This is an incredibly hot start to the 2021 season especially for a player who had so much potential coming out of college. Mike Williams was selected 7th overall in the 2017 NFL draft, but he was the second wide receiver selected. Who was the first? Williams has also dealt with injuries more than an average wide receiver has. I knew he had the talent and build to be the number one wide receiver, but I didn’t think we would ever see it. If you own him and were able to survive his $15,680,000 salary, then you are reaping the benefits right now. While I don’t expect Williams to finish the season as the WR1, he, without question, needs to be started for the rest of the season.
Marquise Brown
Hollywood Brown comes into Week 6 as the WR6. Brown is a player who was given up on over the past couple of years. Dynasty Owners were definitely frustrated with his lack of production in 2019 and the first half of the 2020 season. It’s not that his fantasy finishes were all that bad, but rather that he was wildly inconsistent. For example:
In 2020, Brown had six games with less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. Five of those games were in the first half of the season. A similar trend was present in 2019 where Brown had eight games with less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
In addition to being inconsistent, it never seemed like the “Boom Potential” was there for Brown. In 2020, his highest scoring game in Dynasty Owner was 21.1 points, and that occurred in Week 17, so it didn’t help you. Not a great stat for a player who busted 38% of the time.
Well, through the first five games of 2021, Brown seems to have broken that trend. He has 106.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points or an average of 21.3 fantasy points per game. He did have one bust game of 8.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but the rest have been over 19.0 points. It also seems like he is doing this very quietly. I haven’t heard much buzz about Brown for what he is doing. Brown is a Top 10 wide receiver with a salary that’s less than 3 million dollars per year. If he keeps this up, he’s starting to sound like a Value of the Year candidate.
Ja’Marr Chase
Chase ($7,547,410) is the WR8 five games through the NFL season. He has 98.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for an average of 19.7 points per game. I’ll be the first to admit that I missed the train on Chase at least for this year. I did not draft him in any of my leagues including Dynasty Owner. It’s not necessarily that I was down on him as a player, but I thought the average draft price he was going at was not reflective of where he would finish at the conclusion of the season. Well, five games through the season he has returned more value than where he was being drafted. A 4th or 5th round pick in a redraft league would be a great value if you knew what he was going to do in the first third of the season. Likewise, a middle of the first round pick in Dynasty Owner rookie drafts was great value as well. He was the first wide receiver off the board in most Dynasty Owner rookie drafts (ADP 4.4), and we are seeing that translate to NFL production.
Of all wide receivers with 20 or more catches, Chase ranks first in yards per reception at 19.8. The big plays have certainly been there for Chase. Of his five touchdowns, four were over 30 yards. Two of them were 50 yards or more, and one was 70 yards. Like I said, the big plays have been there for Chase. I didn’t expect him to break out this early. Hell, not even Justin Jefferson broke out this early in 2020. Speaking of Jefferson, let’s do an in-depth comparison of these two great wide receivers. Here are Jefferson and Chase’s first five NFL games compared to each other…
| Receptions | Receiving Yards | TDs | DOFP | |
| Justin Jefferson | 19 | 371 | 1 | 62.1 |
| Ja’Marr Chase | 23 | 456 | 5 | 98.4 |
It’s easy to see that Chase has been much better in his first five NFL games when compared to Jefferson. Obviously this doesn’t tell the whole story, but it does give you an idea of how truly special Chase’s rookie season could be. Let’s compare Chase’s five game average with Jefferson’s entire 2020 season…
| Receptions | Receiving Yards | TDs | DOFP | |
| Justin Jefferson | 88 | 1,400 | 7 | 273.2 |
| Ja’Marr Chase | 74 | 1,459 | 16 | 314.9 |
This is what Chase would do over a 16 game season if he kept up his current production. Yes, I know the NFL season is now 17 games, but I didn’t want to compare a 16 game season to a 17 game season, so I just simplified Chase’s projection to 16 games.
Obviously, I don’t project Chase to finish his rookie season with 16 touchdowns or 314.9 fantasy points, but it does make you think, “What if?”
Honorable Mentions
Deebo Samuel ($1,811,869) [WR5]
DeAndre Hopkins ($27,250,000) [WR16]
Stefon Diggs ($14,400,000) [WR27]
Please tune in next week as I wrap up my “Incredibly True Statistics” theme. As always, thank you for reading and continuing to support Dynasty Owner. Message me on Twitter (@dynastyjerk) and let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I would appreciate it if you followed @Dynasty_Owner on Twitter as well as subscribed to Dynasty Owner on YouTube. Take care everyone and be safe.
TheJerk