The recipe for a breakout player is simple, yet complex, for fantasy football. A player is typically underrated for a reason, whether injury, role uncertainty, skill uncertainty, or skepticism about their background. There are many different ways to unearth potential talent for the next season. One quick way I use is the bevy of statistics available at ProFootballFocus.com.
For the wide receiver position, I look at a few different statistics to pare down the player pool. First, I like a combination of drops and missed tackles forced. I want players that are forcing at least as many missed tackles as their dropped passes, preferably twice as many. Another rate statistic is missed tackle rate. Like running backs, I want a receiver that can make something happen after the catch. A decent baseline is a 10% missed tackle rate. Then I sifted the list by PFF pass rating. This is an easy way to use the eye test over their seasonal body of work in a matter of seconds. I limit the player pool to only positive grades for receiving on the season. Finally, we are not looking for Odell Beckham or Julio Jones here – those ships have long since sailed – I limit the field to those with 50 or fewer targets in 2014. Here are the results:
Stedman Bailey
Bailey has the top marks of this group in terms of Missed Tackle per Drop (MT/D) rate and Missed Tackle % (MT%). He played a shade more than 400 snaps with 43 targets. While I have tempered upside expectations of Bailey with a full-time role, he has exceled through two seasons considering his playing time and is actually a similar prospect to Randall Cobb and Austin Colie – two productive interior receivers of late in the projection model.
Jaron Brown
I have been trumpeting Brown as an ideal stash player much of the 2014 season and the PFF metrics agree. Brown is second to Bailey in MT% and fourth on this list by MT/D numbers. Brown’s 10.4 YPC leave something to be desired, but Michael Floyd and John Brown are better downfield targets on the Arizona depth chart. Larry Fitzgerald’s contract situation is the biggest variable to Brown jumping up from his 209 snaps and 32 targets next season.
Donte Moncrief
Moncrief is not sneaking up on anyone in terms of his juicy upside for 2015. Reggie Wayne and Hakeem Nicks are as good as gone, clearing the way for Moncrief to seize a greater role in his second season. He passes all the qualifiers for this search and has a lower drop rate than either Bailey or Brown. Do not trade Moncrief if you own him for less than a windfall in the next month or two.
Steve Johnson
Johnson is another name, like Brown, that I have been quietly collecting on the backend of dynasty rosters this season. Michael Crabtree is a free agent and Anquan Boldin has to decline eventually…right? Johnson was the annual unflashy WR3 when he was in Buffalo earlier in his career. I am not a fan of Quinton Patton or Bruce Ellington being more than a speed bump to Johnson seeing significant outside receiver snaps in 2014 without external competition brought in. Johnson has by far the highest PFF overall and pass rating on this list, a shortcut to say he has played well despite his 305 snaps on the season.
Brice Butler
Butler is a forgotten name in even middle-depth dynasty circles. The Raiders are an up-and-coming passing offense with Derek Carr looking, at worst, functional as a rookie. No one on the wide receiver depth chart is a locked-in long-term starter, which is good news for the talents down the list. Butler’s missed tackle and drop numbers barely pass the benchmarks for inclusion on this list, but his projection model metrics are noteworthy. After a recent reconfiguration of the projection model scaling, Butler’s athleticism score ranks in the top-25 of all receivers dating back to 1999. He came into the NFL on the old side and mired through middling production at USC. That said, the big guy can move. At 6’3” and 214 pounds, Butler ran a sub-4.40 with a 39” vertical and a 6.70 3-cone time. At no point (at least since 19 years old) has Butler turned that dripping athleticism into difference-making production, but the tools are still there. If nothing else, add Butler to your watchlist and monitor the Raiders depth chart through free agency and the NFL draft.
