Every football season in the Fantasy world players fail to live up to expectations while other hidden gems breakthrough with impact years. Most of the time when a player kills a Fantasy team, Fantasy owners will hold a grudge the next season. Fantasy football is a sprint. To win a league title or even an overall championship, a Fantasy owners needs his core players to excel over the regular season while offering explosiveness over the championship weeks of the playoffs. When searching for our comeback player, we are looking for a player that done it before while coming off an underperforming season. This player must also be undervalued in Fantasy drafts while having the talent to be a difference maker in the two most important parts of the season (regular season and championship round). For those reasons, we choose Amari Cooper.
[fvplayer src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/XtNE4yxjnOk” width=”640″ height=”360″ autoplay=”false” sticky=”true” share=”yes”]Here’s a look at the ADPs in the last ten drafts for the top 20 WRs in the Fantasy Football World Championships:
Despite finishing as the 36th ranked WR in 2017 in PPR leagues, Cooper is getting respect in the high-stakes market in August. His value has risen seven draft spots over the last month.
Here’s a game-by-game breakdown in Fantasy points in 2017 in PPR leagues for the top 36 WRs:
As you can see, Cooper had only one impact week, and it was a special game (11 catches for 210 yards and two TDs on 19 targets. Amari has two games in 2017 where he didn’t play plus five other bust games where he scored fewer than five Fantasy points despite having starting snaps. His only other games of value came in Week 1 (5/62/1), Week 16 (3/66/1), and Week 17 (3/115/1). Even with his success over the last two weeks of the season, Cooper only had ten combined targets in two games.
After looking at this info, it may be even harder to take a dance with Amari in 2018. For of all, his starting QB (Derek Carr) wasn’t healthy over the last 11 games of the season after getting knocked out of Week 4 with a back issue. Cooper had a huge step back in his catch rate (50 percent) compared to 2015 (55.4) and 2016 (62.9) while losing his big ability to make big plays (nine catches over 20 yards in 14 games compared to 15 in 2015 and 21 in 2016 while playing 16 games). Amari played through a knee injury early in the season plus an ankle issue late in the year. Some of his missed playing due was to a concussion suffered in Week 12 vs. the Broncos.
Over first two seasons in the NFL, Cooper ranked 21st in 2015 and 15th in 2016 in WR scoring in PPR leagues.
From 2015 to 2016, Cooper gained 8.3 percent in value in Fantasy points despite only receiving two more targets. He regressed in TDs (6 to 5) and yards per catch (14.9 to 13.9). As I mentioned early, Amari was trending forward in his catch rate before last year.
The question a Fantasy owner must answer about Cooper in 2018 is: What is the true value of WR1 in PPR leagues in catches, yards, TDs, and targets. Of these categories, targets are probably the most important as it shows opportunity. Here’s a look at the WR targets for the top 24 players over the last five seasons.
In order to rank as a top 12 WR in chances, a WR needed to average over 140 targets over the last five seasons. Cooper’s opportunity in 2015 and 2016 fell in line with a top 15 wide receiver. For him to go to the next level and be a true impact WR1, Amari needs only a small step up in opportunity plus show growth in his TD ability.
In 2015, the Raiders completed 204 passes to the WR position for 2,681 yards and 24 TDs on 362 targets. Those stats in 2016 came to 225 passes for 2,709 yards and 20 TDs on 377 targets. Last year the WR opportunity in Oakland fell by about 15 percent leading to 189 catches for 2,280 yards and 19 TDs on 319 targets.
The key number over the last three years in the 63 TD passes to the WR position. It shows that Derek Carr will have success throwing TDs to the wide receiver position plus Michael Crabtree isn’t there stealing away touchdowns. Crabtree scored 25 TDs over the last three season. Jordy Nelson will fill some of the WR void in scoring, but Cooper should be the most rewarded with a bump in WR scoring.
Oakland has a new coaching staff, which gives Cooper a chance to write off a poor 2017 season. He has great upside with minimal talent fighting him for WR1 targets for the Raiders. His resume in his first two years in the NFL set a nice floor where Amari will have a huge rebound season. I know his price point isn’t cheap and his 2017 stats will scare the weak hearted away, but he has the game and talent to make a huge step forward to be an impact WR1 thus our comeback player of the year.
To add another look at his profile in 2018, here’s his outlook written by me in May:
Amari Cooper (WR) – The Cooper train ran off the tracks in 2017 after two strong seasons (72/1070/6 and 83/1153/5) to start his NFL career. Amari caught only 48 of his 96 targets last year with 680 yards and seven TDs, which was about a 25 percent drop in opportunity. After a slow start in Week 1 (5/62/1) and Week 2 (4/33), Cooper barely has a pulse over his next three games (four combined catches for 23 yards). Just when Fantasy owners had him dead and buried on the bench in Week 7, Amari exploded for 11 catches for 210 yards and two TDs on 19 targets. In essence, Cooper scored more points in one game than his first six weeks (44.0 to 38.6 Fantasy points). Over his last ten games of the year, he only had one game of value (3/115/1) with emptiness from Week 12 to Week 15 (1/9/1 on two targets). Cooper battled a knee and an ankle injury over the year. A Fantasy owner needs to write off last year. In 2015 and 2016, Amari finished 21st and 15th in WR scoring in PPR leagues. As bad as he was last year, he was the 36th highest scoring WR. Excellent WR3 if Cooper is overlooked on draft day. Possible 80+ catches for 1,200+ yards with six to eight TDs.
