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Every year, the NFL and fantasy football leagues around the world see new breakout performances. Those performances help create new stars and build teams into championship contenders. What about “fantasy WR lose targets” situations? The receivers losing most targets must be identified. Fantasy football “lose targets” equations have to be figured out.
Such situations take away from other players. In fantasy football, that can lose you a championship if you took the receivers losing most targets.
When a new star is born, that star can hurt the production of some teammates.
Yes, sometimes they can help make the other players even better. But when it comes to fantasy football that is unlikely. The reason for that is simple.
When one player becomes a star, he's going to get more targets. Those targets do not come out of thin air though. They need to be taken from someone. Sometimes that someone is another great player. This is what we refer to in a “fantasy WR lose targets” situation.
So who could fall victim to that in 2020? Which are the receivers losing most targets this upcoming season? Let's take a look and try to figure out the five prominent “fantasy football lose targets” victims.
Fantasy WR lose targets candidates: 5. Tyler Boyd
Want a “fantasy WR lose targets” example? Tyler Boyd had a breakout campaign for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2018. He followed that up with an even better 2019 season.
2018 saw Boyd rack up career-highs in receptions (76), as well receiving yard (1,028) and receiving touchdowns (7).
He followed that up with a 2019 that saw him raise his highs in receptions (90) and receiving yards (1,048). Although, the touchdowns did drop to five.
The 25-year-old may not even have hit his prime yet. Couple in the fact that he has a new quarterback that many expect to be a star in rookie (first overall pick) Joe Burrow, and the future is limitless (shoutout to Keith Lee).
So why will the targets drop for Boyd? That makes almost no sense, right?
Well there are a few reasons why Boyd is a “fantasy WR lose targets” candidate. First of all, Burrow is a rookie. While he is expected to be great, he is still going to have a learning curve. He may not have the same type of chemistry with Boyd that Andy Dalton did.
Then there are the other targets. Cincinnati immediately added some help for Burrow when they selected Tee Higgins in the second round. The wide receiver should make an impact immediately.
John Ross is expected to be healthy as well, and he might steal a few targets as well.
The big one though, is A.J. Green. Green has had a ton of injury problems over the last few seasons. In fact, he did not even play in 2019.
Due to that, some may not remember just how good he is. When healthy, Green was one of the most dominant and electrifying wide receivers in the entire NFL.
With him back (hopefully for the whole season), things might get a little tricky for Boyd in a fantasy WR lose targets context.
Boyd will absolutely get fed. And the numbers will be just as good, if not even better as teams will not be able to just zero in on him in the passing game anymore.
However, the targets will go down. And with that, there is a chance the production goes down slightly as well.
There is simply no way the Bengals won't try to get Green and Higgins (and possibly even Ross) involved heavily in the offense. That means Boyd won't get the 148 targets (seventh most in the league) that he got last year. It's a classic “fantasy football lose targets” scenario waiting to happen.
4. Courtland Sutton
Courtland Sutton is in the same boat as Boyd in some ways, another one of the receivers losing most targets this year.
No, he does not have a new rookie quarterback. In fact, he has Drew Lock – who was a rookie last season. And Lock seems like the answer at the position for a long time for the Denver Broncos.
At the same time, he seems to have great chemistry with Sutton.
So how is the wide receiver going to get stung here and become a “fantasy WR lose targets” case study? Once again, too many mouths to feed. The Broncos wasted no time in the 2020 NFL Draft making sure they had more than enough weapons around their new franchise quarterback.
Denver's first round pick in 2020 was used on Jerry Jeudy. The wide receiver is expected to be an immediate impact and a future superstar in the NFL.
Then they went and took KJ Hamler in the second round. Another wide receiver that could have an immediate impact and turn into a superstar down the road in his career.
Sutton is a star in his own right. In 2019, he posted career-highs in receptions (72), receiving yards (1,112) and receiving touchdowns (6).
However, he's sharing the offense with a lot of big names. It is not just Jeudy and Hamler. They are the new studs of the unit and will definitely be taking their targets with them. But don't forget about tight end Noah Fant either.
Fant had a strong rookie season in 2019 and enjoyed some big breakout games that showcased his insane potential. He will be a bigger part of this offense as well.
Sutton racked up 124 targets last season. There is a chance he stays around that number. But with so many new potential stars in the offense, it's very easy to see Denver spreading the love a little bit more – hurting Sutton's pockets.
3. Jamison Crowder
Jamison Crowder had a great first year with the New York Jets in 2019. He set a new career-high in receptions with 78. Meanwhile, his 833 receiving yards was just 14 yards off his old best, and his six receiving touchdowns was just one off that old mark as well.
Year two could see even better numbers, right? Yes, absolutely.
But at the same time, is Crowder really going to get 122 targets again? He's a fantastic wide receiver and has proven himself to be productive. Is he going to get that many targets though?
Admittedly, New York did not exactly load up on some extra talent in the passing game. Sam Darnold is an exciting young quarterback, but does not have a lot of weapons he can trust.
The Jets did add Denzel Mims in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. And the wide receiver will absolutely make his mark.
However, they lost Robbie Anderson this offseason – so that is sort of a wash for the upcoming season.
Mims is the talking point here though. Last season, Crowder was the main target by far for Darnold. The rookie could easily take that role in 2020 though.
Crowder was a good security blanket, who can also make the deep plays when needed. New York needs to expand Darnold and see what they truly have in him though.
They can't keep going through seasons and at the end point out a few good runs and talking about potential. It is time to see if he is the true franchise quarterback or not. That means they need to stop playing it safe.
With that in mind, Mims is going to take his targets – and he's going to take a lot of them.
Crowder will still be fed, but anything over 100 just seems like a stretch. 2019 was a great year for him but that type of target volume is hard to duplicate unless you are a true star. Crowder is one of the receivers losing most targets.
2. Larry Fitzgerald
This was a rough entry right here. Is there anyone in the league or that just watches football that does not love and respect Larry Fitzgerald?
The Arizona Cardinals' legend just seems to do everything right. He is one of the most talented wide receivers the game has ever seen. And he does it all with a smile and a fantastic attitude.
Great sportsmanship and constant production.
However, he's going to be 37 by the start of the 2020 season. And he'll be doing so on a team that boasts superstar wide receiver Christian Kirk and arguably the best in the game right now in DeAndre Hopkins.
Last season, Fitzgerald continued to be productive. He racked up 75 receptions for 804 yards and four touchdowns. Nowhere near his best season, but at age 36 with a rookie quarterback – that's incredible.
Now the Cardinals have added Hopkins into the mix though. And Fitzgerald is coming off a season with a new low in targets (109). So a further drop seems almost guaranteed.
This is not much of an issue for his production. Fitzgerald has proven that he's reliable. He tends to make the catch when the ball is thrown his way.
Due to that, the numbers should not take much of a dip. However, there will still be a drop. And the targets are definitely going down. Yes, we could see this fantasy WR lose targets.
Fitzgerald is just 122 receptions away from 1,500 and 2,917 yards away from 20,000. Both are within his reach.
It's starting to look like he's going to need a few seasons to get to those numbers though, as the quarterback just isn't going to be looking his way as much – at least not while all those other weapons are in Arizona.
1. Michael Gallup
Michael Gallup had a strong rookie season back in 2018 for the Dallas Cowboys. Most impressively, in 2019 he improved dramatically.
Gallup appeared in 14 games (compared to 16 in 2018). Despite that he rose his receptions from 33 to 66. That help him improve his receiving yards from 507 to 1,107 and his touchdowns from two to six.
Of course, a big part of all of that was Gallup getting 113 targets in 2019 compared to 68 in 2018.
So why won't he see a spike in 2020? Why will this fantasy WR lose targets? New blood.
The Cowboys still have superstar Amari Cooper at wide receiver. So he is still the number one option. And Gallup is still likely the number two option. However, Dallas snatched up CeeDee Lamb when he fell to them with the 17th pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Lamb is a superstar in the making. The Cowboys are going to want to get him involved in the offense immediately.
That is great for the offense and for quarterback Dak Prescott. And it is going to make things easier on Cooper and Gallup. Opposing defenses now have a third potential star that they need to focus on at all times.
However, it also means that Cooper and Gallup may be losing a few of their targets.
Gallup already had a few games in 2019 where it seemed like Prescott was not looking his way all that often. Could that become a little more frequent in 2020?
