Welcome to another edition of Breaking Down The Targets! I asked Twitter which team they wanted to see me breakdown this time and while it was a close race the Jaguars won! The Jaguars are a very interesting team because they attempted the 4th most pass attempts last season, and have many mouths to feed.
I better do this right because they are Zach's favorite team and he's been kind enough to let me write here. He is the only man I know who actually owns a Jaguars jersey. Is that all about to change? Let's take a look!
The Jaguars Pass Attempts
As I mentioned earlier, the Jaguars attempted 626 passes last season which was only behind the Ravens, Saints, and Cardinals. All but one of those passes was attempted by the guy everyone loves to hate-Blake Bortles come on down! The other attempt was thrown by Marqise Lee who finished the season a dazzling 1 for 1 passing with a 20 yard touchdown. That touchdown was thrown to....Bortles. I smell a Quarterback controversy brewing folks!
So how did those 626 targets end up being split? 151 went to Allen Robinson, 105 to Marqise Lee, 76 to Allen Hurns, 96 to the RB duo of T.J. Yeldon & Chris Ivory, and122 to tight ends led by a combination of Julius Thomas & Marcedes Lewis. Additionally, the Jaguars threw 34 times towards Bryan Walters (note from Zach: for reasons I can't comprehend). The remaining 42 targets went to a number of insignificant role players we will call 'Misc'. Considering how much the Jags passed last season, it's pretty surprising to see that only two players went over 100 targets.
I don't think that you need me to tell you that the large amount of pass attempts were due to the fact that the Jaguars were always playing from behind. Blake Bortles may have been a top ten fantasy quarterback, but his is definitely a case of fantasy not translating to reality. The team went 3-13 which meant there was so much garbage time that even Oscar the Grouch was happy!
However, there are reasons to believe that the Jaguars will pass less this year. That 3-13 record led to the team having the 4th overall pick in the 2017 draft, and they used it to draft a true beast in Leonard Fournette. He will instantly help improve their run game and take some pressure off Bortles.
Fournette isn't the only Jaguars acquisition this off-season I want to highlight though. Tom Coughlin joined as the Executive Vice President and is HEAVILY involved in personnel decisions now. I may be biased since I'm a Giants fan, but Jaguar fans should be pleased about the culture of winning he will bring with him.
So how did those 626 targets end up being split? 151 went to Allen Robinson, 105 to Marqise Lee, 76 to Allen Hurns, 96 to the RB duo of T.J. Yeldon & Chris Ivory, and122 to tight ends led by a combination of Julius Thomas & Marcedes Lewis. Additionally, the Jaguars threw 34 times towards Bryan Walters (note from Zach: for reasons I can't comprehend). The remaining 42 targets went to a number of insignificant role players we will call 'Misc'. Considering how much the Jags passed last season, it's pretty surprising to see that only two players went over 100 targets.
I don't think that you need me to tell you that the large amount of pass attempts were due to the fact that the Jaguars were always playing from behind. Blake Bortles may have been a top ten fantasy quarterback, but his is definitely a case of fantasy not translating to reality. The team went 3-13 which meant there was so much garbage time that even Oscar the Grouch was happy!
However, there are reasons to believe that the Jaguars will pass less this year. That 3-13 record led to the team having the 4th overall pick in the 2017 draft, and they used it to draft a true beast in Leonard Fournette. He will instantly help improve their run game and take some pressure off Bortles.
Fournette isn't the only Jaguars acquisition this off-season I want to highlight though. Tom Coughlin joined as the Executive Vice President and is HEAVILY involved in personnel decisions now. I may be biased since I'm a Giants fan, but Jaguar fans should be pleased about the culture of winning he will bring with him.
2017 Predictions
Over the past two seasons Blake Bortles hasn't attempted fewer than 600 passes. However, for the reasons I just mentioned I'm going to be a little conservative and say we are looking at 590 passes for 2017. That would have been good enough for 12th most pass attempts in the league last season.
We'll start by examining the Jaguars star receiver, Allen Robinson. In back to back to years, he's seen 151 targets. Yes, last year was a "down year" for him at 73-883-6 but that was as much Bortles' fault as his. There's no reason to expect the amount of targets he sees to go down, so I'm going to give him a healthy 150 again.
Now Marqise Lee is a much more interesting subject. Sure he saw 105 targets, but how much of that is because Allen Hurns was only able to play 11 games? Of the two, Hurns has been the much more consistent producer over their short three year career. However, Lee has the draft pedigree while Hurns went undrafted. Lee is the also more athletically gifted of the two according to playerprofiler.com.
If I'm the Jaguars, I'm sticking with the hot hand and feeding Lee the second most targets until he proves I should be doing otherwise. I'll say Lee sees just around 100 targets. It's still a dip for him but you're about to see why.
Just because I'm predicting more targets for Lee doesn't mean I don't see Hurns volume increasing from last season. Considering he missed 5 games and still put up as many TDs as Lee (3) that suggests that he's a red zone threat the Jags really like. Last season Hurns saw his catch percentage drop by nearly 15 percent, but that can also be improved with better play from Bortles this year. I'm going to predict 90 targets for Hurns this time around.
Where are those extra targets going to come from? In case you haven't heard the hype by now, Julius Thomas has departed from Jacksonville to take his talents to South Beach and reunite with Adam Gase. He's leaving behind 51 targets-not all of which I expect to go to an uninspiring tight end group led by Marcedes Lewis and Mychal Rivera. We will say these two tight ends see 65 targets total.
With the decision to draft Fournette, I also think that means we see less pass attempts to the running back group. Yeldon will still get work as a receiver, but in short yardage situations it's much easier to see the team taking the rather easy decision to hand the ball to Fournette. I believe the running back group will see around 75 targets this season.
How does 4th round pick Dede Westbook fit into this picture? I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Westbrook's situation reminds me a bit of Leonte Carroo's last year. Both were players that fell in the draft due to off-field concerns and as a result they are relegated to a backup role behind proven talent. There are reasons to be more optimistic with Westbrook though. The Jaguars can release Allen Hurns in 2018 with no dead money against them, and Marqise Lee is a free agent next year. The Jags have every reason to see what they got in their 4th rounder, and I believe he will see at least 55 targets.
If I'm the Jaguars, I'm sticking with the hot hand and feeding Lee the second most targets until he proves I should be doing otherwise. I'll say Lee sees just around 100 targets. It's still a dip for him but you're about to see why.
Just because I'm predicting more targets for Lee doesn't mean I don't see Hurns volume increasing from last season. Considering he missed 5 games and still put up as many TDs as Lee (3) that suggests that he's a red zone threat the Jags really like. Last season Hurns saw his catch percentage drop by nearly 15 percent, but that can also be improved with better play from Bortles this year. I'm going to predict 90 targets for Hurns this time around.
Where are those extra targets going to come from? In case you haven't heard the hype by now, Julius Thomas has departed from Jacksonville to take his talents to South Beach and reunite with Adam Gase. He's leaving behind 51 targets-not all of which I expect to go to an uninspiring tight end group led by Marcedes Lewis and Mychal Rivera. We will say these two tight ends see 65 targets total.
With the decision to draft Fournette, I also think that means we see less pass attempts to the running back group. Yeldon will still get work as a receiver, but in short yardage situations it's much easier to see the team taking the rather easy decision to hand the ball to Fournette. I believe the running back group will see around 75 targets this season.
How does 4th round pick Dede Westbook fit into this picture? I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Westbrook's situation reminds me a bit of Leonte Carroo's last year. Both were players that fell in the draft due to off-field concerns and as a result they are relegated to a backup role behind proven talent. There are reasons to be more optimistic with Westbrook though. The Jaguars can release Allen Hurns in 2018 with no dead money against them, and Marqise Lee is a free agent next year. The Jags have every reason to see what they got in their 4th rounder, and I believe he will see at least 55 targets.
Conclusion:
You may have noticed that leaves 55 targets of the 590 I mentioned. I believe those will go to the end of roster guys I didn't mention. However, it certainly leaves room for any of the other players I mentioned to see more looks.
I didn't go into this article with any particular player as the focus. However, I have to say I've come out of it the most impressed with Dede Westbrook. In his final season in college he had an 80-1524-17 line and won the Fred Biletnikoff award. Other recent recipients include: Corey Coleman, Amari Cooper, Brandin Cooks, Golden Tate, Michael Crabtree, and Calvin Johnson. Those guys are alright I guess.
The biggest knocks I have against Westbrook are that he will be turning 24 during his rookie season, and that he's small even compared to most small wide receivers. I don't see that as a "huge" problem, since guys like T.Y Hilton, John Brown, and Desean Jackson have seen plenty of success despite being smaller.
I wouldn't expect huge things out of Dede year one. If he sees the field he's likely to be the deep threat for the Jags, since he's the only one of their receivers who ran a sub 4.5 . With the 55 targets I mentioned earlier, I'd expect him to put up about a 32-512-3 line. That would give him a 58% catch percentage, and around 16 yards per catch. Seems like that should be plenty to convince the Jags he's a cheaper alternative to one of Hurns or Lee in 2018.
With an eye towards the future, I'm mad at myself for not writing this article before my rookie drafts finished. Currently Dede is going in the mid-late 4th in rookie drafts. If you're looking to acquire him it shouldn't take much. I'd try to acquire him before he becomes King Dedede and smashes everything in his path.
Until next time,
Rek
@RekedFantasy
*All stats courtesy of pro-football-reference.com, sports-reference.com, espn.com, and playerprofiler.com
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