Market Share Report: We Underestimated Matt Forte

Kelvin Benjamin Is Carolina's Clear-Cut Top Receiver

Kelvin Benjamin is old for his draft class. He's coming off of a torn ACL. He heavily benefited from garbage time during his productive rookie season. The Carolina Panthers have added assets in the passing game. These were all fair criticism of Benjamin's inflated price entering the year.

It just seems like he might actually be pretty freaking good.

Benjamin easily led all of the Panthers' receivers with 12 targets Thursday night against the Denver Broncos, accounting for 38.7% of the team's total. Greg Olsen was the only other player who saw more than five targets, and Devin Funchess was the second-highest receiver with four targets. Cam Newton has found his favorite option.

Even though the Panthers implemented a heavy rotation at wide receiver, Benjamin still held the clear upper hand. He played 71% of the team's snaps, easily eclipsing second-place Ted Ginn Jr. at 63%. To find the next wide receiver, you have to shoot down to Philly Brown at 53%, and Funchess was behind that at 52%.

The low snap count indicates that Benjamin's market share will decline in the coming weeks, and we would never expect him to stay that high over the course of an entire season, anyway. However, if the Panthers were to increase his snap rate, it could only further his upside. Those two factors in large part balance each other out to allow us to buy into Benjamin.

We can disregard any preseason notions on this receiver. Even though he's on a run-first offense, they were highly efficient last year, and he's inheriting the top role within it. You likely won't be able to buy him in season-long leagues, but this game will wildly change his value for DFS. It means he should be a high-floor, decent-ceiling option moving forward, and his price ($7,500 on FanDuel) may not fully reflect that just yet.