It's easy to forget that back in 2014, the Jacksonville Jaguars took two wide receivers in the second round of the draft. One was Allen Robinson, who excelled in both fantasy and real football in 2015. The other -- going 22 picks before Robinson -- was Marqise Lee, and he finally started to show why this year.
Lee's Target NEP per target was nothing amazing at 0.23. But he's also the reason a study like this exists; we need to separate him from a quarterback who struggled as much as Blake Bortles did by instead comparing him to his teammates, Robinson and Allen Hurns.
When we do that, Lee comes out smelling like roses.
| Wide Receiver | Targets | Target NEP | Target NEP per Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allen Robinson | 150 | -4.69 | -0.03 |
| Marqise Lee | 105 | 23.71 | 0.23 |
| Allen Hurns | 76 | -7.32 | -0.10 |
Not great, Bob!
Just in case this was not abundantly clear, negative marks are bad here. Bortles lost 12.01 Passing NEP when targeting one of the Allens. He gained 23.71 when targeting Lee. That's a simply grotesque split.
This doesn't mean Lee has a ceiling anywhere near as huge as Robinson's if Robinson were to right the ship next year, but it does mean Lee deserves a role in this offense. And given how often the Jaguars have to pass, that means he's going to have fantasy viability.
Lee finished the year with nine red-zone targets, just 12.33% of the team's targets in close -- well behind Robinson's 19 and Hurns' 13. That and the Jaguars' inability to generate scoring drives hurts Lee's outlook for next year. But it seems as if he would be the superior target to Hurns going forward, and we should be taking fliers on him based on what he did in 2016.