Fantasy Football: One Wide Receiver to Target in Each Round of Your Draft
Round 8: Cameron Meredith, Chicago Bears
Average Draft Position: 8.12 (WR41)
Cameron Meredith's ADP makes very little sense. Here's a guy who was a beast last year once he got full-time snaps, and he's going into the season as his team's clear top wideout.
Similar to Garcon, Meredith's squad may stink offensively in 2017, but there's still a lot of value here.
Let's run through Meredith's game log, starting in Week 5 of last season, which was the first game after Kevin White suffered a season-ending injury, clearing the way for Meredith to play significant snaps.
| Week | Targets | Catches | Yards | Touchdowns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 12 | 9 | 130 | 1 |
| 6 | 15 | 11 | 113 | 0 |
| 7 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| 8 | 2 | 1 | 24 | 0 |
| 10 | 2 | 1 | 50 | 1 |
| 11 | 4 | 4 | 49 | 0 |
| 12 | 9 | 2 | 19 | 0 |
| 13 | 4 | 3 | 67 | 0 |
| 14 | 8 | 6 | 72 | 1 |
| 15 | 13 | 9 | 104 | 0 |
| 16 | 12 | 9 | 135 | 1 |
Meredith didn't see consistent week-to-week volume, but in the six games in which he was targeted at least 5 times, he averaged 7.7 grabs, 95.5 yards and 0.5 touchdowns. He posted a whopping five standard-league WR1 (top-12) weeks in those six games. Among all receivers, only T.Y. Hilton, Mike Evans, Antonio Brown, Jordy Nelson, Odell Beckham and Julio Jones had more WR1 weeks in 2016, and Meredith did that in an 11-week stretch.
Meredith is a breakout candidate who has secretly already broken out, and if he's able to secure a more consistent target load, he could be a smashing value at the back end of the eighth round.
