6 Bold Predictions About the 2015 Fantasy Football Season

Odell Beckham Won't End the Year as a WR1

By Joe Redemann

Everyone loves a breakout rookie star, and people do like to cite Odell Beckham, Jr.’s 2014 pace extrapolated to a full 16 games. At that rate, he’d have clocked 121 receptions for 1,740 yards and 16 touchdowns on just 176 targets.

But that’s a bit too simplistic for my tastes.

Beckham was given a per-game average of 11 targets with the likes of Victor Cruz injured for 10 games, Rueben Randle compiling an ineffective 55.9% catch rate, and Preston Parker not proving worth more than 56 targets last year. That won’t be the case in 2015, as Cruz is looking healthy and could easily see 100 targets, Randle is improving, and receiving back Shane Vereen has arrived to steal potentially 60 more targets in the air.

This seems very reasonable, as 2014 was the only year in the last five that saw fewer than four Giants players with at least a 10.0% target market share (Beckham had 20.7%). Add in the fact that last year Eli Manning dropped back 629 times –- 40 more than his average since 2010 –- and sheer volume should certainly see a slight step back for Beckham this year.

In addition, his stellar 70.0% catch rate and 9.1% touchdown rate are simply unsustainable at high volume. Even if we assume he remains around a 20.0% market share of Eli’s average 590 drop backs, but regresses slightly to a 66.7% catch rate, a 6.0% touchdown rate, and 14.0 yards per reception, Beckham would have a line of 79 receptions on 118 targets, for 1,106 yards and 7 touchdowns. Those 153 standard scoring points were good for just the WR16 placing in 2014.