Don Julio
In general I strive to avoid what I consider to be the scourge of fantasy analysis – I’m talking about the dreaded “hot takes.” We’re all familiar with the term and its usage, as in this age of technological advancement many value having the strongest and most immediate opinion over having one that’s actually informed. This has led to events such as Kevin Ogletree becoming the top waiver pickup in 2012, Eddie Royal leading a similar charge last year and finally the vast majority of fantasy football Twitter wondering why Giants running back Andre Williams was merely playing in the 2014 Hall of Fame Game instead of being inducted?
With that said, after watching him knife through a theoretically stout New Orleans pass defense on Sunday to the tune of seven receptions (on nine targets) for 116 yards, I’m ready to join the masses with a take so scalding it could come directly from a volcano:
At this time next year, Atlanta receiver Julio Jones will be the most coveted asset in dynasty football.
Now don’t get me wrong, Jones is already considered a top dynasty asset and has gone in the first round of every mock draft I saw this past off-season. However, he’s fallen to the back of the pack of “Big Five” receivers (perhaps it will be six again if the Fantasy Gods allow Josh Gordon his deserved reprieve), and according to the August ADP data he was being selected as the seventh player overall. While this puts him in prime position to ascend to the top of the mountain, the metaphorical Sherpas in front of him are climbing just as fast, if not faster.
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The biggest reason for this, in my estimation, ultimately boils down to health. Jones has twice fractured the same foot, and in the astute medical opinion of our own Dynasty Doctor Scott Peak, this could lead to an increased likelihood of another subsequent break. This injury also cost him all but five games in what was beginning to look like a breakout 2013 campaign.
To that end, let’s consider Jones’ numbers from last season:
The aggregate of the above led to Jones leading all receivers in PPR scoring through the season’s initial quintet of games, and his pace of 22.2 PPR points per game would’ve ultimately been the third best figure amongst all the league’s pass catchers. Moreover, employing a true spread-the-wealth methodology, Jones was a “startable” asset every time he played, scoring at least 16.8 PPR points in all five weeks:
*Includes points from seven rushing yards as well
Jones twice finished as a PPR WR1, while functioning as a mid-level PPR WR2 on his “off weeks.” Perhaps more importantly, he did this while positional cohort and fellow star Roddy White slogged his way to an injury-marred weekly line of 2.8/25.8/0, lending little in the way of passing game support. All told Jones led his team in receiving in three of his five games, while accruing at least 99 receiving yards in four and at least six receptions every time he took the field.
Given that, it’s not surprising Jones played well above the scope of his offense, easily elevating his “market share.” To that end, my AIR metric (AIR = % of team’s PPR points / % of team’s targets) can be used to quantify this easily qualified statement:
Though his numbers were limited due to injury, Jones managed to score 10.5% of his team’s PPR points on just 9.1% of the targets. This resulted in an AIR value of 1.15, which would have finished tied for the fourth best value when I had previously studied 25 of the league’s best receivers. Amazingly enough, Jones managed to do this while missing one key ingredient to his game: touchdowns.
As can be discerned from the table above, prior to 2013 Jones could be counted on to accumulate 23.6% of his PPR points simply by scoring the ball. This total more than doubled what he was able to do last year, as a relatively paltry 10.8% of Jones’ points came from touchdowns. Given the stark contrast between these two figures, is it really fair to use the single 2013 data point in order to predict future worth?
I say no, and as always I have the metric to back it up! Recently I created an offshoot of the AIR metric, dubbed AIR+, which takes into account expected touchdown scoring as it relates to a pass catcher’s value to his offense. In other words, it allows us to create an educated guess as to exactly how much an aberrant season can effectively skew our viewpoint.
With Jones, the difference between the PPR points he had previously scored solely from touchdowns represented a 54.2% increase when compared to his 2013 figure. If we adjusted that total to align with his prior career numbers, his individual brilliance jumps even further off the screen:
Though normalizing Jones’ numbers only modestly bumps the 12 points he scored via touchdowns in 2013 (to 18.5), due to the small sample size this is enough to see his AIR+ value of 1.22 easily trump his AIR of 1.15. Amongst the 25 AIR+ values I had studied previously (linked above), this would have been the fourth highest total, slightly behind Calvin Johnson’s 1.24. In other words, while Jones dominated the field last year, he could’ve done even better.
To that point, when looking at the Falcons’ 2013 schedule it’s not terribly surprising Jones was not a frequent visitor to the end zone. Three of the five teams he squared off against were elite with regards to allowing passing touchdowns, and on the whole Atlanta’s opponents presented strong overall pass defenses. The summary of this can be seen in the table below:
On the aggregate Atlanta’s five foes were above average in both completions against and passing yards against, and amongst the top 30% in the league with regards to passing touchdowns against. That Jones sliced and diced each team is now even more telling of his skill level, and his lack of scoring is better contextualized. With a return to health, 2014 has the looks of a perfect storm for the young receiver.
Piling on, an off-season report suggested a “cutting edge medical procedure” was utilized to stabilize Jones’ troublesome foot. This procedure theoretically decreases the chance of re-injury, rendering the Falcons’ star wide-out no more a risk than the average player. As such, we may now finally be able to witness his sublime physical skills translate into a full season’s worth of unhindered statistical goodness.
And make no mistake, when healthy Jones is one of the games biggest mismatches. In fact, consider the following table, which stacks him up to the league’s best:
Now don’t get me wrong, there is and quite possibly might not ever be another Megatron. He can do everything Jones does, while checking in with an additional two inches of height and 19 pounds. He’s a once-in-a-generation physical talent.
But on the aggregate Jones is pretty darn close. According to MockDraftable he shares a 72.5% similarity score with Johnson, which just so happens to be the fourth-closest comparison to the Lions’ great – including all the Combine’s historical data. As the totality of the above serves to prove Jones uses this physicality nearly as well as Johnson, the sky is arguably the limit.
This brings me back to my original, scalding hot take. Yes, Jones needs to surpass some of the league’s top players in order to claim the title of dynasty’s #1 asset, but I think he can do it. He transcends his own team’s system, has one of the league’s best quarterbacks throwing him the ball, plays in a dome nine times a year and is more physically talented than everyone above him not named Calvin. And while I’ll never be confused for an ageist, it’s possible the 3.3-year age difference (Jones turned 25 in February) between he and Johnson might just be enough to vault him ahead of Detroit’s finest.
Even if that fails to come to fruition, I believe Jones’ value will steadily rise during the season. In the “out of sight, out of mind” world of fantasy football, it’s my opinion he simply fell behind the pack while shelved. But with the season starting anew, we’ll remember shortly just how immense his talent truly is – so pour yourself a drink and let’s all enjoy Don Julio’s show.
Follow me on Twitter @EDH_27
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