Dynasty Mythbusters: Rueben Randle’s Disappointing Year

Jacob Feldman

randle

The 2014 fantasy football season is over for all but the lucky few who are playing in their championship leagues this weekend. If this isn’t your championship weekend, you need to make that change this offseason. Regardless, this is the time of year when it is time to change gears. It is important to look back at the past season as well as the past offseason.

Where were we right? Where were we wrong? What did we miss? These are just a few of the questions we need to be asking and answering.

For me, I find it extremely important to spend some time looking back at the players I thought were poised for a breakout, but who ended up falling flat this season. These are some of the most important players to look back on because there was obviously something we really liked about them last offseason. Were we completely wrong about them or was it simply a case of things not going the right way for the player? If it was the latter, they are likely to be one of my offseason targets because they can be purchased at a discount and could still have that breakout one year later. If it is the former, then I’m trying to sell them to a believer for whatever I can get.

One of the best examples of a potential breakout player in 2013 who fell flat and then came back in 2014 is Lamar Miller. Heading into 2013, Miller was being valued at or near the top ten running backs in the league. Then disaster struck his team and most notably his offensive line, making the year a lost year for pretty much everyone on the offense. Enough people were burned by him that his price crashed and I was able to buy him up in most of my leagues at a massive discount. While Miller hasn’t been elite, he has managed to be a top 15 running back in PPR leagues even while playing one of the toughest schedules in terms of run defenses and having his coaching staff make extremely questionable play calls and player packages. Considering the price it took this offseason, it was a great return on my investment.

There are a lot of players who need to be looked at from this last season. One player who stands out as player who should have broken out in 2014 but definitely didn’t is Rueben Randle. He was being viewed as a potential top 25 wide receiver for this season due to talent and situation, but he hasn’t even cracked the top 50 receivers in PPR leagues this year even though he has played in every game this season. Was he a swing and a miss or is he a player we should be buying this offseason?

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Rueben Randle, WR NYG
Stats through week 15: 59 receptions on 108 targets for 648 yards and two touchdowns.

As soon as the 2013 season ended and the Giants made it clear they weren’t going to resign Hakeem Nicks, the price for Randle shot through the roof. After all, Ben Mcadoo was supposed to rejuvenate Eli Manning and bring in a high powered passing offense. With Nicks out of the picture, that left Randle as the primary outside receiver with Victor Cruz operating out of the slot. Even after they drafted Odell Beckham Jr, Randle’s value persisted due in large part to the expectation of the Giants running a base set of three wide receivers.

The transition to the new offense didn’t go as well as any Giant fan had hoped and the entire offense started slow to put it mildly. Things eventually started getting better in week 3, which was the start of an uptick in Randle’s usage. From week 3 through week 11, Randle had at least 9 targets in every game. During that stretch he actually managed to post WR2/3 numbers every week. Since then he hasn’t topped 4 targets in any game and is merely an afterthought even with an injury depleted wide receiver group. Is he destined to be a part time player or will he regain fantasy consideration down the road?

What We Liked: There was a lot to like about Randle heading into the 2014 season. The former second round pick checks in around 6’2” and 210 pounds and turned 23 last offseason. He showed off some solid ability as his 2013 season saw him post nearly 15 yards per catch, a score on every seven receptions and roughly five yards after each and every catch. He had nice size and at his age there were a lot of reasons to expect his solid sophomore season to continue to trend up. His size and athletic ability are still there, so none of that has changed.

The other major reason people liked him last offseason was the system he was going to be playing under in 2014. Ben McAdoo, the new offensive coordinator, was coming over from the Packers’ offense. The general belief was he would install a pass heavy approach with lots of quick throws on short and intermediate routes with a lot of yards after the catch opportunities. They also wouldn’t shy away from passing in the red zone. With an apparent lack of a tight end, this seemed to mean solid opportunities for Randle both in the red zone and on intermediate routes with Cruz running underneath.

Warning Signs: While Randle’s 2013 season was pretty solid and provided lots of glimpses of what he might turn into, it wasn’t completely free of blemishes. Randle’s 41 receptions on 77 targets isn’t the best conversion rate. While part of that was likely Eli Manning’s fault given his general lack of accuracy at times, catching only 53% of your targets generally isn’t a promising statistic. When you add in a massive eight interceptions thrown when he was targeted, which accounts for over 10% of his targets, and five drops it looks even worse.

The other major warning sign was what he did with the ball in his hands. I mentioned he had a healthy yards after catch average, but if you look a little deeper, it wasn’t a result of his own doing. According to Pro-Football Focus, Randle only forced a total of five missed tackles in 2013. That’s only once every three games. Otherwise he went down when the first defender caught up. To put that into perspective, Golden Tate was credited with 21 missed tackles on 64 receptions.

2014 Season: As I mentioned earlier, the Giants started very slow as a team this year, but they picked things up week 3 against the Texans. From then through week 11 Randle never had fewer than 9 targets. He managed 44 catches during that stretch for 481 yards but only one score. Since then he’s really dropped off as Beckham has taken the leading role and ran with it. With Cruz likely to return next year, this pushes Randle to third on the pecking order at best. Mix in Larry Donnell’s emergence in the red zone which has limited Randle’s touchdown opportunities, and you get an upside which is fairly capped.

When comparing his 2014 stats to his 2013 stats, it is a bit of a mixed bag. While the drops have improved as has the missed tackle rate (he has 12 on the year to go with his 59 touches), his yards per catch has dropped as well as his yards after the catch. His catch rate has improved only slightly to 56.7%, which still makes him one of the lower starting wide receivers in the league. So he isn’t improving across the board like we would hope for from a future star.

The most troubling part of the 2014 season for me is it seems he isn’t interested in putting in the time to be a quality wide receiver. Reports have come out about his lack of effort, he never learned the scheme (or worse yet couldn’t understand the scheme) last year, he is struggling with learning how to run route in this year’s scheme, and he has been showing up late to meetings. He has been benched for the first quarter twice in the past few weeks, once for showing up late and once for an undisclosed reason. His lack of effort to improve has resulted in players like Kevin Ogletree and Preston Parker playing ahead of him at times. Clearly not the direction you want to see Randle going.

Final Verdict: Heading into the 2014 season I was one of Randle’s biggest supporters. He was one of my targets last season with the expectation that he would blow up in value last offseason and on the field this season. He ended up on my rosters in almost half of my leagues, so I want nothing more than to tell you to expect a big bounce back season in 2015. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can say that.

Randle has good but not great size and good but not great athleticism. He has also shown he is prone to lack of effort from time to time and might not be willing to work hard enough to be a big time player on an NFL team. He seems to be in the dog house in New York this year, and he is clearly behind Cruz and Beckham on the depth chart for next year. He is the third most talented receiver on his team but so far in his career seems to be unable to comprehend an NFL offense. This could potentially push him to the bench at times down the road if he can’t figure it out. Things aren’t looking great for a breakout in 2015. He seems poised to be much more of a compliment to Cruz and Beckham than a fantasy starter.

With all of that said, I’m not willing to give up on Randle completely. His rookie deal runs through the 2015 season, and I fully expect the Giants to let him hit the free agent market after what could be a disappointing 2015. I expect it to be a humbling experience for the young receiver and maybe the swift kick in the pants he needs to get his effort where it needs to be. On a different team he could be a very solid number two receiver on the right team and a player who could post 60-70 receptions for 800-1000 yards and 6-8 touchdowns across the field from a top receiver. This would put him in the WR3 range with WR2 upside down the road.

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jacob feldman