Bargain Shopping: Willie Snead

A player’s dynasty value can swing dramatically in one off-season without anything directly happening to said player. The NFL draft, an injury to a teammate who plays his position or a coaching change can all impact how we view a player.

Willie Snead’s off-season is a perfect example of this.

Last November, I penned a piece on four players to sell this off-season, picking one at each of the four main offensive positions. For receiver, Snead was my choice. My reasoning at the time was the emergence of Michael Thomas had caused Snead to slip down the depth chart, and with the great Drew Brees nearing the end of his career, it may be a good time to sell Snead — who had an average draft position (ADP) of 56th overall at the time — before the young wide receiver’s production tapered off.

Well, a lot has changed since then as Snead is now firmly entrenched as the New Orleans Saints’ second wideout after the team shipped Brandin Cooks to the New England Patriots in a blockbuster move earlier this off-season.

A good wideout who is second receiver on an offense quarterbacked by Brees — even an aging Brees — is a player we want. The fact Snead is still fairly young, entering his third year after two pretty good seasons, is just a cherry on top.

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A Steady Producer

An undrafted free agent in 2014, Snead has been a viable fantasy option in each of the past two seasons.

In 2015, his first year with the Saints, he posted 69 grabs for 984 yards and three scores, finishing as WR34 that year in points-per-reception (PPR) formats. He followed up his debut campaign with a similar effort, finishing 2016 with 72 receptions for 895 yards and four scores — good enough for a WR32 finish in PPR leagues.

Admittedly, the ceiling here isn’t through the roof — and Brees’ propensity for spreading the ball around may not change Snead’s output too much even sans Cooks — but this kind of consistent volume and WR3-type production is very valuable.

One Less Cooks in the Kitchen

While Brees is notorious for getting everyone involved in the passing game, Snead sure seems like a big winner in the Cooks deal.

The absence of Cooks leaves a bunch of targets up for grabs. Over the past two seasons, Cooks has seen 117 and 129 targets, respectively. How those targets are divvied up with Cooks gone is anyone’s guess, but ostensibly, Snead should see a few more passes thrown his way.

Considering Snead has logged catch rates of 68.3 percent (2015) and 69.2 percent (2016) so far in his career, we should feel pretty good about his ability to turn any extra volume into useable production.

Trying to project a player’s line this far away from the season is a difficult task, but Snead looks like a safe bet for his first 1,000-yard campaign in 2017, barring any more impactful off-season moves from New Orleans. Only two 1,000-yard receivers — Kenny Britt, a buy-low candidate himself who was on a terrible offense, and the high-variance DeSean Jackson — finished outside the top 23 fantasy wideouts in 2016.

Even if Snead doesn’t increase his production at all and puts up very similar numbers to what he’s done the past two years, he’s still being undervalued at his current cost.

What’s the Cost?

Snead’s value makes very little sense, in my eyes at least.

As I said earlier, at the time I wrote the article in November, Snead’s ADP, per our numbers, was the 56th overall player and 36th wideout. Now, he’s 76th overall player and 44th receiver, and this is with 100-plus targets suddenly being unaccounted for down on the Bayou between now and then.

Look, I guess I can wrap my mind around it a little, because Snead is boring. He still hasn’t shaken the undrafted label, he’s playing with a very old quarterback, we already said his upside is limited and we’re all drooling over the incoming rookies.

On the flip side, who cares when he was drafted, Brees is still an elite passer, there’s a lot to be said for reliable production and this 2017 rookie wideout class isn’t very good. So I guess I can’t wrap my mind around it.

Maybe I am too risk-averse, but at some point, don’t high-upside receivers like Donte Moncrief, DeVante Parker and Martavis Bryant — all of whom are being taken ahead of Snead — have to, you know, like, have a good year to justify their current value?

There are 20 wideouts between Moncrief and Snead, according to our ADP. Moncrief has age going for him — he’s still 23, going into his age-24 season — but over the past two years, Snead has 141 catches and 62.63 yards per game while Moncrief has 94 grabs for 41.48 yards per contest. Maybe it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison here, but they can’t be that far apart in ADP — right? You can pray for WR1 production two years from now or go with a similarly-aged player who can produce solid — albeit unspectacular — numbers right now.

In Conclusion

If Snead had a cleaner college-to-NFL transition, I think he’d be a consensus top-20 wideout. If he was a third-round pick by the Saints instead of a undrafted player who was cut by the Cleveland Browns, I don’t think there’s any way he’d be valued where he is.

Two years into his career, Snead has proven he’s a good receiver who slipped through the cracks during the draft process. Has pairing with Brees helped? Definitely. But Snead is going to be with the Hall-of-Fame quarterback for a little longer, he’s a consistent producer and there are a whole mess of targets free in the Saints’ high-octane passing attack.

Plus, who’s to say the 24-year-old Snead doesn’t keep improving and maybe turn into more of a high-upside player. The great thing about it is even if Snead only keeps doing what he’s already done, he is still an undervalued asset.

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