Lost in the Woods: An Undervalued Receiver’s Tale
If a business wants to sell more of a particular product, what do they do? Discount it. Knock a couple of bucks off and pump new receipt paper in all the registers because the masses are coming. Example? Black Friday.
The point is, everyone loves a bargain. In fantasy football, talk to anyone who had Lamar Jackson on their roster for 2019, or James Conner in 2018. Do you know what they’ll tell you? How late they picked them. The fantasy community loves a good bargain just like everyone else. However, sometimes a player falls through the cracks of value versus production. Robert Woods has become one of those players.
Robert Woods, WR LAR
Let’s just settle this right now; wherever you are seeing Woods ranked, it is most likely too low. Dynasty, almost criminally too low. Redraft, too low. Bestball, c’mon man… too low. It is easy to type that and easy to believe that it is true but where it gets difficult is while drafting and knowing when to pull the trigger.
In this article, we are going to assess why Woods is being disrespected by the draft community. Then we will explore why he is going to exceed production expectations this season.
The ADP Drop
Since joining the Rams, Woods has reached over 1,000 receiving yards in two of three seasons. His only season in Los Angeles where he didn’t eclipse that benchmark was 2017, when he finished with 781 receiving yards and six touchdowns in only 12 games. That puts his pace at 1,041 yards for the season. Despite that consistency, his ADP has fluctuated.
This graph depicts his ADP compared to fellow teammate Cooper Kupp and quick-climbing DJ Chark. Of the three, Woods has the lowest positional ADP for the upcoming season.
Why?
The general consensus seems to be based on 2019’s lack of touchdowns. Yes, it’s true, Woods only finished with two receiving touchdowns last season. Despite the head-scratching low total (more on this later), he still finished as the WR14 in PPR scoring.
His 139 targets ranked eighth among wide receivers, despite him missing some time with injury. His 1,134 receiving yards ranked 14th at the position. Averaging 12.6 yards per reception, he finished better than Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, and Allen Robinson.
At the time of this writing, Woods’ ADP is WR25 for dynasty formats per our rankings here at DLF.
For redraft PPR ADP, he is currently WR18 per fantasy football calculator. For bestball formats, he is WR19 according to FantasyPros consensus rankings.
That is too low, across the board.
Age Versus Value
Let’s start with an obvious reason for ADP decline, at least in dynasty format; age. Woods is 28 years old and entering his eighth pro season. Age is a factor that should not be ignored in dynasty formats. Being on the right side of 30 and operating in his prime, it remains low for the impact Woods can make in this offense.
Since the year 2000, there have been 61 receivers who have eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards in a season between the 28-30 age range.
Woods has yet to show that he is slowing down, in fact, he has enjoyed his most consistent production as a Ram.
Lack of Touchdowns
Woods had 139 targets and only two touchdowns during the 2019 season. His 1.43% touchdown rate has its own place in the annals of NFL history. So rare, in fact, that he is one of only eight receivers to finish with 130 or more targets and two or less receiving touchdowns in that span. This, ladies and gentlemen, represents an unrepeatable statistic.
Touchdowns are not the stickiest of statistics to track, but it is unlikely that Woods can see that kind of opportunity and fail to find paydirt a few more times heading into this coming season.
Despite quarterback Jared Goff finishing with a career-high in pass attempts (626), he also finished with his lowest passing touchdown total (22) since his 2016 rookie season. That trickle-down just happened to affect Woods more than the other pass-catchers.
Courtesy of Pro Football Reference.
In his first two seasons with the Rams, Woods averaged a 5.25% touchdown rate. Positive regression is coming.
Assessing Opportunity
Now that the pesky low touchdown total is out of the way, let’s dig a little deeper, statistically speaking.
Woods finished last season ten spots behind fellow Ram, Cooper Kupp. Heading into the 2020 draft season, Woods can be acquired eight receivers later than Kupp.
On a per-game basis, Woods was having a very good 2019 season. Obviously, to simply look at the chart above, the points per opportunity is .38 lower than his 2017 campaign. But, something that should be mentioned here is that he had five receiving touchdowns in 2017, and six in 2018.
Ladies and gentlemen, he scored .33 points less per opportunity than 2018 despite the four missing touchdowns! The point here is that Woods is less reliant on touchdowns to maintain consistent fantasy scoring.
From week ten through the end of the season, Woods averaged 19.2 points per game, fourth among receivers on a per-game basis. That is higher than AJ Brown through the same stretch, despite Woods missing a game.
Notice that again, despite the lack of scoring, Woods maintained an exceptional consistency rating. Note the floor-to-ceiling comparisons alongside his highest-scoring 2018 season. In 2019 he had the same amount of top-three finishes and one more top-12 week than the 2018 season.
Over the last two seasons, only Michael Thomas has more yards after the catch than Robert Woods.
Most yards after catch in last two seasons (WRs)
1. Michael Thomas – 1,091
2. Robert Woods – 1,008
3. Juju Smith-Schuster – 901
4. Davante Adams – 869 pic.twitter.com/IYBhQ3QBYE— PFF Fantasy Football (@PFF_Fantasy) May 20, 2020
Conclusion
Cooks moving on leaves between 95-115 targets up for grabs. This is important due to a slight shift we saw in play-calling last season. The Rams ran more plays in 12 personnel last season. In fact, that percentage jumped up considerably after their bye. This puts Woods as the primary outside receiving option while sending the slot receiver to the bench.
We can fully expect more of Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett if the Sean McVay continues to utilize 12 personnel. However, Woods excelled in those packages during the last half of the 2019 season as his points-per-game average illustrates.
There is also a small facet that we have yet to touch on, rushing upside. Over that last two seasons, Woods has averaged 136 rushing yards and one score on the ground.
Robert Woods continues to be consistently undervalued despite offering consistent production over the cost of acquisition. The point is, we know his floor is high, and 2020 may be the best opportunity to cash in on his potential ceiling.
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