Flip or Stick? Amon-Ra St. Brown

Amon-Ra St. Brown

Shane Manila Posted On January 2, 2022

Welcome back to “Flip or Stick?”, the definitive article as it pertains to what you should do with players who have come out of nowhere to be valuable suddenly.

One of the hardest decisions in dynasty fantasy football is what to do with players who have exceeded the expectations we had for them. Should you flip these players and attempt to “cash out,” or do you ride the wave wherever it may take you and have them stick to your roster, knowing that their value and production could bottom out at any moment? I trade away most (I have evolved in my practices) players who hit unexpectedly, but that doesn’t mean that’s always the correct call.

One caveat to my “verdict” — you should still look to see what you can obtain in a trade for the player listed below. Even if I suggest a player should stick on your roster, no player should ever be off-limits if the price is right. One additional caveat — my thoughts are subjective. Yes, they will be stat-based, but they will still incorporate my own thoughts on what the stats and situations for these players mean.

Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR DET

If you chose St. Brown in last year’s rookie drafts you can chalk it up as a victory. After being the WR9 of the class with an overall ADP of 21.40, St. Brown’s 11.1 PPG is good enough for the WR5 in the class in points-per-game scoring. Overall, St. Brown is the WR34 in PPG, as a low-end WR3. It’s important to look at the full season numbers and not just the 22.4 points per game he averaged from weeks 13-16.

St. Brown presents an interesting case study. He had a good college profile, with an elite breakout age, above-average dominator rating and market share, but a well below yards-per-reception average and just an okay athletic profile.

He was also an early declare, coming out after his junior season, though not a particularly young early declare, as he turned 22 years old this past October, and his draft capital (fourth-round pick) was outside of the range you hope for wide receivers.

The contradictions don’t end with his college profile either. When looking at St. Brown’s rookie season stats, you can make them say anything you want to. While we can’t knock St. Brown for taking advantage of the situation, we would be foolish to ignore the fact that his best run of the season has coincided with D’Andre Swift missing all of those games, and T.J. Hockenson missing two of them. I don’t say this to denigrate St. Brown – we can look at a couple of wide receivers from the 2020 class who weren’t able to produce in similarly advantageous situations. Bryan Edwards and Jalen Reagor are examples that it takes more than just opportunity to produce.

That said, let’s take a look at the splits for St. Brown with and without Swift using the DLF Player Splits App.

Just the simple split without Swift should cause some concern if you’re counting on St. Brown for high-level production. His target share of 15.2% wouldn’t even be elite for a tight end, let alone a wide receiver.

Small sample sizes can mean anything though, right? Let’s zoom out and take a larger view of his season. Even with the absurd volume that St. Brown saw from weeks 13 through week 16 (46 targets), on the season his market share of 19.7% ranks just 30th in the league. His 6.5 targets per game barely out-paced Swift’s 6.4, and was fewer than Hockenson’s 6.9 targets per game. In the ten games that each of St. Brown, Hockenson, and Swift played together in 2021, St. Brown finished as the team’s leading target in just three of those games, two of those times actually tied with either Swift or Hockenson for the team lead. In those ten games, St. Brown garnered a 13% target share, well behind both Swift’s 19% share, and Hockenson’s 20% share.

You can’t assume health, but all things being equal, in this case Swift and Hockenson being on the field is to the detriment of St. Brown. If the Lions spend significant draft capital, or free agency money at the wide receiver position it’s plausible that St. Brown would be the fourth option on the offense. I can’t think of many (any?) fourth options on an offense that provide much fantasy upside. St. Brown is a good player, with WR3 upside but if I can find a deal to capitalize on his recent hot streak I would pounce on it.

Recent Trades

Shipping off St. Brown and Ronald Jones for a 2023 first would be enough to make me smile, and adding community favorite Donovan People-Jones is a nice kicker. You’ve insulated your risk by taking on another high upside lottery ticket in DPJ, and the 2023 first will be worth its weight in gold the closer we get to that class.

The below trade is another one I like a lot. Darnell Mooney has actually outscored St. Brown this year (11.7 vs. 11.1 PPG), and at worst should be valued in the same tier as St. Brown. Mooney is also on an offense that will likely add a piece or two in the off-season, but he doesn’t have the built-in competition of a Swift and Hockenson already on the roster as St. Brown does. The second and third-round rookie picks are more than enough to mitigate the risk that St. Brown ends up the better fantasy producer.

We’ve taken a look at two examples of trades, and why I believe they were good value in moving St. Brown, let’s take a look at one I don’t like.

Getting back a singular second-round rookie pick for St. Brown feels light to me based on his production. The hit rate on second-round rookie picks isn’t great, and if I am moving St. Brown I want a chance of increasing my odds of hitting. I’d want at least two seconds, or a second and a player.

As much chatter as St. Brown has been receiving on Twitter the last few weeks, his trade market has been fairly robust with a total of 21 trades involving from December 1st through December 30th. Reviewing the trades though reveals a disconnect on what the dynasty community thinks St. Brown is worth on the open market vs. what he’s actually worth. He seems to be a classic case of the community screaming “sell high” into the ether without anyone actually being able to do so. If you can pivot off of St. Brown for someone like JuJu Smith-Schuster or Darnell Mooney and get a pick in the process I am all for it, but if the return is a singular second-rounder I’ll hold in the hopes that St. Brown proves me wrong and is indeed a viable fantasy asset in the future.

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Shane Manila

Shane is Philly born and bred and if you've ever heard his unfortunate accent, you already know this. If he seems a bit defensive, forgive him, it's just a Philly thing. Nothing makes Shane happier than thinking about dynasty fantasy football, except for talking about it or maybe writing about it.