2006 Draft Strategy
Moving from #2 to #1 WR: Lee Evans, BUF
June 11, 2006
Note: The following article is just a single
example of the level of detail the Docs pour into their fantasy football
player rankings and projections. At the end of the day, it is about
probability, calculated risk, and knowing the numbers behind the numbers.
The Docs player rankings and projections will empower you with the information you
need to dominate your fantasy football draft in 2006.
Our rankings are included in the FootballDocs Total Draft Package).
Lee Evans is an interesting player coming into the 2006 season. He
will be moving from the #2 WR position to the #1 WR position. This transition
can be filled with fantasy success (Santana Moss) or fantasy peril (Peerless
Price). Eric Moulds has been the #1 WR in Buffalo for several years
now, but he has moved to Houston for the upcoming season. Because Moulds
was the #1 target for the Bills, he would typically draw any double coverage
that was called by opposing defenses. Now that Evans will assume the
role of the #1 WR, will he be able to beat that double coverage and have
success? … or will he falter like Moulds’ most high profile understudy, Price?
The thing to see here is that there is a subtle difference between Price
and Evans.
Price actually changed teams and went to a
quarterback (Michael Vick) that still hasn’t put together too many top tier
passing performances. Evans will be staying with the same team, and
his team should be able to more or less repeat its total passing stats from 2005.
We don’t see any reason the Bills shouldn’t be able to match their 27th place
rank in completions and passing yards. Their offensive line looks to improve with the additions of Center Melvin Fowler from Minnesota and Left Guard Tutan Reyes from Carolina.
In addition, many of the key offensive players from 2005 will be suiting up again in
2006 (with the obvious exception to Moulds). For the record, let it be known that the Docs will gladly stand
up and state that J.P. Losman is not the answer in Buffalo. When your
quarterback looks and acts more like a surfer than a quarterback, you are
going to have issues. If you have ever watched an interview with Losman,
you know what we mean. Just take a look at a head shot of the good
QBs in the league and then look at a head shot of Losman. (Carson Palmer
= QB, Losman = WHOOOAA DUDE). This said, the team does have some serviceable
options on the current roster, and we suspect they will play at various points
during the season. Buffalo might even be able to slightly improve their
stats from 2005 (thanks mostly to the team starting to realize that Losman
is not the solution).
There have been several recent examples of #2
WRs going to the #1 WR position on the same team and having success.
Please refer to the table below:
Player
% of Team Total Receptions in Year Prior to #1 WR
% of Team Total Receptions in Year as the #1 WR
% Change
Steve Smith
21.18
32.59
11.42
Donald Driver
4.14
19.39
15.25
Javon Walker
13.23
23.30
10.07
Santana Moss
9.12
23.72
14.60
Terrell Owens
9.78
21.58
11.81
Laveranues Coles
6.25
21.69
15.44
Lee Evans
17.84
TBD
TBD
AVG: 13.10%
You will note that in this small sampling
the players who were already taking a significant portion of the team’s receptions
(>13%) typically increased their % team receptions by a smaller percentage.
It is also interesting to note that Brian Finneran (stats not shown here)
also followed this trend last year when Price was sent packing prior to the
start of the 2005 season. A final comment
Lee Evans is a “third year wide receiver” this year. For more information
as to why this is an important consideration, please refer to this timeless
classic article.
Now we will make our prediction for Evans in 2006:
We are going to base our increase in receptions
for Evans on a more conservative number than the 13.10% average. First,
we would like to take into consideration new Bills head coach, Dick Jauron.
Jauron is a well documented defensive minded coach. He was defensive
coordinator in Jacksonville from 1995 – 1998, Chicago Bears Head Coach from
1999 – 2003, and Defensive Coordinator in Detroit from 2004 – 2005.
However, some of the players on the list above have played for some defensive
minded coaches as well, and Lee Evans does present opportunity as a third-year
wide receiver breakout candidate. To be conservative, we will use 9%
as Evans percent increase in percent of team’s total completions rather than
the 13.10% average. This can be justified when considering Evans larger role in the
offense prior to becoming the team #1 WR (ref: Steve Smith and Javon Walker above). Using this 9% increase indicates Evans will catch 26.84% of the
Bills’ total completions in 2006. The Bills have had 269 competitions
in 2005 and 262 competitions in 2004. Those 269 completions in 2005
ranked as the 27th best in the NFL (out of 32 teams). Again, we will
be conservative and assume that the Bills will complete the same number of
passes that they did in 2006 as they did in 2005. That leaves us with
approximately 72 receptions for 2006 (26.84% of 269). One interesting
note about the WRs used in this study is that most of them had a decline
in their yards per reception in their 3rd year as an NFL receiver.
We are going to be conservative again and assume that Evans’ yards per reception
will drop from 15.5 in 2005 to 15.0 in 2006. Fifteen times 72 equals
1080 yards. Evans has accounted for an average of 40.87% of the Bills
total passing TDs in his two year NFL career. This number is very high
compared with the players we examined in this study. We feel like 36%
of the total passing TDs is much more reasonable. The Bills have scored
18 and 21 passing TDs in 2005 and 2004 respectively, so we are going to assume
that the Bills will score 20 passing TDs in 2006. Thirty-six percent
of 20 is roughly 7 TDs. So our final, 2006 projection for Lee Evans is as follows:
72 Rec 1080 yards and 7 TDs.
Those numbers would make Evans the #15 best WR based on last year final stats
and using a standard performance fantasy football scoring system. This
makes Evans a solid #2 WR selection with #1 WR breakout potential.
Evans does represent a certain amount of risk; however, the risk can pay
off if you get him at the right price in your draft. At the end of
the day, you want to target a collection of players in your draft that have
an increased probability of a good outcome for 2006. Evans is one of
those players. The above numbers will make Evans appear on your fantasy
football radar a little in front of where most folks will grab him based
on current average draft position of mock drafts (as of 6/11/06). This translates into grabbing Evans as late
as possible in your fantasy football draft without running the risk of someone
else scooping him up from underneath you. If it happens, it was
just too early of a price to gamble on Evans. Again, it is all about
probability and calculated risk. Good luck in your 2006 draft and happy
hunting!
