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Did Houston do the right thing trading for Brandin Cooks? Targeting Nick Chubb, Josh Jacobs, and Miles Sanders in dynasty.

Why Robust RB is the optimal dynasty start-up strategy. Which wide receivers would be hurt by Henry Ruggs and who would be helped?

Insert Anthony McFarland and his 4.44 (92nd-percentile among qualified running backs) 40-Yard Dash and 107.0 (85th-percentile) Speed Score, and now Pittsburgh goes from driving a Toyota Prius to a Tesla. During his 2018 breakout, McFarland rushed for over 1,000 yards while averaging 7.9 yards per carry. In prime position to be James Conner’s top backup, McFarland is an easy choice any time in the second half of the second round of rookie drafts.

Seventh-round pick Eno Benjamin is parked on the Arizona depth chart behind the franchise tagged Kenyan Drake and sneaky best ball pick Chase Edmonds. Still, Arizona is a cushy landing spot that provided Drake with a 91.5 (No. 4) Run Blocking Efficiency rating last season. Benjamin fits the profile of an overlooked and undersized all-purpose back, and is a perfect stash at the end of all dynasty rosters.

After a historic season which saw Joe Burrow win the Heisman Trophy after throwing 60 touchdowns and posting a 94.9 (99th-percentile among qualified quarterbacks) QBR, this was truly the only viable selection for the Bengals with the No. 1 pick. The only question marks surrounding him are his advanced age and his underwhelming production prior to 2019. Regardless, he will supplant Andy Dalton as the starting quarterback for the Bengals.

There isn’t a box that CeeDee Lamb doesn’t check. He consistently wins up and down the field, is elite after the catch due to his tackle-breaking prowess, and owns a 19.4 (81st-percentile) Breakout Age. Despite his readiness to contribute immediately, it’s tough to project Lamb having significant involvement in the passing game right away given Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup’s strong footprints in the target totem pole.

Outlining the betrayal of Deshaun Watson. Allen Robinson has a long history of propping up coaches and quarterbacks.

Brandin Cooks and Will Fuller can thrive in the same offense. Duke Johnson deserves more touches.

Josh Jacobs is the anti-Aaron Jones and continues to surge up the PlayerProfiler Dynasty Rankings. D.J. Chark is a prototypical alpha wide receiver.

Why Christian Kirk is an excellent value in dynasty leagues. DeAndre Washington is suddenly relevant on Kansas City.

Dynamism is a trait that we at PlayerProfiler and Breakout Finder place a heavy premium on when evaluating college prospects. No one in the 2020 NFL Draft embodies this trait more than Lynn Bowden. His Best Comparable Player being Deebo Samuel makes sense on many levels. Both can be used in a variety of ways and, given the way the league is trending, fit the prototype of the modern-day alpha receiver.

If there’s ever a year where we shouldn’t be surprised to see a player like Bowden sneak into the back half of Day 2, it’s a year where the wide receiver class is this deep and the draft itself projects to be the most unpredictable of all time. He’s the perfect upside flyer in the third round of rookie drafts and the No. 12 receiver in our rookie rankings. Though his upside is high enough that it’s hard to find fault with taking him in the second.

Collin Johnson took three years to break out at Texas, recording a 21.0 (45th-percentile among qualified wide receivers) Breakout Age. He didn’t command a particularly heavy market share until his junior season and had a pedestrian 14.6 (48th-percentile) College YPR. Without athletic testing at the Combine or a pro day to provide his full athletic profile, the positives surrounding him are limited.

From a stylistic perspective, Johnson doesn’t necessarily offer everything one would expect from a receiver of his size. He’s strong at the catch point, but not great beating press. He takes long strides, but doesn’t have the acceleration or deep speed to threaten cornerbacks. Johnson’s elite-level contested catch ability is bookended by his inability to create consistent separation. Major concerns exist for a prospect that profiles as an X receiver at the NFL level but will likely never be given the opportunity to be one.

There hasn’t been a more consistently dominant NFL wide receiver in recent memory than DeAndre Hopkins. He hasn’t caught fewer than 76 balls in a season since 2014, and has averaged over 100 receptions per season over the last five years. Most importantly, he’s finally escaping one of the signature donkey coaches in the NFL after his trade to the Arizona Cardinals. With all that said, he’s still not a top receiver in fantasy football dynasty leagues.

While Hopkins is moving to a better overall offense, he has made his career on volume up until this point. As far as target competition goes, he couldn’t have landed in a worse spot. As if established options like Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk and Kenyan Drake weren’t enough, Kyler Murray has also been pounding the table for the team to pick his former college teammate CeeDee Lamb in the first round of the NFL Draft.

It’s hard to overstate what Cam Akers was able to accomplish behind one of the nation’s worst offensive lines. His 0.57 yards blocked per attempt is the worst in the five-year history of Graham Barfield’s Yards Created metric. Despite not being a special teamer at the college level, being a dual-threat quarterback in high school shows that he has the type of on-field dynamism that can’t be taught.

Players like Gabriel Davis who declare early after improving each year in college are players I like to bet on. His Catch Rate may have dropped in his final year at UCF, but he nearly doubled his career totals in receptions, yards and touchdowns. His 115 Big Board Index ranking suggests he’s a fourth-round pick, but he made some appearances in Rounds 2 and 3 of some of our source mocks. Davis sneaking into Day 2 would force us to reshape the middle tiers of our wide receiver rankings. 

Darnell Mooney’s college production earned him a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine, where he impressed. He checked in at just 5-10, 176-pounds, but he ran a 4.38 (96th-percentile among qualified wide receivers) 40-yard dash. While the slight frame only gives him a 91.7 (42nd-percentile) Speed Score, the raw speed itself remains a coveted asset in the NFL. More importantly, this athleticism matched up with Mooney’s production profile.

In sum, Mooney looks like an undersized, deep threat at the NFL level. While his profile leads to a few intriguing player comparisons, draft capital remains his largest obstacle. Most peg him as a Day 3 pick. However, NFL teams chase speed and covet vertical elements in their offense. Even with an early Day 3 investment from a team, he would become a major sleeper in fantasy football.