Wide Receiver Score For Week 1 In Fantasy Football: Ladd McConkey Is A Catch
Zain Dhanani employs Receiver Score to reveal two players to target and one recommended sit in fantasy football for Week 1.
Week 1 is here and if you paid attention to my Receiver Score articles from before the season, you’ll know the power of this spotted players like Parker Washington before he was popular last season.
I’m going to use the model weekly to give you matchup upgrades and borderline rosterable players to stream or potentially keep on your roster long term. The other benefit of Receiver Score is knowing who to potentially bench, so I’ll also share my dislikes from the model.
Once we have more data on roles and defenses with all the coordinator changes, this will be even more beefed up.
Just to give you guys as much confidence as possible, the model is incorporated into my fantasy football rankings.
Receiver Score Targets for Week 1
Ladd McConkey | WR | LAC vs. Arizona
Ladd McConkey gets a significant change upgrade in offensive coordinator, who we’ve heard may use him similar to how the Dolphins used Tyreek Hill, and I like betting on that to show up for him immediately against the Cardinals. His per-route Receiver Score was still really good last season, so the talent on routes that create fantasy points weren’t completely missing. He was much better at the beginning of the season when injuries weren’t holding him back as much.
The change I’m most interested in is how Mike McDaniel uses motion to help McConkey get into his routes. McConkey faced press on 59% of his routes last season, but McDaniel should have him in motion quite a bit to get him free releases. McDaniel’s Miami offenses had receivers moving at the snap on 15% of routes compared with 9% under former OC Greg Roman, so that bodes well for McConkey. I am also expecting more play-action, which gives McConkey the ability to create big plays on in-breaking routes where YAC opportunities exist behind the linebackers and in front of the secondary.
When the Chargers use receivers in the slot, I expect it to primarily be McConkey, which is a favorable matchup against this Cardinals defense. The Cardinals pressed slot receivers on 44% of their routes last season compared with 52% across the league, giving him a better chance to release into his route without contact even when he isn’t moving before the snap.
The model likes the combination of scheme, point total expected for the Chargers, and the defensive matchups McConkey should see. I’m starting him as a high-end WR2 this week, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he finishes in the WR1 category.
Tre Tucker | WR | LV vs. Miami
We saw the beginnings of what looked like a new role for Tre Tucker in the preseason, and now we get a solid matchup against a secondary the Receiver Score model thinks is one to attack. With Brock Bowers also out, there’s a higher probability of Tucker playing a stronger focal point in the pass offense with his expanded route tree that he showed in a small sample.
Roughly 33% of his routes came from the slot in the preseason, compared with 17% last season. Moving him inside gives him room to break in either direction, and the Raiders also replaced some of his vertical routes with out-breakers and quicker throws. Anyone who’s listened to me this offseason knows getting shorter routes is very helpful for fantasy and the model agrees.
My simulation projects him for about 7 targets against Miami, the most among Raiders WRs. The model also likes that the Raiders will likely play a lot of two-WR sets, which improves Tucker’s implied target probability given that a WR is more likely to earn a target than an extra TE.
Tucker is firmly in the WR3/flex conversation for me this week, and is someone I am keeping on my radar as a long-term add rather than matchup-specific. That’s part of the benefit of the Receiver Score model—it tells me who could have long-term sustainability.
Receiver Score Downgrade for Week 1
Terry McLaurin | WR | WAS at Philadelphia
Terry McLaurin is someone I’m lowering expectations for this week because of the matchup and the competition for targets with Stefon Diggs now in Washington. His per-route Receiver Score was still above average at the 73rd percentile last season, but Diggs graded in the 89th percentile, so I don’t want to assume McLaurin is going to be the clear alpha in this offense. If you listened to me this offseason, my hot take, partly because of Receiver Score, was that Diggs performs better than McLaurin this season.
My simulation projects McLaurin for 6 targets against Philadelphia and has him at WR34, slightly behind Diggs in both targets and ranking. McLaurin earned a target on 23% of his routes last season, so there is still plenty to like about his ability to command the ball when he’s playing. But the model expects both receivers to have full-time roles, which makes this more of a shared passing game than one where McLaurin gets whatever volume the offense needs to produce.
The matchup is rough too—McLaurin will operate outside a bunch because the Commanders want to feature two-TE sets more heavily (also that’s been his typical role in the past), which means he’s likely to see All-Pro Quinyon Mitchell a lot.
He’s also the team’s primary vertical threat, especially in two-WR looks, because Diggs is primarily a short-to-intermediate threat at this point in his career. Vic Fangio loves to play two safeties deep, so those vertical routes are unlikely to be fruitful. The protection is also going to be suspect for Jayden Daniels, which should speed up his time-to-throw allowing less time for routes to develop down the field.
Overall, the model was down on McLaurin in general, so if you followed along with me this offseason you probably don’t have him, but if you do—I would not play him this week.
Players Mentioned in this Article
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