As we gear up to the start of the NFL season, Football Absurdity is going to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of every notable player that will be available in fantasy football drafts. We only look at the past three seasons for a player. This is because anyone who is looking at data from 2016 to figure out what to do in 2020 had better be someone searching Youtube for college tape of Jonathan Taylor and D’Andre Swift and wondering why they keep getting linked to music videos. AJ Brown had a top 15 fantasy season his rookie year, so what’s his ceiling for 2020?
AJ Brown ADP and AAV:
Standard: WR11, 29 overall
PPR: WR16, 42 overall
AJ Brown Average Auction Value: $18
AJ Brown Statistics:
| Year | 2019 |
| G | 16 |
| GS | 11 |
| Tgt | 84 |
| Rec | 52 |
| Yards | 1051 |
| TD | 8 |
| Tgt/G | 5.25 |
| Rec/G | 3.25 |
| Rec% | 61.9% |
| Yds/Tgt | 12.51 |
| Yds/Rec | 20.21 |
| Year | 2019 |
| Std Pts | 165.1 |
| HPPR Pts | 191.1 |
| PPR Pts | 217.1 |
| Pts/G | 10.3 |
| HPPR Pts/G | 11.9 |
| PPR Pts/G | 13.6 |
| Pts/Tgt | 1.97 |
| Pts/Tgt (HPPR) | 2.28 |
| Pts/Tgt (PPR) | 2.58 |
| Year | 2019 |
| Air Yards | 1107 |
| aDOT | 13.2 |
| YAC | 465 |
| YAC/Tgt | 5.54 |
| YAC/Rec | 8.94 |
| YAC% | 44.2% |
| AYMS | 29% |
| Tgt MS | 19% |
AJ Brown Overview:
Hey, sorry to pop in unannounced. I know you’re busy. It’s just that the Chief is a stickler about tying up all the loose ends, so I was hoping I could get you to just confirm a few points about the AJ Brown case.
Do you mind if I smoke this cigar? Thanks, the wife’s been riding me about smoking at home, so this is the only chance I get.
Let me just flip open my notebook. I wrote down here that you said Brown is going to have an exceptional second year, and should be looked at as a WR1 moving forward. Very insightful, very lucid. I just want to firm up a few details.
You mentioned that AJ Brown had over 1,000 yards last year, gelling with late-blooming breakout QB Ryan Tannehill, yes? Okay. I also wrote down that you cited Brown as being a top-ten WR over the last 10 weeks of 2019, correct? Okay, good.
As far as I can tell, everything checks out with your assertion that AJ Brown will definitely make a leap forward next year. I’ll just get this paperwork filed and get out of your hair, thanks for your time.
AJ Brown Draft Strategy:
AJ Brown Auction Value: $20
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming late June)
Oh, there’s just one more thing…
While I was here taking your statement, last time, I happened to notice you had the stat sheet for the top-thirty fantasy wide receivers in 2019. I saw something, maybe it’s nothing, but if I don’t get it cleared up the pencil pushers down at the station won’t let me hear the end of it.
I noticed that AJ Brown had the fewest targets of any player on that top 30 list. 29 other guys had 88 or more targets that year, yet AJ Brown had only 84. Now, for a guy like me, I’m just a comedy-writing shamus who doesn’t have your fancy statistics background, but to me that seems like Brown is due for a regression, not a leap into the top-twelve.
I got to thinking, certainly there couldn’t any other second-year wide receivers who had more targets that are going for less draft capital. Why else would this person be so into AJ Brown? But then I started doing the legwork: DK Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, DJ Chark, all of them second-year players who had more targets in 2019, all of them going a round or two later than Brown. I just thought it was odd to finger Brown as definitely being at the scene of the third-round when these others are way less likely to have a regression.
Best Case Scenario:
AJ Brown finishes as a back-end top-twelve wide receiver that you drafted among the top-twelve wide receivers. The world makes painfully boring sense.
Worst Case Scenario:
AJ Brown finishes 2020 where the average player who got ~84 targets did in 2019: A borderline WR3. The investigation is reopened, your books are subpoenaed. It comes to light that you’ve been taking kickbacks from the fantasy mafia to prop up their shares of Brown. You turn canary, become a target for hitmen, and have to spend the rest of your life in some boring suburban witness protection program, wistfully dreaming of what you could have become if you hadn’t picked Brown in the third round.
Eh, it’s probably nothing. I just thought it was weird, you know? Thanks for your time.
