I tend to avoid rookie receivers. My sense is they don't usually live up to the hype. But is that fair? Here are the rookie wideouts who have been drafted in ESPN's ADP top 160 over the past five years and how they performed in their first NFL campaigns:
Three out of the past four have been bad, but in total, six of these 11 players actually outperformed their draft position (although the recent bad taste of Tavon Austin lingers). It seems it is actually possible to get good fantasy value out of first-year pass-catchers, even ones who bear the stench of hype.
What about this year's crop? Four rookie WRs were drafted in the ADP top 160: Sammy Watkins (100th), Mike Evans (130th), Brandin Cooks (136th) and Kelvin Benjamin (140th). Watkins (3 catches, 31 yards) and Evans (5 for 37) didn't do much in Week 1. Cooks (7 for 77, 1 TD) was terrific. But statistically, the best of the bunch was Benjamin: six grabs for 92 yards and a TD. And at the moment, he's the rookie I'm most interested in for fantasy.
Benjamin
Certainly, my interest is partly about opportunity. Whereas Cooks has to compete for targets with a deep and talented New Orleans Saints receiving corps, Benjamin already looks like a clear No. 1. The Carolina Panthers are trundling out Jerricho Cotchery and Jason Avant in two- and three-receiver sets. If he stays healthy and doesn't make too many mistakes, Benjamin is almost guaranteed the most WR snaps and targets on this team. That's pretty incredible, considering the consensus opinion of Benjamin at Florida State was that he was too raw to be an NFL wideout right away. He's obviously impressed Carolina's coaches, as they're willing to enter a Super Bowl-dreaming season with a rookie as their best (only?) outside threat.
I ranked Benjamin 21st in my WR ranks for Week 2, higher than any other rookie wideout and very high for a player who, as of this writing, was still available in 46 percent of ESPN leagues. Part of that rank is a disbelief in the Detroit Lions' secondary. But part is my acceptance of how heavily the Panthers are prepared to lean on Benjamin. To that end, let's look at how they used him in Week 1.
Benjamin played on eight of the Panthers' first nine offensive snaps. On each of those plays, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stationed a defensive back directly across from him, and bumped him at the line. Then the 10th play came, and they tried it again:
Benjamin's route here is a post, where he wants to get across cornerback Johnthan Banks' face and present himself running diagonally down the field. Banks -- a 2013 second-round pick who goes 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds -- is supposed to get his hands on Benjamin and mess up his timing. Some of the reason Banks was a high draft pick traces to his size and his ability to press receivers at the line. The Bucs assumed Benjamin wasn't going to "out-quick" Banks, so their plan was to get up on him and make it difficult for him to run his routes. Here's a close-up of how Benjamin felt about that:
Just who's doing the chucking here? Benjamin -- who goes 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds -- gets his arms on Banks first, and begins driving him backward like a blocking sled. Banks is off-balance and can't catch up, Benjamin's route is unimpeded, and he makes his first regular-season NFL catch, an 11-yard gain.
What happened next reveals something about Benjamin. The next time the Panthers got the ball, Tampa's coverage had changed for the first time: The DB across from Benjamin was seven yards off the line. It would be an overstatement to say the Bucs never pressed Benjamin again. They definitely did. But they were more judicious with it, because they'd seen how strong he is getting off the line.
Now, the first seven of Benjamin's Week 1 targets came on the exact same route: a post. That's not to say every single route he ran was a post, but when Derek Anderson (subbing for Cam Newton) actually threw it to him, Benjamin began running straight down the field, then broke inward diagonally toward the goalpost. Clearly, opposing defenses -- beginning with the Lions this week -- will be on the lookout for this route. A limited route tree could be something that hinders Benjamin as the season goes on.
But then came Benjamin's final target, on the first play of the fourth quarter. The Panthers were just outside the red zone, and Benjamin ran an indifferent, "Great Circle" fly pattern -- basically he just kind of meandered down the field around press coverage, not so much a route as a lazy sprint -- and Anderson threw the ball up into the end zone. It could easily have been picked, or at least defended. Instead, Mike Jenkins committed pass interference futilely trying box out the giant Benjamin, who caught the ball for a TD anyway. He was covered. He just used those long arms to reach around Jenkins and catch the pass against the DB's body. It was the kind of red zone work that, while not reflecting route-running proficiency, nevertheless gets fantasy owners drooling.
The takeaway here is yes, of course, Benjamin is raw. He doesn't do a great many things with finesse. But he's strong and he's big. He's a bloody handful. Given the workload the Panthers seem set to offer him, Benjamin should be considered a borderline fantasy starter -- albeit perhaps a feast-or-famine one -- most weeks in most leagues. And at the very least, he should be added in all leagues.