This is an interesting topic. I've never owned ARob in a dynasty league before but have been sending out feelers for him for the first time this offseason. I've done so for the following reasons:
- Perceived value is way down. For example, people say things like "one good year out of five" ignoring some critical aspects:
1) He was a very young rookie, at age 21.0 when the season started. Guys like Deebo and Calvin Ridley will be/were almost 24 when they started their rookie seasons and most rookie WRs are somewhere around 22.
- 2) His points per target in his 2nd season were actually elite even when not in garbage time. I found this out by accident when looking into garbage time PPT a couple years ago.
- 3) The QB play was terrible in his 3rd season. Similar to Hopkins with Osweiller. Their stat lines: 150-73-883-6 vs 151-78-954-4
- 4) He missed 15 games in his 4th season - so at a minimum, we should say one good year out of four.
- 5) He was hampered by a groin injury for much of the year and missed three games outright. Was on pace for 116 targets - 68/954/5 while playing through injury.
[*]Trubisky wasn't good last year and probably never will be, but he also wasn't terrible. Between Nagy's scheme and Trubisky's arm, I'm willing to say "targets are targets" in this case and I expect a healthy Robinson to get at least 120. Even given his injured state last year, that should be good enough for 1000 yards.
[*]Chicago just invested in a grinder at RB, so maybe they don't intend to throw more, but they ranked 25th in pass attempts last year so there is room to grow in that aspect in Trubisky's 3rd season. Again, I wouldn't count on it, but it adds to ARob's intrigue for me.
[*]He's got very little competition for targets. I know Anthony Miller was a hot topic last year, but as a 23.9 year old rookie (yes, he's only 1 year younger than ARob), he didn't strike me as a guy who will ever compete to be a team's WR1.
[*]I know people draft weirdly in startups, but I don't think I've seen ARob go after 1.05 in any of the startups I've seen and those were all before the disappointing NFL draft.
[*]Say what you will about his 4 seasons in the NFL, but he's clearly shown legitimate NFL ability which the rookies have not and he's got a clear path to targets now which most of the rookies also do not. Given the historic bust rate of rookies, the NFL draft slide many of them had, and the landing spots of some of them, I honestly think I'd take him over all of the rookies. I'm not advocating anyone paying an early 1st for him (why pay more than you have to? trade back and then trade for him), but fantasy football is a game of probabilities and I like his odds better than a mid-to-late 1st round fantasy rookie pick.
That being said, I agree with EBF that I would not give a future 1st. I think we're all excited about the 2020 class and if you're one WR2 away from being a playoff caliber team then you're also thin on depth and therefore probably one injury away from being a lottery team.
I would love to hear the specific rookie WRs people value over him in the 1.05-1.12 range.