Fantasy Football Breakout Candidate: Darnell Mooney
WR Darnell Mooney (CHI)
2020 Stats: 61 receptions for 631 yards, 4 TD
After being drafted in the fifth round out of Tulane in 2020, Darnell Mooney had a solid rookie season. Credited (or demerited, as if were) with just two drops on 98 targets, he did the best he could catching passes from Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles.
Mooney has plenty of speed (4.38 40 at the 2020 Combine), and he was sent downfield plenty as a rookie. According to Pro Football Focus, he was targeted 20-plus yards downfield 22 times last year (15th-most among qualified wide receivers). But he only reeled in four of those targets, which was good for a 17 percent completion rate (sixth-worst among 70 receivers with at least 10 targets). Per Player Profiler, Mooney had the 10th-most unrealized air yards in the league last year (739). Of the 37 targets he didn’t convert, a huge chunk of them were purely uncatchable.
The exact uncatchable deep target number looks different in different PFF articles, but everything put together in a tweet looks strikingly bad.
Darnell Mooney deep receiving in 2020
– 22 targets
– 4 catches
– 15 uncatchable targets
– 70% uncatchable pass rate
– 17% completion rate (6th worst among 70 WRs w/ 10+ targets)— Jarad Evans (@Jarad_Evans) March 2, 2021
The play that spotlighted Mooney’s ability, and also showed what he had to overcome as Foles missed him deep, was the undressing of Jalen Ramsey on the first clip of this little highlight reel.
Free Darnell Mooney pic.twitter.com/HZIaXwiUYm
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) October 28, 2020
Mooney was also very good after the catch as a rookie. His 17 forced missed tackles, according to PFF, was tied for fourth-most with A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf and Tyreek Hill. So he is not just a deep threat, and he’s strong with the ball in his hands despite being a smaller receiver (5-foot-10, 176 pounds).
Trubisky is gone, and Foles is buried on the depth chart behind additions Andy Dalton and Justin Fields. How much of an upgrade Dalton is can be debated. But Fields has upside and a downfield arm that could unlock Mooney is his second season, and it’s only a matter of when the rookie signal caller takes over as the starter.
Early in the offseason, Bears head coach Matt Nagy tapped into his past as an assistant coach to offer comparisons to Mooney.
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“I’ve been around Tyreek Hill,” Nagy said. “I’ve been around a young DeSean Jackson. I’m telling you right now, this guy has the complete package and has the ability to be compared to them.”
Cue the eyeball emojis. But with Allen Robinson still in place as the Bears’ No. 1 receiver, Mooney will consistently face favorable coverage. With better quarterback play, which it naturally has to be, and even a portion of the production that fell feebly to the ground last year, a 25 percent bump in catches and yards is reasonable for Mooney in 2021. He is lined up for more target competition though, with the return to health of running back Tarik Cohen and tight end Cole Kmet in line for a bigger role.
Mooney’s ADPs (via Fantasy Football Calculator) have yet to rise above his finishes last year (WR5 range). The depth at wide receiver makes that unlikely to change a lot when draft season ramps up. But lined up as a double-digit round pick in 12-team leagues, it’s all upside to draft him as a WR4/WR5.
For me, the breakout threshold for Mooney sits somewhere between WR20 and WR36 (low-end WR2 to low-end WR3). That’s a coin flip at the high end, and a little better odds the lower you get.
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Projection: Carries/Receptions Yards 70 receptions for 820 yards, 5 TD
Breakout Confidence Level: 55%
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