Buy Low Third-Year Wide Receiver Breakouts (#FantasyFootball)

There was a time in the not so distant past when wide receivers rarely broke out before their third year. Sure, there are always exceptions, but for the most part, year three was the time you could start to expect some fantasy relevance.

After the 2014 class of WRs with Mike Evans and Odell Beckham Jr., and handful of other guys that broke out in year two, the expectations have changed — at least for us fantasy nerds. We want instant return. Those rookies come in year one and if they don’t show promise immediately, we want to dismiss them.

I wouldn’t be so quick to toss them aside just yet. The third-year breakout is still a thing, but it’s more for those second and third-tier WRs now. I’m going to take a look at a few receivers going into their third season that have the potential to breakout in 2020.

I’m going to avoid talking about the guys that have already broken out; Calvin Ridley, D.J. Moore, D.J. Chark, Courtland Sutton, and Michael Gallup. And, I’ll avoid the “popular” choices to breakout like Anthony Miller and Christian Kirk.

Tre’Quan Smith (NO)

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Smith had a promising start to his career in 2018 with 28 catches 427 yards and five TDs. They weren’t show-stopping numbers, but his ability flashed and gave fantasy owners some optimism heading into the 2019 season.

However, hings did not go as planned. He only started six games, after starting seven his rookie season — and he missed five games due to injury. However, despite catching only 18 passes for 234 yards, he still managed to match his touchdown total from his rookie season at five.

Heading into the 2020 season, Smith has some competition for targets with free-agent signee, Emanuel Sanders, in the fold. However, the Saints ran 11 personnel (three-wide) 55 percent of the time in 2020 (via SharpFootballStats.com), and, more importantly, they passed out of that formation 70 percent of the time. In other words, if Smith can secure that No. 3 WR spot next to Manny Sanders and Michael Thomas, he will still be on the field for a good number of passing plays.

Sanders, playing for the 49ers and Broncos last season, only played in the slot 22 percent of the time (per PlayerProfiler.com), but that was mainly because the 49ers only ran three-wide sets 40 percent of the time, leaving Sanders on the outside more often. If we go back to 2018, Sanders ran in the slot close to 50 percent of the time. I’m expecting Sanders to play in the slot more often than not for the Saints, which will push Smith to the outside where he is more effective.

Smith lined up in the slot 53 percent of the time in 2019 compared to only 20 percent of the time in 2018. I would expect Smith’s percentage on the outside to resemble that of 2018 when he was on the outside at an 80 percent clip.

With perennial all-pro Michael Thomas on one side, and Manny Sanders in the slot, that will leave Smith one-on-one on the outside, and that bodes well for him and his 2020 outlook. Smith won’t be a guy you can just plug and play week in and week out, as he will be a little boom or bust, but he is basically free in nearly every league format, and his upside in this explosive offense is undeniable.

Allen Lazard (GB)

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Lazard didn’t see any meaningful playing time until Week 6 last season. From Week 6 on he was the WR51, which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of a breakout this season. However, if you look a little closer you will notice a dramatic spike in playing time over the last three games of the season. Keep in mind, the Packers were still playing for home-field advantage right up until Week 17, so this isn’t a situation where the coaches wanted to see their young players nor were they resting their starters to get ready for the playoffs. These were very meaningful games with a lot on the line.

Lazard first saw meaningful playing time while Davante Adams was out for four-games from Weeks 5-thru-Week-8. He played a season-high 85 percent of the snaps in Week 7 and followed that up with 67 percent of the snaps in Week 8. When Adams came back in Week 9, Lazard’s snaps dropped to a mere 44 percent in the two games before their Week 11 bye. The two games immediately following the bye week, he played a respectable 58 percent.

Then it happened. Three straight games with at least 75 percent of the snaps, which included 20 total targets over that stretch. Meanwhile, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Lazard’s biggest competition for targets, saw his snap percentage drop from 80-plus percent early in the season to under 20 percent over his last four.

In other words, Lazard is the clear-cut WR2 headed into 2020, and in an Aaron Rodgers-led offense, that has value — even if they do run more than they have in the past. If Rodgers has trust in you as a receiver, he is going to target you heavily. Rodgers’ trust in Lazard was not any more evident than in a Week 6 Monday night matchup with the Lions. In a dramatic come-from-behind victory, Rodgers threw a 2-and-5 pass from the Lions 35 to Lazard down the left sideline that fell incomplete. On the very next play, Rodgers threw the exact same throw on the exact same route to Lazard for a 35-yard touchdown.

My last point on Lazard is simply this. Looking at last year’s receivers, the third-leading receiver on the team, TE Jimmy Graham, is gone. Their fifth-leading receiver, Geronimo Allison, is gone. The fourth-leading receiver on the team, Valdes-Scantling, could barely get on the field at the end of 2019, and the Packers infamously did not draft a wide receiver in the 2020 draft. That tells me they are more than comfortable going into the season with Lazard as their No. 2.

James Washington (PIT)

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Washington is going to be a little bit of a hard sell as a breakout due to his competition for targets. Assuming Ben Roethlisberger is healthy, the Steelers are likely to go back to their pass-happy offense that we saw in 2018. Big Ben threw it a whopping 675 times that season with Juju Smith-Schuster and Antonio Brown both getting over 165 targets each. I don’t expect the Steelers to be quite that pass-happy, but there will still be plenty of targets to go around.

Last year’s season was a disaster, but Washington made the most of it, turning a terrible situation into a nice second-year leap. He had 44 receptions, 735 yards and three TDs. Those numbers, while not spectacular, are a huge jump from his 16/217/1 line from his rookie season. Now with Roethlisberger back in the fold, Washington will be competing with Diontae Johnson, Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool for targets. I’d expect Washington and Johnson to line up outside in three-wide sets with Smith-Schuster in the slot. In two-wide sets, it is anyone’s guess who lines up opposite Juju, but the odds-on favorite is Johnson, not Washington.

Regardless of which receiver lines up in two-wide sets, both will play enough of snaps to have fantasy relevance. The Steelers used three-wide sets on 70 percent of their plays in 2018 — which amounted to a whopping 659 total plays. To put that into perspective, the yet to be named Washington team ran a total of 885 plays in 2019.

The potential for Washington is huge. Playerprofiler.com comp’d him to DeAndre Hopkins. I don’t think his ceiling is quite that high, but he is being drafted as the fourth Steelers WR in most dynasty startups behind Smith-Schuster, Johnson, and rookie Chase Claypool. In other words, he is free and he has a ton of upside in what should be a good offense.

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