Sports
Fantasy Alert: Jets’ Jamison Crowder Should Get 90-Plus Catches, WR Coach Says
Mark Tenally/Associated PressNew York Jets wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson has sky-high expectations for Jamison Crowder heading into the 2020 NFL season, and fantasy football owners may want to take notice.”He should make the jump to 90-plus catches,” Jefferson told reporters Thursday. “I can tell you that.”Crowder is coming off a strong first season with…
Mark Tenally/Associated Press
New York Jets wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson has sky-high expectations for Jamison Crowder heading into the 2020 NFL season, and fantasy football owners may want to take notice.
“He should make the jump to 90-plus catches,” Jefferson told reporters Thursday. “I can tell you that.”
Crowder is coming off a strong first season with the Jets that saw him post career-high totals in both receptions (78) and receiving yards (833) while also recording six touchdowns in 16 games.
New York's next two leading wideouts, Robby Anderson (779 yards) and Demaryius Thomas (433), both departed in free agency.
The front office replaced them by signing Breshad Perriman, who enjoyed a breakout second half of the season last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and drafting Denzel Mims out of Baylor in the second round.
Now the question is whether the Jets' receiver carousel, combined with potential improvement from quarterback Sam Darnold in his third season, could lead Crowder to become a major fantasy asset.
ESPN, which ranks Crowder as the No. 32 wide receiver for fantasy drafts, doesn't project a major uptick in production, predicting a 77-843-7 stat line, which is almost identical to last year's.
That said, if Jefferson's forecast comes to fruition, the 27-year-old Duke product would emerge as a fringe top-10 fantasy wideout and a locked-in weekly starter.
That would be a major change for Crowder, who's been more of a No. 3 receiver or flex option reliant of matchups against weaker secondaries over his first five NFL seasons. He never caught more than 67 passes across four years with the Washington Football Team.
His average draft position (ADP) on Yahoo Sports as of early Friday is 128.4, which translates to the late 11th round in 12-team leagues.
Crowder is worth an earlier flier, maybe in the late ninth or early 10th round, based on Jefferson's comments and the lack of preseason games because of the coronavirus pandemic, which could slow Perriman's and Mims' transitions into the offense.
His value could slide a bit throughout the year as those other targets get up to speed, however, so it may not be a bad idea to put him on the trade block if he gets off to a red-hot start.
The Jets are scheduled to kick off the regular season Sept. 13 with a road game against the Buffalo Bills.
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