A Wide Receiver to Target in Each Round of Your Fantasy Football Draft
Round 10: Willie Snead, New Orleans Saints
ADP: 118th overall (10.07)
In Willie Snead and Kamar Aiken, there are a pair of attractive receivers available in the 10th round. Snead's situation, playing for the high-powered New Orleans Saints, gives him a higher ceiling.
The better an offense is, the more chances its receivers -- running backs and tight ends, too -- will have to score touchdowns. It's pretty simple.
Well, Drew Brees pilots one of the top offenses in football, and you want exposure to his weapons.
As an added bonus, the Saints were pretty awful defensively last season, so the offense didn't have the chance to get conservative very often. In fact, per our Adjusted Defensive NEP metric, New Orleans' 2015 defense was the worst in our database, which dates back to 2000. Things shouldn't change too significantly this season.
The Saints did add Michael Thomas and Coby Fleener to join Brandin Cooks and Snead in the passing game, so the competition for targets will be stiff. Brees has proven, however, he loves to spread the wealth. In each of the past two season, four different Saints had a target market share of at least 10%.
| Year | WR1 MS% | WR2 MS% | WR3 MS% | TE1 MS% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 19.30% | 15.30% | 10.00% | 16.30% |
| 2014 | 15.00% | 12.90% | 10.60% | 18.80% |
Snead was third on the totem pole in 2015, finishing with a market share of 15.48%. That's more than enough volume to do damage in an offense that's been in the top five in pass attempts in each of the past six seasons -- especially when an ultra-efficient quarterback like Brees is at the controls.
Snead checked in as WR35 last year, and our projections have him as WR38, more or less expecting him to repeat his numbers from his rookie season. He's already a sweet deal at his ADP of WR47, but if Cooks or Fleener were to go down with an injury, Snead could be a league-winner.
