Fantasy Football's Most Underrated Players at Each Position

Wide Receiver: Marvin Jones

People are currently drafting Marvin Jones in the same vicinity as Markus Wheaton.

I just can't even.

The expectation isn't for Jones to take over the role Calvin Johnson left behind in Detroit. There's plenty of opportunity for Jones to shine, though.

Over the last three seasons in the league (Jones was active in just two of them), only Tyler Eifert, Rob Gronkowski, Allen Robinson, Dez Bryant, and Julius Thomas have better touchdown-per-target rates than Jones. Even if you see that as an outlier, it's tough to just ignore, especially when Golden Tate -- a player who saw four of his six touchdowns last year go for two yards or fewer -- is your primary competition at wide receiver. Eric Ebron looks to be the only other true red zone threat in the Detroit offense, and even if Ebron takes a step forward, there's plenty of eight-touchdown upside for a guy like Jones, who scored 10 in 2013.

And then there's the volume aspect of things. This is an excerpt from a piece on Jones I wrote earlier in the summer:

Since 2011, the Lions haven't had a drop-back-to-run ratio less than 1.48, while three of the last five years have seen them approach 2.00 (1.97, 1.97, 1.91). For some context, only three teams have had a 2.00 drop-back-to-run ratio since the turn of the century. And the Lions seem to approach that mark almost every year.

Assuming the Lions will be in the top half in pass attempts this year is a pretty safe thing to think, and that means Jones should have plenty of opportunity considering the rest of the Lions' offensive depth chart, which consists of Golden Tate, a tight end that has really yet to break through in Eric Ebron, and a hybrid running back-wide receiver in Theo Riddick.

And, guys, that's really the extent of the target gobblers in the Lions' offense.

Last season, Detroit threw the ball 632 times. Let's just assume a dip -- for argument's sake -- to 600, which would be a five-year low for the team.

In order for Jones to hit 100 targets in an offense that throws the ball 600 times, he'd have to see 16.67% of the team's targets. Meanwhile, Tate and Megatron combined for 277 targets in Detroit last year, which equated to 43.83% of the team's total targets. If that number -- 43.83% -- was our baseline for Jones and Tate in 2016 and if Jones saw 16.67% of the targets, then Tate would have to see 27.16% of Stafford's looks this season.

That's a hell of a lot when you consider Tate's market share without Megatron (or with a banged-up version) in 2014 -- our only sample, which is five games worth -- sat at 31.9%. Meaning, without any other second receiver, Tate's percentage of team targets wasn't that much higher.

I mean, just to give you some perspective, Odell Beckham's share in the Giants' offense last year was 25.36%.

In other words, Jones should easily eclipse the 100-target mark. Easily. It should almost be expected for him to be closer to 120.

FantasyFootballCalculator.com has Jones leaving the board, on average, at the beginning of the ninth round. That's behind unknowns like Jay Ajayi and Tevin Coleman. Give me Jones all day at that price.