You're Probably Too Low on Corey Davis in Fantasy Football This Year

In order for New York Jets wide receiver Corey Davis to have a great fantasy football season in 2021, he'll have to navigate a few potential roadblocks.

Firstly, he'll need to make the most of a rookie quarterback's debut season.

Secondly, he'll need to gel with a new team (which can be tough for early-round fantasy receivers). But Davis isn't an early-round receiver at all, and that matters for his expectations.

Based on NFC drafts since the start of August, Davis is currently valued as the 117th overall pick and the WR51.

That average draft position ranks Davis as the fourth-latest WR1 among any team in the NFL (besting only Henry Ruggs for the Las Vegas Raiders, Nelson Agholor for the New England Patriots, and Amon-Ra St. Brown for the Detroit Lions).

That's kinda wild, and here's why.

Davis Was Really Good in 2020

Okay, so Davis wound up as the WR31 in half-PPR formats in 2020, which doesn't sound amazing, but he finished 18th in receiving yards (984) -- and he did that on just 92 targets.

In fact, no other 900-yard receiver (there were 26) got to that threshold on fewer than 106 targets.

Unsurprisingly, that elite efficiency transferred into a lot of strong marks -- marks that could signal regression, sure.

But it's hard to knock a receiver who ranked fourth -- among 163 receivers with at least eight games played -- in yards per route run (2.70), according to NexGenStats. In fact, that yards-per-route rate trailed only Davante Adams' (3.12), Justin Jefferson's (2.76), and former teammate A.J. Brown's (2.76).

Davis was great last season.

And, speaking of Brown, Davis surely benefitted from the presence of another elite receiver in his offense, which he won't have with the Jets in 2021 (at least nobody of Brown's caliber). However, Davis was on par with Brown for a lot of the season last year. At times, he was more involved.

In 12 shared games, Brown led the duo with a 25.5% target share to Davis' 22.9%, but it was actually Davis with the better air yards share (35.7% to 34.8%).

Davis also surprisingly handled 29.2% of the team's end zone targets in that sample, according to NextGenStats. Brown accounted for 16.7% of the end zone targets.

And for a while, Davis was getting more work in total.

Through their first eight games together, Davis handled a 23.7% target share; Brown's target share was 22.5%.

Zach Wilson Is Throwing to Him Often

Zach Wilson, the Jets' rookie quarterback, has accounted for only 20 pass attempts so far in the preseason, so all of this next section has to come with a heaping bowl of salt.

But Wilson has targeted Davis on 10 of those 20 pass attempts, a really promising trend early on for the Wilson-Davis connection.

In total, Davis has been targeted on 10 of his 13 routes (76.9%). Among all pass-catchers with at least 10 routes run, no other player has been targeted on more than half of their routes.

I know how small of a sample this all is: 13 routes, 10 targets, 20 total pass attempts from Wilson. But this is elite data, and besides -- who else are the Jets going to prioritize in the passing game over Davis?

There's Jamison Crowder (1 target on 12 routes in the preseason) and Elijah Moore (working his way through a quad injury), but they're slot receivers who may soak up volume underneath but still leave downfield work for Davis. Downfield targets are super valuable (around 140% of an average receiver target).

Denzel Mims, the other most likely threat for heavy downfield involvement, isn't really profiling to handle a huge workload yet.

Davis should handle the majority of high-leverage work in this offense. That's relevant.

Corey Davis' 2021 Fantasy Football Projection

Again, Davis' average draft position pits him as the WR51 and the 117th overall pick in recent drafts at NFC.

He's actually just the WR50 in numberFire's half-PPR projections. Our algorithm projects Davis for 107 targets, 68 catches, 888 receiving yards, and 4.4 touchdowns.

My projections pit Davis as the WR31 on a line of 113 targets, 74 catches, 979 yards, and 5.3 touchdowns.

I get it. There are potential market share concerns if the preseason data winds up being flukey and if Crowder and Moore are leaned on heavily.

But, really, we're sort of buying into Davis at his low point if he is the team's WR1 just barely.

If he proves to be the clear WR1 and if he churns out a market share that nears 25.0%, then it's going to be pretty easy for Davis to shatter his current WR51 ranking.