When I was in high school, we read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. That’s not too unusual for high schoolers, but was unusual was that we had a mock trial for Piggy’s murder. It only dawned on me recently, when recounting with a former classmate, that we had a murder trial for a slain child. Today we have a trial for the fantasy football viability of Nelson Agholor in week eight against the San Francisco 49ers. To paraphrase Lord of the Flies: “Maybe he is a beast… maybe it’s only us.” To help us determine if he’ll be the Agholord of the Fly, Eagles, Fly this weekend, let’s look to wisdom passed down to us from William Golding’s classic novel.
“The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.”
This quote is different to what FDR once told us: the only thing we have to fear is overpaying for tight ends and being pot committed to starting Jordan Reed every week fear itself. There’s a lot of doubt going around about Nelson Agholor’s production, mostly centered around his target volume. He averages just five targets per game on the season, but five has been the floor over his last three games. In those three games, he has three touchdowns, but also 64 yards per contest. Don’t fear his season-long low reception numbers, he gets the touchdowns and the yards when he gets the targets, and he’s getting the targets. Don’t fear a perceived lack of targets, it can’t hurt you.
“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
The 49ers stink out loud, and when you’re trying to figure out who to play, try to play players going against teams that stink out loud. They allow the eleventh-most fantasy points to wide receivers on the year, but more importantly, they give up touchdowns. Only the Colts didn’t have a wide receiver score a touchdown against them, and even they had T.Y. Hilton go for 177 dang yards. Don’t overthink it, the 49ers suck on defense, and attacking a team that sucks on defense is pure smarts. He’s producing on an offense that’s humming and they play a team that was blown out last week. Again: don’t overthink it.
Ultimately, Agholor is a good play this week. He’s gotten seventeen targets in his last three games, which provides a good baseline for production (averaging 64 yards a contest in that time). He gets a terrible 49ers defense that will give him as many points as he wants. Fire him up as a confident WR3 or flex, or if you’re desperate, a Bye week WR2.
