It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We’ve run through 20 quarterbacks and 40 running backs; that means it’s time to get to the deepest and most varied position! That’s right, we’re on to the wide receivers! The next guy up to get the blowtorch is D.J. Chark. I’m not going to be pithy or snarky about 2021 D.J. Chark because, to be frank, I’m annoyed at all of you for this ADP.
D.J. Chark ADP & AAV:
Average Draft Position (HPPR): WR30, Pick 79
Average Auction Value: $1.3 (WR46)
D.J. Chark Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2020 | 13 | 12 | 93 | 53 | 706 | 5 | 7.75 | 4.08 | 57.0% | 7.59 | 13.32 |
| 2019 | 15 | 14 | 118 | 73 | 1008 | 8 | 7.38 | 4.56 | 61.9% | 8.54 | 13.81 |
| 2018 | 11 | 0 | 32 | 14 | 174 | 0 | 2.00 | 0.88 | 43.8% | 5.44 | 12.43 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2020 | 100.6 | 127.1 | 153.6 | 7.7 | 9.8 | 11.8 | 1.08 | 1.37 | 1.65 |
| 2019 | 152.8 | 189.3 | 225.8 | 10.2 | 12.6 | 15.1 | 1.29 | 1.60 | 1.91 |
| 2018 | 15.4 | 22.4 | 29.4 | 1.4 | 2.0 | 2.7 | 0.48 | 0.70 | 0.92 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2020 | 1326 | 14 | 165 | 1.76 | 3.11 | 35% | 20% |
| 2019 | 1358 | 11.5 | 329 | 2.79 | 4.51 | 33% | 21% |
| 2018 | 283 | 8.8 | 45 | 1.41 | 3.21 | 11% | 8% |
2021 D.J. Chark Fantasy Football Overview:
On a recent episode of the Football Absurdity podcast, I lamented that D.J. Chark might just be DeVante Parker, a guy who surfs a hype wave his whole career and turns around with one fantasy football-relevant year when all is said and done. To help support this point, I pulled up D.J. Chark on PlayerProfiler. His closest comp? I’ll let you see for yourself. While you’re there, tell me what exactly D.J. Chark does well. His rate numbers are all in the toilet. Sure, you can chalk that up to the QBs back there. But, True Catch Rate and Yards After Catch are wide receiver stats and he ranked 83rd last year in catch rate and averaged 1.7 yards after the catch per target. He also didn’t exactly dominate targets, either (20% target share).
The Jacksonville Jaguars added two strong pass catchers in the offseason in Marvin Jones Jr. and Travis Etienne. The passing game should take a step forward, but MJJ and ETN are going to chew into Chark’s target volume. He’s not a very good wide receiver, so he’ll probably get more efficient per target… but it’s hard to get less efficient, to be honest.
2021 D.J. Chark Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
To me, that’s preposterous. D.J. Chark as a top-30 WR, and things of that nature. Don’t do this to yourself, you don’t have to do this to yourself! The man has a rookie quarterback! Since 2010, 15 first-round quarterbacks notched at last 450 passes; five WRs ended up inside the top-24 on the season in those years. “But Trevor Lawrence is different,” you say. Fine, I’ll concede he’s unique. D.J. Chark isn’t. D.J. Chark is merely pedestrian and posts merely pedestrian numbers. Since his “breakout” 2019, he’s played 28 games; 15 of his games were top-36, 13 were outside the top-36.
The man is simply not worth his draft price. This is doubly true when you consider a D.J. Chark pick comes instead of a Ja’Marr Chase, Courtland Sutton, James Conner, or even Tyler Boyd pick. Chark honestly belongs about 20 picks later in ADP, and he’s a waste of a pick at 79 overall.
D.J. Chark Auction Value: $1
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
Best Case Scenario:
He’s 2019 DeVante Parker.
Worst Case Scenario:
He’s 2018 DeVante Parker.
Check out all our 2021 player profiles, here.
Check out all our 2021 player profiles, here.
Want more 2021 fantasy football draft discussion? Check out these links!
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: DJ Chark on Twitter]
