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! Today we look at an all-timer wide receiver who switched teams this offseason. Will the Titans pass enough to make 2021 Julio Jones relevant for your fantasy football leagues? Let’s find out!
Julio Jones ADP & AAV:
Average Draft Position (HPPR): WR14, Pick 40
Average Auction Value: $17.6 (WR14)
Julio Jones Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2020 | 9 | 9 | 68 | 51 | 771 | 3 | 7.56 | 5.67 | 75.0% | 11.34 | 15.12 |
| 2019 | 15 | 15 | 157 | 99 | 1394 | 6 | 9.81 | 6.19 | 63.1% | 8.88 | 14.08 |
| 2018 | 16 | 16 | 170 | 113 | 1677 | 8 | 10.63 | 7.06 | 66.5% | 9.86 | 14.84 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2020 | 95.1 | 120.6 | 146.1 | 10.6 | 13.4 | 16.2 | 1.40 | 1.77 | 2.15 |
| 2019 | 175.1 | 224.6 | 274.1 | 11.7 | 15.0 | 18.3 | 1.12 | 1.43 | 1.75 |
| 2018 | 212.9 | 269.4 | 325.9 | 13.3 | 16.8 | 20.4 | 1.25 | 1.58 | 1.92 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2020 | 764 | 11 | 231 | 3.40 | 4.53 | 28% | 20% |
| 2019 | 1913 | 12.2 | 364 | 2.32 | 3.68 | 37% | 25% |
| 2018 | 2420 | 14.3 | 449 | 2.66 | 4.01 | 45% | 28% |
2021 Julio Jones Fantasy Football Overview:
This might not shock you to hear, but Julio Jones is still Good at Football™. Injuries limited him to nine games last season, but he boasted a career-high yards per target. Julio got above 11.3, crushing his previous 2016 record of 10.9 YPT. But, that was a different team, with different circumstances surrounding Jones. He’s now a Tennessee Titan, with everything that entails (high efficiency, low volume). He’ll take Corey Davis’ spot in the wide receiver rotation, and even if they don’t change anything else, just replacing Corey Davis with Julio Jones is enough to make him a top-15 wide receiver.
Last year, Corey Davis ended up pulling in 70.3 yards per game on just 6.5 targets per game. Now, Davis was wildly inconsistent, so it was maddening to roster him. But, it’s hard to quibble with those numbers. But, let’s do a little work to convert those catches to Julio Jones catches. We will do this work with the data provided for free by the folks over at PlayerProfiler.com.
Last season, Corey Davis had 92 targets for 1,092 air yards. He ended up converting those into 984 receiving yards. That’s really good, a 90.1% conversion rate. Julio Jones converted 767 air yards into 771 receiving yards. Julio’s YAC made him hyper-efficient, with a conversion ratio over 1.00. Just based on this. If you convert Corey Davis’ 70.7 catch rate over to Julio’s 75% catch rate, you end up with a more interesting stat line than Corey Davis’ 65 receptions for 984 receiving yards. Just converting those targets and air yards over to Julio Jones’ efficiency gives you 69 catches for 1,098 yards. Now give him 16 games, just for fun: 79 receptions, 1,255 yards. Assuming an equivalent jump in touchdowns (1.2x), that gives us 6 scores.
2021 Julio Jones Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Julio Jones Auction Value: $14
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
If everything else stayed the same, giving Julio Jones Corey Davis’ catches would have made Julio Jones the WR20 last year, tied with Terry McLaurin with 180.3 fantasy points. Now, we have to assume that Julio Jones is a little bit older, but that he also gets more targets than just the Corey Davis targets from last year. There are also Adam Humphries and Jonnu Smith targets to contend with. But, WR20 feels like his absolute floor.
I’m out at his current price. Pick 40, WR14 is just far too rich for my blood. Julio is eminently talented, and the Titans’ offense is insanely efficient. But, he is going between Allen Robinson & Mike Evans, and Chris Godwin and Amari Cooper. Those are all guys I would rather have than Julio. Same with Pick #45 (CeeDee Lamb), #50 (Robert Woods), and #54 (Cooper Kupp). The value proposition just isn’t there for Julio Jones as it seems like he’s getting drafted at his ceiling. That means, unfortunately, that I’m out on him this year.
Best Case Scenario:
He’s as efficient as 2019 Julio Jones and gets the same work as 2019 Corey Davis. He finishes as a low-end WR2. That is, unless, the Titans start to use him in the end zone. Which would be strange, since the Falcons diagnosed him with Redzoneitis; an inability to be on the field in the Red Zone.
Worst Case Scenario:
It’s Julio Jones, so we all know the refrain: injuries.
Check out all our 2021 player profiles, here.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Davante_Adams_2015-2016_playoffs.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
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