2021 D.J. Moore Fantasy Football Player Profile

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! 2021 D.J. Moore will have a new quarterback for the third time in three years, but it seems as though he’s getting dropped down too much due to it. Let’s take a look at his fantasy football prospects!

D.J. Moore ADP & AAV:

Average Draft Position (HPPR): WR23, Pick 57
Average Auction Value: $9.8, WR18

D.J. Moore Statistics:

2021 D.J. Moore Fantasy Football Overview:

D.J. Moore is now staring at his third different starting QB in the last three seasons. I don’t know if he’s a big Rush fan, but he can certainly appreciate the line in Tom Sawyer “changes aren’t permanent, but change is.” So now D.J. Moore goes from Teddy Bridgewater to Sam Darnold and has a slight drop due to that. Last year, he went as WR19 off the board, at pick 50, on average (per fantasyfootballcalculator.com). This year, he drops back about half a round.

Moore played in fifteen games last season, one without Teddy Bridgewater. And he was actually… really good in that one game. He turned in seven catches for 127 yards on 11 targets. Granted, I don’t think this is indicative of what he will be without Bridgewater around, it’s just good to note that he didn’t suffer from the Phillip Walker Experience.

That having been said, there’s a lot to like about D.J. Moore this season. The Carolina Panthers will finally be at full strength with a healthy Christian McCaffrey (*knocks every possible surface in a 3-mile radius*), a quarterback the team went out and chose instead of ending up with, and Terrace Marshall replacing Curtis Samuel. That having been said, we don’t know what this offense will really look like if Matt Rhule and Joe Brady have their druthers.

2021 D.J. Moore Draft Strategy:

D.J. Moore Auction Value: $9
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!

So, here’s where I’m stuck with D.J. Moore. WR23 feels like his floor, given that he’s had about 79 yards per game each of the last two seasons. I doubt he gets so little volume and the Panthers’ offense is so dysfunctional that he falls outside of the WR2 ranks. But… I’m not entirely sure what his upside is with the Panthers. We saw last year that even with Christian McCaffrey out, the Panthers are going to absolutely slam work into the running back slot. That gives me very little excitement to get Moore.

The best I can see happening for D.J. Moore is around WR16, and a lot of that has to do with him mysteriously getting a ton of red-zone targets (he tied with Dawson Knox and Tyler Eifert, among others, with just nine). He would also need to actually score with these targets, as he scored just one red-zone target. But, D.J. Moore just doesn’t score touchdowns (ten in three years), which limits his upside.

He’s a solid guy to pick up at a value if he slips to around WR27 or WR28, or for about $6 or $7. But I’m not excited to add D.J. Moore to my squad.

Best Case Scenario:

D.J. Moore and Sam Darnold make sweet music and he blows his touchdowns out of the water, scoring seven whole touchdowns.

Worst Case Scenario:

Somehow, he scores negative touchdowns?

Check out all our 2021 player profiles, here.

Want more 2021 fantasy football draft discussion? Check out these links!

Discord!
Podcast!
Patreon!
Twitch!

[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]

[Header Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/D.J_Moore.jpg under CC BY SA 2.0]