Is the Michael Thomas Hype Justified?

Sean Payton hates Mark Ingram, but apparently we should have listened to him about Michael Thomas last year.

"No, I’ve got high expectations for him," the Saints head coach told reporters about Thomas.

"Listen, I think he’s gonna contribute early. I don’t follow fantasy football, but shoot, I’d try to have him. I think he’s gonna do well."

Hindsight is 20-20, but in the case of Thomas, it is 92-1137-9 -- the number of receptions, yards, and touchdowns the rookie out of Ohio State produced with Drew Brees slingin’ the rock his way.

Is Thomas Worth His ADP?

Last year, Thomas only cost most drafters a pick in the 10th round or later. A top-10 fantasy finish at his position followed, an outstanding return on investment.

Fast-forward to 2017, though, and Thomas is going to cost you a first- or second-round pick, especially with Brandin Cooks out of the mix.

Thomas Among a Baker’s Dozen

Let’s study what the recent history of WRs who broke out at age 23 or younger tells us about Thomas's floor and ceiling in 2017:

Thomas had just the 13th season in league history with 90+ receptions and 1,100 yards for a receiver age 23 or younger.

Thomas's 76-percent catch rate was the highest among them.

But on only 121 targets (lowest among this group), you have to wonder if this production is sustainable in year two.

So let’s see how this group did the year after their impressive breakout season:

DeAndre Hopkins' disappointing season last year stands out, Brees throwing you the ball is a little different than Brock Osweiler.

Just taking the per season averages isn’t fair, because some of the group missed a handful of games (and we don’t yet know what Mike Evans and Thomas will do in 2017). However, if we study the above table on a per game basis, we find this group averaged 5.49 receptions, 74.6 yards and 0.45 touchdowns per game on 9.37 targets.

Those numbers extrapolate out to 87 receptions, 1193 yards and seven touchdowns on 149 targets over a 16-game season. That would have been good enough for Thomas to finish as WR9 last season in both standard and PPR leagues.

But are 149 targets realistic in the Saints offense, even with Cooks gone?

Top Targets in the Brees Era

If Thomas is going to garner 28 more targets than his rookie year, his ceiling in 2017 will be among the elite receivers.

Only three times in the Drew Brees era has a Saints pass catcher reached 140+ targets:

Jimmy Graham is a tight end, but his production with 140+ targets would have been good enough to rank well within the top-10 fantasy receivers. Marques Colston was also WR8 in his lone season with 140+ targets.

If you want to argue these seasons are statistical outliers, then let’s look at Saints pass catchers with 90+ targets over the past three seasons:

You can see the average receptions, yards and touchdowns overall, and extrapolated to a full 16 games, it goes up even more, to 78.4-1016-6.9. However, this may not be the best indication of what Thomas will do in 2017 because this chart includes second or third options in the offense (Willie Snead, Ben Watson), while Thomas will likely be the primary target in 2017.

So here’s what the target leader did in each year Drew Brees has been quarterback of the Saints:

The per game average for Brees’ top target has been 5.45-69.8-0.64. Over 16 games, that extrapolates to 87.2-1116.8-10.2. Those numbers would have been good enough for Thomas to finish as the WR6 last year in PPR and the WR8 in standard.

If you look at the last two columns on the right as a range of outcomes, Brees’s top target was good enough to finish between WR4 and WR19 in standard leagues and between WR3 and WR16 in PPR.

The Saints' top target under Brees has received 8.3 targets per game, a 16-game pace of 132.8 per year. Again though, Thomas’s catch percentage of 76% may be asking too much based on the others in recent years.

Using 132.8 targets, if we combine the 65.3% median catch rate of the Saints' top pass catchers under Brees with Thomas’s modest 12.36 yards per reception as a rookie, we'd get 86.7 receptions and 1,071 yards.

As for his touchdowns? Ultimately, that’s hard to predict. We do know that Thomas was tied for sixth in the NFL with seven red zone touchdown receptions on 18 red zone targets (tied for 20th). Those 18 red zone targets were tied with Coby Fleener for the most on the Saints, but seven Saints saw at least nine red zone targets.

The Bottom Line

Thomas has one of the highest floors among WRs being drafted in the first two rounds, evidenced by every Saints target leader finishing inside the top-20 receivers in the Drew Brees era.

And even though only three times in Drew Brees’s 11 years in New Orleans has his target leader reached 140 targets, Thomas could make it four times in twelve years with Cooks gone if he can stay healthy, which would give him top-five upside.

Once you get past the five big names at wide receiver (Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham, Julio Jones, Mike Evans and A.J. Green), it’s going to be hard to pass on Thomas.

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