What is Breshad Perriman's Fantasy Value with the Jets?
On March 20, Brehsad Perriman signed a one-year, $8 million contract with the Jets after New York failed to re-sign Robby Anderson. The following will explore how Perriman might fill the void left by Anderson and Perriman's value in fantasy football in 2020.
Breshad Perriman’s History
Breshad Perriman is the former 26th overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens. He missed his entire rookie season, has only started 10 games in his career and has just 11 touchdowns with a 48.7% career catch rate. Perriman has often been compared to Edward Scissor Hands in his career due to his untimely drops and lack of ability to make an impact on the football field. The reason he went in the first round is that he has the size and athleticism on par with elite receivers. At 6’2” and 212 lbs he blazed a 4.3 flat forty-yard dash and finished with a 99th percentile speed score. You just don’t get many human beings that can do that, but the football player never caught up to the athlete until this past year in Tampa.
In the last three games of the season, he stepped up for injured Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and performed well. In that time span, no player saw more air yards than Perriman who had 17 catches, 349 yards, and four touchdowns on his 26 targets. He saw heavy volume down the field and looked the part of the explosive playmaker he was drafted to be.
How Breshad Perriman Fits With the Jets
From a fantasy perspective, there could not have been a more ideal landing spot than the New York Jets for Perriman. The Jets had one single downfield threat in 2019 in Robby Anderson and he has since signed with the Carolina Panthers. Gone is Anderson’s team-leading 1402 air yards, his 18% target share and one of only two players on the team who saw an average depth of target over 10 (minimum 15 targets.)
The Jets' only returning piece from their pass-catching core is Jamison Crowder and he and Perriman could not fill more different voids in an offense. Crowder is an underneath slot receiver, while Perriman is a perfect replacement for the void left by Anderson. An argument can be made that based on 2019 play, Perriman isn’t just a perfect replacement, but in fact, he is an upgrade. In 2019 he finished with a higher yards per route run than Anderson, as well as more yards per target, yards per reception, and a higher true catch rate, finishing with just 133 fewer yards, despite seeing 27 fewer targets.
Jameis Winston and his YOLO mentality for taking chances with the football down the field was a big part of Perriman’s success. However, Perriman posted more average yards per separation on his routes than Anderson and a higher contested catch rate at 43.8% per Player Profiler.
Perriman was paid starter money at and is almost guaranteed to be a starting outside receiver in three-wide sets. The one concern for a potential massive 100+ target 2020 campaign is what the Jets do in the draft. This team has massive needs all over the board at tackle, wide receiver, cornerback and edge rusher. They are almost assuredly going to take a receiver at some point, but one at 11, one in the second round or one in the third round would all have different impacts on Perriman. Jerry Jeudy and CeeDee Lamb at 11 overall would be the rookie receivers that would have me concerned as impacts for Perriman’s upside, while other rookie receivers would likely take a longer time to dominate target share.
The Bottom Line
Simply put, buy Breshad Perriman at cost. In the last seven days of FFPC drafts since signing with the Jets, Perriman’s ADP is 169th overall, going as the WR55. This is simply too low for an explosive downfield threat in line to get 100+ targets this season. With what should be a nearly identical role to his predecessor Robby Anderson, Perriman is going in the 14th round of drafts while Anderson flirted with the eighth round in 2019.