Terry McLaurin was known as a diamond in the rough in dynasty fantasy football circles after his rookie season, and he’s certainly a household name in the fantasy football world in 2021. But what karat of diamond are we talking about here? I’d say he’s been at LEAST a full karat diamond through his first two seasons in the NFL, but does he have the right combination of talent and opportunity to become an elite, three-karat diamond in 2021? Let’s put Terry McLaurin under the loupe and see if we can determine just how bright he’ll shine on fantasy football rosters this year.
Talent
Growing from a surprisingly efficient rookie season to a locked-in alpha with 134 targets and over 1,100 receiving yards in 2020, McLaurin has done nothing but impress fantasy managers thus far in his NFL career. Even by looking only at Matt Harmon’s Reception Perception analysis for McLaurin, it’s obvious just how good he is at what he does.
Sure, McLaurin was below average in terms winning along the sideline, but the green everywhere else on his chart shows he can win in so many ways that alpha-level WRs win, whether it’s short-area targets that move the chains like a slant (see Michael Thomas), or deep possession catches down the middle of the field via the dig or post.
Even the nine route was a part of his bag, where he was above average purely from a route-running standpoint. We could see a lot more conversions on those nine routes with who is under center this season.
Situation
Seemingly out of nowhere, The Washington Football team was able to turn the football portion of its organization around last season, bolstered by a stout defense (Chase Young and co.) and led fearlessly into battle by Ron Rivera, who simultaneously kicked cancer’s ass while coaching this football team to an NFC East division title.
Even though the adrenaline of that season has worn off in 2021, the Football Team has to be excited for the roster they are putting together on offense. Sophomore running back Antonio Gibson is a candidate to absolutely crush for the team under offensive coordinator Scott Turner, and this could really open things up for McLaurin and the rest of the receiver room (Curtis Samuel, Dyami Brown, et al) downfield.
The key, of course, to unlocking all of this potential on offense is their new journeyman starting quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Despite his age, (38) Fitzpatrick has been more magic than tragic with solid surrounding talent as of late, and he’s built up a penchant for pushing the ball downfield. If he can stay healthy for 17 games, (potentially a tall ask) there’s reason to believe this offense can sustain fantasy success for McLaurin AND the other weapons on the team.
Potential huge business idea: Terry McLaurin but with an actually good QB pic.twitter.com/LSeb3wMiul
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) June 30, 2021
Projection
By leveraging Analyst Depot, our very own founder Chalk has built out his own team-by-team and player-level projections, which I decided to take a look at and play around with to explore different outcomes for McLaurin’s fantasy production.
Starting with Chalk’s projection as a baseline, he’s given McLaurin about a 24% target share on just over 600 pass attempts for the season from the Washington Football Team, leading to 145 targets for our Alpha WFT WR1.
Apply a 64.8% catch rate and 13.7 yards per catch (YPC), and McLaurin’s projection ends with a reasonable 145 targets, 94 receptions, 1,288 yards, and six touchdowns. This comes out to 258.8 fantasy points in PPR scoring and 15.2 PPG, which was good for WR20 last year. All this to say, Chalk’s projection is fairly conservative in my mind, and there’s upside for much more production beyond this projection.
According to Pro Football Reference, McLaurin’s best YPC rate was 15.8 in his rookie season, and his best catch rate was 64.9% last year with a clown car of QBs (respect to Alex Smith though) throwing him the ball. If the Fitzmagic-McLaurin Connection can improve McLaurin’s production to a 66.8% catch rate (3% improvement on last year), and McLaurin’s YPC lands at 14.5 (0.5 yards above his average over the past two seasons), we’re looking at 145 targets, 97 receptions, 1,405 yards, and six touchdowns. This comes out to 273.5 PPR fantasy points and about 16.1 PPG, good for WR14 last season.
If you really want to get crazy, (like 99th percentile outcome crazy) if you give McLaurin a 68.9% catch rate and 15 YPC, his stat line for the year becomes 145 targets, 100 receptions, 1,500 yards. Add a two more TDs because more receiving yards generally lead to more TDs, and you’ve got a 298-point season, good for 17.5 PPG and WR7 in 2020.
This is much more a bet on McLaurin’s efficiency with Fitzpatrick improving as McLaurin grows to be a potential superstar in the league. It also shows just how much would have to go right for McLaurin to reach bona fide WR1 status, and that’s already assuming a team with a solid run game and defense ends up throwing 600 times (35-36 attempts per game) this season.
Conclusion
It pays to be conservative with projections given the nature of offenses scoring more points across the board in 2020 with no crowd noise, making it harder for defenses to defend, etc. Combine this with the fact that we don’t know how fast-paced or pass-happy this offense is going to be in year two under Ron Rivera, and I’m willing to say McLaurin is NOT a lock to be an elite, WR1 fantasy option just yet.
That said, he’s on the cusp of shining bright like a diamond, and has the upside to shine even brighter if things break his way. I believe in betting on McLaurin as an ascendant talent (third year breakout anyone?) who might be in the best offensive situation of his career thus far, right at his Underdog ADP of 34 overall (WR14).
You can follow Andrew and call him out on Twitter, @AndrewMackens
