Pierre Garcon: Fantasy Gold
Pierre Garcon is one of the most underrated players in the NFL and continues to be doubted by the fantasy community. People are usually afraid of drafting players entering their 30’s but this shouldn’t be the case with Garcon as he presents a huge value in fantasy drafts this year.
First, I want to explain how good Garcon really was last year using a variety of metrics.
Starting with Warren Sharps (@SharpFootball) metrics from SharpFootballStats.com, Garcon ranked 6th in “success rate” and 4th in “missed yards per attempt” among all wide receivers with 100 or more targets last season. Essentially, this means that Garcon was able to acquire enough yards each play to grade as successful at the 6th highest rate in the league. When he didn’t have a successful play he missed being successful by 1.8 yards on average, 4th best in the league.
Garcon’s efficiency last year put him in a similar range and above studs like Doug Baldwin, Julio Jones, and Jordy Nelson.
Comparing Garcon to his teammates (75+ targets) you see that he also outperformed all of them last year in success rate and missed yards per attempt:
This shows that Garcon was not efficient solely because of quarterback play, but because he actually performed well.
Moving onto another popular metric, Matt Harmon’s (@MattHarmon_BYB) Reception Perception helps to shed more light on Garcon. If you aren’t familiar, Reception Perception is a project that quantifies a wide receivers ability to get open on different routes and against different coverages.
Garcon was exceptional at getting open last year, grading above the league average in success rate vs. coverage in every route except “comebacks” and “other” last year.
He was not only good at running the entire route-tree but was great against different types of coverages. Against zone defense he was open (79.6%) slightly above the NFL average and against man he was outstanding, ranking in the 88th percentile at getting open (74%).
Garcon showed last year that he still has plenty of gas left in the tank, proving he can get open and be efficient with a sizeable target load.
Enough talking about last year, in the offseason Garcon signed with the San Francisco 49ers. You’re probably thinking that puts a damper on his outlook for 2017 right? Wrong. There is a big opportunity in “The Golden City” for Garcon. Not only is he reuniting with Kyle Shanahan, whom he posted career highs in targets, catches, and yards with, but according to Pat Thorman (Pat_Thorman) the 49ers have 201 unaccounted targets from last year (4th most in the league), and 149 of them are from wide receivers.
Looking at the 49ers as a team, they are almost guaranteed to throw more than last year as they ran the ball at the 4th highest rate in the league. The 49ers also had the 2nd most plays while losing by at least 6 points, yet ran the ball 195 times, the most in the league in that situation by a lot. Now that Chip Kelly is gone, that approach will definitely change. Their projected Vegas win total for 2017 is 4.5 which suggests they will have plenty of negative game script, forcing them to pass to try and get back into games creating even more targets available for Garcon.
If you look at the 49ers scheme it’s important to revisit the “Kyle Shanahan feeds his top receiver” narrative because I believe it does hold some merit. Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) created a chart that looks at every "WR1" and "WR2" in a Kyle Shanahan offense and their fantasy points per game since 2008:
5/9 seasons Shanahan’s “WR1” has finished as a top 12 fantasy wide receiver, and 8/9 times they finished as a top 36 fantasy wide receiver. The only year they didn’t was in 2014 where Andrew Hawkins was the “WR1”. Beyond Hawkins not being a good player he only played 15 games that season and 2014 was the year Josh Gordon played weeks 11-13 while being a target hog.
This brings me to another reason Pierre Garcon should perform, because Brian Hoyer is the 49ers quarterback. You may be thinking, The same Brian Hoyer who threw four picks in an embarrassing playoff loss against Kansas City? That guy stinks!, well that game seems to have permanently scarred people’s memories because last year Hoyer was actually pretty good. In one score games Hoyer ranked 4th in “Missed YPA” and 9th in “Success Rate” among all quarterbacks.
In addition to this, when it was a one score game last year Hoyer had the 3rd best passer rating in the league:
Beyond Hoyer not being the schmuck he’s made out to be, he LOVES to target his #1 wide receiver. I’m talking almost as much as Eddie Lacy loves his “China Food”. Jokes aside, I compiled the statistics of the #1 wide receiver in every game that Hoyer started and finished since 2013. These stats include four games with Alshon Jeffery in 2016, eleven games with Deandre Hopkins in 2015, nine games with Andrew Hawkins + three with Josh Gordon in 2014, and two games with Gordon in 2013.
Those players averaged 10.69 targets, 6 catches and 81 yards per game. Out of the 29 games I recorded, his top receiver had less than 7 targets only 4 times while racking up 9 or more targets in 21/29 games! Matching Hoyer’s determination to target one player with Shanahan’s wide receiver friendly scheme could lead to some sneaky success for a surprisingly good player in Garcon.
Eliot Crist (@EliotCrist) created a visual showing both Hoyer and Garcon’s “success by route run” the last time both had Kyle Shanahan as their coordinator (2014 for Hoyer and 2013 for Garcon):
While this is obviously an optimistic look at the pairing, the potential symmetry in this offense has me excited.
In summary; Garcon proved last year that he is still a very solid player, he went to a wide receiver friendly scheme in which he recorded career highs previously, he’ll be playing with a quarterback that loves to lock in on one player, and is now on a team that lost 200+ targets that will be playing from behind a lot. Whew, that was a mouthful.
His ADP is just the icing on the cake. It has been steadily increasing with smart fantasy analysts mentioning him as a favorite in multiple podcasts, but there’s not much reason to worry. He probably won't ever break WR30 due to his age, changing teams and the negative connotation surrounding the 49ers and Hoyer. Here’s a look at Garcon’s positional ADP evolution from @FantasyADHD app on FantasyADHD.com over the past month:
Despite the ADP increase I will continue to draft Garcon because I see WR36 as his absolute floor barring injury. 140 targets isn’t unrealistic whatsoever and he definitely has the potential for more. Garcon should be a low end WR2 this year, giving a good return on his current ADP.
