Demaryius Thomas VS. Dez Bryant
This argument all started out with a bet. I tweeted out that I think Demaryius Thomas will outscore Dez Bryant in PPR this season. I thought this was somewhat of a bold take, but only one person wanted to bet on Dez! Tyler Strong (@TylerStrong95) is extremely high on Dez this season and he decided it was time for him to put his money where his mouth was. After betting a casual amount of money we decided it would be best to write an article on it. DT vs Dez, the 22nd and 24th picks of the 2010 draft, have both ascended into the upper echelon of fantasy relevance since being drafted. Tyler will lay out his argument for Dez first while I round up the article with my arguments for Demaryius.
Year after year, I (Tyler) tend to find myself higher on Dez Bryant than consensus. Even the past two years when Bryant’s been coming off seasons derailed by injury, I’m always ready to push my chips in on 88. However, Dez is headed into 2017 injury-free in his first full offseason with Dak Prescott.
Bryant has been dominant for so long and continues to dominate thanks to his excellent ball skills (1.0% drop rate in 2016 (as opposed to 6.9% (nice) for Demaryius Thomas)), pristine route-running, and the ability to rake in touchdowns like no other player in the league.
When Dez is healthy, he's been all but a lock for double digit touchdowns, which was true even with the rookie quarterback under center in 2016. Additionally, Dez played all 16 games from 2012 to 2014 and he posted over 1200 yards in each of those seasons, proving that he’s not just a touchdown threat.
The fact that Bryant managed to put up 182.1 fantasy points in 2016—which put him at WR38—is even more impressive when you remember that Dallas finished 3rd to last in the league in pass attempts with 483.
With Ezekiel Elliot leading the league in carries (322) and Dallas running the 5th most plays with a lead (485), the need to go pass-heavy and play catch up simply was not there. However, the Cowboys’ elite OL took a significant hit this offseason with the loss of Ronald Leary and Doug Free, and those gaudy rushing totals may be a little harder to come by in 2017. Just last week, PFF’s Michael Renner ranked the Dallas OL as ninth after a prolonged reign as the best line in the league.
Additionally, Dallas’ defense is still a work in progress, and the Cowboys allowed opponents to score 20 or more points on them nine times in 2016. These two factors combine to spell a more pass-heavy game script in 2017, and Prescott will be throwing the ball to Dez before Terrance Williams or (the admittedly elite) Cole Beasley.
Bryant has always been able to do a lot with a little, as he’s remained in the top tier of receivers while only surpassing 150 targets once. This was in his monster 2013 season when he caught 88 balls (Dez gon’ Dez) for 1,320 yards and threw up the X a ridiculous 16 times. Comparing his targets to the numbers his top tier contemporaries (Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and A.J. Green) have historically commanded bolster the argument that Bryant is one of the most efficient wideouts in the league year after year. Dez is the sole member of the aforementioned group to have only surpassed 150 targets once.
It's no secret that Dez does a majority of his damage in the redzone. He logged a 28.3% redzone target share in 2016, good for 7th in the league. He turned 13 targets into eight touchdowns, six of which coming after he returned from injury. It was visible evidence that he and Prescott were getting on the same page and the rapport will only have improved after Prescott's first offseason receiving the primary quarterback treatment. Dez is a technician who succeeds at the catch point in and around the paint like no other player can, and while Bryant’s touchdown rate of 16% in 2016 would signal impending negative regression for the average receiver, his career touchdown rate of 14.6% reminds us that this is no average receiver.
Bryant’s post-injury numbers from weeks 8-16 had him at a 16.6 PPR points per game clip, which extrapolated over a full season would’ve landed him as the WR6 overall. While those point thresholds change every year, the fact that Dez offers this kind of upside at a lower price than the AB-OBJ-Julio group points to him being a clear value right now.
Last week, Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) threw a bit of a wet blanket on my raging Dez fire when he revealed on Twitter and the Ross Tucker Fantasy Feast podcast that #88 has been the most cornerback-vulnerable receiver in the league.
While yes, Bryant being the undisputed alpha dog on his team is inherently going to attract a lot of defensive attention—usually ending up with the opponent’s top corner shadowing him—all the information we’ve gone over points to Bryant’s ace in the hole: He can make your week on one play. All it takes for Dez to justify your lineup decision or return value in DFS is that all-important touchdown. That’s not a bad hope to hold onto when you’re talking about statistically the best touchdown-scorer in the NFL.
While Bryant might sport a lower floor than DT, his ceiling is always going to be higher given his red zone dominance and vastly superior quarterback play. When it’s late in the day and your fantasy team needs a boost in the worst way, another DT bubble screen might not get you over the hump.
It’s also vital to remember that Dez is far and away the number one option in his offense. Can Connor say the same about Demaryius Thomas? Emmanuel Sanders was within 10 targets and 50 yards of DT in 2016, and they scored the same number of touchdowns. Sanders is currently a better value than his teammate and he can be had for a much lower price.
Denver also has a very young quarterback situation, with either Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch under center for the Broncos in 2017. Both were rather forgettable in 2016, with inefficient play forcing the defense to carry Denver through much of the season.
Bryant is somehow a value at this point in the off-season, and the time to take advantage is right now. When considering Dez or Demaryius in 2017, I’m taking the hyper-efficient touchdown maven in the prolific offense led by the dynamic, established quarterback every time.
*Oh, and Dez showed some finesse on that touchdown pass to Jason Witten at the end of last season....You never know.
Now onto my argument for Demaryius:
Demaryius Thomas had a “down year” in 2016 only posting 90 catches for 1083 yards and 5 touchdowns. This gave him his worst fantasy finish in 5 years. While this sounds like a bad thing for 2017, he was still 12th in both “Missed Yards Per Attempt and “Success Rate” of 32 wide receivers with 110 or more targets. This means that he was successful at the 12th highest rate in the league and when he wasn’t successful he missed at the 12th best rate:
12th may not seem great, but being above average is an accomplishment with such poor quarterback play (Trevor Siemian). Siemian is a very conservative quarterback and has a style which hurt Demaryius’ fantasy potential. As seen in his reception perception, Demaryius is best at getting open on deep routes (Nine, Post, Corner) and slants.
Siemian has never been known to throw the deep ball well. Last year Siemian completed only 39% of his deep passes (15+ yards) slightly worse than all-time greats such as Case Keenum, Matt Barkley, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Hopefully, the Broncos quarterback situation will change in the favor of Demaryius.
Enter Paxton Lynch, the Broncos 2016 first round pick. The quarterback was clocked throwing 59MPH at the combine placing him in the 90th percentile of throw velocity (Playerprofiler.com). You can certainly make the argument that throwing velocity doesn’t matter all that much in deciding whether a quarterback will be good. But for a player who excels at deep routes and slants like Demaryius, it is vital to have a quarterback who can throw deep and sling the ball into tight windows over the middle. As you can see from @Eliot_Crist’s graphic of passer rating by route, Lynch is good at throwing deep routes and slants. While Demaryius success by route run doesn’t look great here, it was with noodle armed Siemian last season, the real focus should be on Lynch’s success.
Lynch clearly wasn’t ready last season but has reportedly made great progress in the offseason and is expected by many beat writers & reporters to start this season. Staying on the topic of reports, reliable Denver reporter Cecil Lammey, was asked who he thought the top performer would be on the Broncos. His response was, “Demaryius FREAKING Thomas -- healthy this year, offense designed around him-get him the ball early/often.”
This report is big because new offensive coordinator Mike McCoy is on record talking about how they are bringing back bubble screens for the offense. One of Demaryius best attributes as a player is racking up yards after the catch and breaking tackles in space. Using Reception Perception, Demaryius Thomas broke both 1+ tackles and 2+ tackles at the 4th highest rate in the league last season. These rates are even more impressive when you consider that Demaryius was severely bothered by a hip injury.
DT hasn’t been targeted less than 142 times or had less than 1,000 yards in the last 5 seasons. Dez Bryant has only been targeted more than 140 times once in his career and gone over 1000 yards three times. Demaryius has been the consistent player with elite WR1 upside where as Dez has either been boom or bust because he has to rely on being insanely efficient. While Dez is always a touchdown threat, Dak Prescott has already gone on record saying he won’t force feed any one player. Speaking more specifically about Tyler’s point on Scott Barrett’s research, “In the last 3 seasons, Dez Bryant is the most cornerback sensitive wide receiver by a lot. He averaged 1.21 fantasy points per target against top 25 corners, and 3.33 against bottom 25 corners” This is bad news for Dez owners because he starts this season playing against the Giants (Janoris Jenkins) week 1 , Broncos (Aqib Talib & Bradley Roby) week 2 and Cardinals (Patrick Peterson) week 3. Despite being viewed as “always a touchdown threat," against top 25 corners the stats show he will likely get shut down.
With Demaryius finally healthy, a quarterback that fits his style probably starting, and a coordinator who is going to get him involved as much as possible, he should easily finish as a WR1 this season. I will take the 140+ targets with the cannon-armed quarterback instead of the touchdown and matchup-reliant Dez. At Demaryius’ ADP in the 3rd round he is an absolute steal.
Who will you be drafting, Demaryius Thomas or Dez Bryant? Let us know.
