Fades

A thousand-yard season on 84 targets is a magic trick: twelve yards per target, the kind of efficiency that doesn't repeat, on the kind of target volume that does. The market is drafting the yards at WR25. My board prices the targets, and they say WR35. I'm not out on the player — I'm out at this price.

The special part went first: 727 receiving yards on 99 targets last year — barely ten a catch for a player whose whole game was yards after it — and the rushing package is down to 17 carries. Now he's 30, back in San Francisco on a one-year deal, and the market still wants a round-8 pick for the name. My board has him fifteen receiver spots later, and I'm not paying for the memory.

This one costs me something, because he's finished WR13 and WR11 back to back. But a round-5 price pays him AT that ceiling in his age-31 season, while the underlying volume drifts the wrong way: 135 targets down to 124, 1,081 yards down to 1,017. When the best realistic outcome is the price you paid, there's no upside left in the pick — I'd rather be a round late on a 31-year-old than a round early.