2016 Fantasy Report Card: Allen Robinson

FLUSH…. 

You hear that noise? It’s the sound of fantasy owners’ dreams that went down the toilet after spending a 1st round pick on a couple supposedly elite WRs from 2015. Whether you jumped all in on DeAndre Hopkins, Brandon Marshall or Allen Robinson, you have to be standing at the finish line of 2016 with poop-stained pants.

But before we overreact and remember Robinson’s 2016 campaign for the utter failure we might think it was, we’re going to take a focused look at ARob’s fantasy season to hand out his Report Card for 2016.

Check out some of our other recent Report Cards such as Matthew Stafford.

2016: Season Review

Going into the 2016 draft season, Robinson was routinely selected as a late 1st to early 2nd round pick. In PPR leagues, he was usually the 5th or 6th WR off the board according to FantasyFootballCalculator.com. Count me among those smitten with the young, talented pass-catcher envisioning a locked-and-loaded WR1 with some enormous boom potential to win weeks for me. In a PPR league, I figured I would cruise to at least a top 10 season for the 3rd year pro.

The first week of the season was a bit of a tease as the Jaguars gave the Packers everything they could handle before falling short 27-23. Robinson had a healthy 15 targets, which actually led all pass-catchers in the NFL for Week 1, and looked to build on that the rest of the season as “the Target Monster”. Robinson had a 2 TD game in Week 3 against Baltimore which definitely got fantasy owners thinking he could return to form.

However, for most of the season, the Jaguars and Blake Bortles were utterly impossible to trust. Even in garbage time situations, Robinson was not targeted deep, something they excelled at in 2015. Besides a 3 week stretch in the middle of the season in which he caught a TD in every contest, there were some absolute stinkers involved. From Week 9 on, Robinson was WR28 in standard and WR22 in PPR. Those aren’t exactly top shelf numbers from someone whose 2015 was dominant in every sense of the word.

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As we compare 2015 to 2016, here are some interesting factoids:

• The discrepancy in yardage is the eye-popper as ARob’s targets and catches stayed relatively similar. But losing 517 yards was an absolute killer. Robinson actually surpassed 80 yards only 3 times all season compared to 9 times in 2015.

• Robinson registered only 3 top 10 PPR weeks for the entire season in 2016. Despite all the hoopla, he still only had 4 in 2015.

• He scored double-digit standard fantasy points in only 5 of contests from 2016 compared to 12 games in 2015 including a 11 of his final 12 to end the season.

• In 2016, he placed 70th among WRs in yards per catch, the same total as Miami slot receiver Jarvis Landry. Robinson placed 1st among WRs with at least 51 catches in 2015 at 17.5 ypc.

• After having the longest reception (90 yards) of the year in 2015, ARob’s longest “bomb” was only 42 yards in 2016. In other words, Bortles simply wasn’t targeting Robinson down-the-field.

For those that drafted Robinson, it was an utter disappointment. You had to invest a valuable pick for a player that rarely turned in WR1-type numbers. You also probably felt “pot-committed” to the player regrettably starting him every week with the hopes of a major boom game coming. Robinson was likely a candidate to be traded early in hopes of getting something in return or cashing in on a buy-low opportunity. No matter how you spin in, he simply went from being a fantasy league-winner in 2015 to a fantasy league-killer in 2016. From where you had to draft him, he was on the short list for most disappointing players.

2016 FINAL GRADE: D-

For 2017, Robinson will definitely drop further in the WR rankings. He has plummeted to the beginning of 4th round in standard mocks and mid-3rd in PPR according to FantasyFootballCalculator.com. He’s the 15th WR off the board among the likes of Julian Edelman, Sammy Watkins, and just behind Brandin Cooks.  If he continues to stay at his current price, Robinson would be an asset as a 2nd WR in PPR leagues and someone I wouldn’t mind targeting once again. The upside is immense.

The question owners must ask themselves this offseason is “Who is the real Allen Robinson?” Is he the All-Pro down-the-field threat? Was he a one-year wonder? Or is he simply a victim of putrid QB play at the hands of Blake Bortles?