DeVante Parker is One of The Best Values in Fantasy Football

I was one of the biggest DeVante Parker haters out there for the four seasons everyone expected a breakout, but last year was a genuinely impressive campaign. Going into 2020 drafts, I fully expected to see him in the Kenny Golladay, Cooper Kupp and Amari Cooper area of the draft. Turns out the breakout wasn’t taken as seriously by most fantasy drafters as it was by me. I will be snagging Parker in most of my drafts this season if his ADP doesn’t rise significantly because the discount is beautiful. Let’s take a look at his year in review, and what to expect going forward:

Consistency is Key 

A crucial aspect of a breakout campaign is whether or not the end of year statistics were somehow skewed by a few big games. This is a common trap with running backs and quarterbacks that can make their season appear a lot more impressive than it was. Someone you draft to play every week needs to give you that consistency every week, not give you heart palpitations with their sink or swim tendencies. 

The Footballers bless us with one of my favorite tools in any draft platform in their UDK every year: The Consistency Charts. What these charts do is show just how often a player finished as an RB1, WR1, QB1, etc. You can even see how often they finished as a WR1 or a WR2, which is a much cleaner look at what you want from a startable wide receiver since this is the threshold for standard lineups in most formats. When examining this area of their charts, you’ll see that Parker finished as a WR1 or WR2 more times than anyone except Devante Adams, Michael Thomas, and Deandre Hopkins. These are the clear-cut top tier receivers in every draft, and Parker was right behind them all season long. This is not something that can be skewed, it can only be a product of consistent targets, a high catch rate, and production each and every week. The floor matters just as much as the ceiling with top tier receivers, so let’s go there next:

The Roof, The Roof 

This section will be quick. Parker finished as a WR1 37.5% of the time, which was good enough for 6th in the NFL. He was a bona fide top seven receiver in fantasy last season, and there aren’t any holes to poke in the performance. If you’re passing on Parker, the only explanation is lingering anger from his first few years. He was the WR7 in 2019 while maintaining consistency at every turn. 

What to Expect for 2020

The Dolphins offense was a bit of a ‘throw it deep and hope for the best’ offense last season, but Fitzpatrick will likely be behind center again in 2020. First-round pick Tua Tagovailoa was already projected to start the season on the bench, and the lack of preseason action doesn’t help those prospects. Fitzpatrick will be the quarterback in Miami for the foreseeable future, and that’s great for Devante Parker. He developed some obvious chemistry with Fitz, as he targeted him 128 times over sixteen weeks and found him in the end zone 9 times. 

The rest of the offense provides very little competition to Parker, with Mike Gesicki and Preston Williams being the only real threats to his 21.4% target share, and they were both already in Miami in 2019. All signs point to go-time for Parker again in 2020, but his ADP indicates there’s a lot of question marks, when in reality I can’t find one worth concerning ourselves over. He’s going off the board at the very end of the 6th round, while players like Golladay, Kupp, and Cooper are being selected in the top four rounds. Parker scored more fantasy points, notched higher consistency ratings, and has complete continuity in his offense assuming Fitz starts. This is a no brainer in my opinion. I STRONGLY urge you to draft Devante Parker at cost and don’t even think about looking back.