Diontae Johnson is simply one of thee most underrated players in fantasy football, and the NFL. Sure, you know he had some good games; but you might be reading this with your mind thinking about Diontae dropping pass after pass during that week 14 primetime game against Buffalo. If you are really skeptical, you might have the sudden urge to call him injury prone. But hey, that’s what I’m here for! I’m here to tell, show, implore, and maybe berate you a little bit on why Diontae should be your guy too.
The first thing that baffles me is that Diontae is the fantasy football WR25 in Underdog ADP, and the consensus WR21 in Fantasy Pros expert rankings. That is too low, and I don’t think he is being properly valued. But okay, I hear you. I’ll shut up, run on my hamster wheel and tell you why Diontae should be on your team.
Reason 1: His INSANE stretch to finish the season
Johnson did not have a super impressive start to the 2020 season. He played well in his first two weeks, but but a slew of injuries slowed his momentum down down. But from weeks 6-17, Diontae Johnson was the WR7 in half-PPR fantasy football leagues. Taking away week 6 where he missed a game because of a back sprain, and you find him at the WR6 in half-PPR from week 7-17. All the while competing with teammates JuJu Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool for targets.
Reason 2: Reception Perception
Diontae Johnson was amazing according to Matt Harmon’s Reception Perception. He finished in the 95th percentile among all WRs in beating man coverage since 2014, the 96th percentile while beating zone, and the 86th percentile beating press coverage. He also beat double teams 87% of the time and had an 81.3 percent contested catch rate.
What do all these numbers mean? They mean he is getting open at as high of a level as just about any wide receiver in the NFL since 2014. Getting open is the most important skill a receiver can have as it is the only one they can truly control – scheme, QB play, and coaching is not up to them.
Reason 3: Targets
Don’t forget the fact that he had 144 targets last year. He had at least 10+ targets in 10 of 13 ‘healthy’ games last year – which is exactly what you want to see. Imagine having any receiver going outside the top 20 that is getting at least 10 targets in 77% of their games. It’ll be hard to find many others going at that ADP.
Let’s take that one step further. 10/13 games he had 10+ targets, but three games he did not. Why you ask? One of the games was week 17 against the Browns, where Mason Rudolph started as Ben Roethlisberger was resting; Diontae ended with only four targets.
Another game was that infamous week 14 where he had four drops in the first half, and was subsequently benched. That resulted in him playing only 49% of the snaps, yet he still had seven targets. If he plays his normal snap share, he would have most likely hit 10 targets. The final game was against the Ravens (one of the toughest pass defenses in the league) and he had just three targets.
Reason 4: The Targets Will Not Go Down
For the people who believe in Najee Harris and that the Steelers will pass a lot less this year, I did not forget about you and I decided to do some digging.
The Steelers have finished among the top-2 in the NFL in pass attempts three of the last four years. The one exception to this is when Big Ben wen’t down with a season ending elbow injury in just week 2 of 2019.
Since 2013, the Steelers lowest average pass attempts per game in a season was 36.4. If you multiply that number by Diontae’s full-season target share (22.9%), it comes out to be 133.4 targets, at worst. Not a huge difference from his 2020 target share. That 22.9% also includes the three games where he played less than a quarter of the snaps showing that his target share is very safe.
Reason 5: The drops should go away
What about his issue with drops last year?
Diontae had double digit drops last year, but I’m not too concerned. Diontae was 16th in the NFL in true catch rate as a rookie, having three drops over the course of sixteen games. All of his drops are obviously not ideal, but I’m going to stick with the guy who was a top 7 WR from week 6 until the end of the season.
The other part worth mentioning is he did have a concussion last year. Concussions can affect your spatial awareness for a period of time which can lead to more drops by a player and Diontae with a full offseason to heal should be just fine.
Reason 6: Injuries are not a concern
I mentioned earlier how he had a concussion, back sprain, and a bye week all in succession. He suffered a concussion just nineteen snaps into week 3, came back for week 4, and sprained his back just eight snaps into that game.
The Steelers had a bye week in week 5, Johnson missed week 6 and then he went nuclear. He went on to play at least 75% of the snaps in 10 of his final 11 games only not reaching it during his game against Buffalo where he was benched. Diontae has played 31/32 possible games in his career so far and each small injury he did have has a small chance of reoccurring and he never had a true serious injury so far.
Reason 7: He is only getting better
The seventh and final reason says it all. Diontae Johnson is going into his 3rd season in the NFL. He made big improvements from year one to year two and there is no real reason why he can not be even better next year.
He has an elite target share, a good enough quarterback, a solid lineup to help open the field for him, and is an ascending player in every sense of the word. If you still don’t like Johnson, you might as well buy some oven mitts because he is going to burn you this year in fantasy football.
