In his rookie season with the Atlanta Falcons, Calvin Ridley posted an excellent season, catching 64 passes on 92 targets for 821 yards and ten touchdowns. In fact, Ridley became just the seventh wide receiver to record at least 800 receiving yards and ten touchdowns in his rookie season since 1970. The other six were Sammy White (1976), John Jefferson (1978), Randy Moss (1998), Mike Williams (2010), Odell Beckham (2014) and Mike Evans (2014). Ridley not only entered a great situation with Julio Jones dominating attention from opposing secondaries, but Ridley has the privilege to play with a reliable and fantasy-productive quarterback in Matt Ryan . Jones will get plenty of targets in this offense, but there’s enough for Ridley, due to the nature of the Atlanta passing attack. In a half-point per reception league, Ridley was the WR19 in fantasy football last season, and if he can continue to push for more targets, some his peripheral statistics measure up with a reliable, top-end WR2.

Take a look at the chart below, and see if you can identify the players listed. Two of them are consensus WR1’s, and the other is Atlanta’s Ridley.

 

Fantasy Points per Snap

Fantasy Points per Touch

Yards per Reception

Player A

0.29

2.45

12.49

Player B

0.26

2.41

13.67

Player C

0.27

2.56

12.83

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Player A is Davante Adams , the WR1 or WR2 in fantasy football this season, depending on your rankings.

Player B is DeAndre Hopkins , the WR1 or WR2 in fantasy football this season, depending on your rankings.

Player C is Ridley.

Some of these peripheral statistics are not far off from some of the game’s elite receivers. He won’t see the volume they do, just due to having Jones in town, but with an expected workload for Ridley this season, he can take that leap into the next tier of receivers in fantasy football. He did have eight drops last year, which was tied with a few players for third-most in the league. In a perfect world, each of those eight would have been for his season average of 12.83 yards, and if he catches five of those balls at 12.83 yards a clip, we have another 6.4 fantasy points to add to his total, which would have bumped him up from WR19 to WR17, and less than half of a point from WR16.

Matt Ryan threw the ball more in 2018 than he had in recent seasons, so there has to be regression with this number, right? Not necessarily. Dirk Koetter is back in Atlanta as the Offensive Coordinator, a role he previously held from 2012-2014. In those three seasons, Ryan averaged 631 attempts per season. Even with what figures to be a better running game than Atlanta had those seasons, Ryan very well could get to that number this year. Furthermore, Ridley received 15-percent of the team’s target share last year, per Lineups.com, and was actually out-targeted by Mohamed Sanu . That won’t happen this season, and Ridley should push for a target share closer to 18-percent. If we give Ryan 631 attempts in 2019, and with an improved offensive line, that gives Ridley 113.6 targets on the season. Check please!

Through the first six games of the year, he averaged just 4.8 targets per game, and had two games where he saw three or less targets. Over the final ten games, he received at least four targets in every game, and his per game average bumped up to 6.3 targets per game. As he grew more comfortable and got more acclimated within the offense, his role grew, and that is an encouraging factor moving into 2019. The pace he was on over the last ten games of the season comes out to a workload of 100+ targets over a full 16-game season. Our earlier mathematical calculations led us to around 113, yet another sign that Ridley is line for a 100+ target season.

Atlanta’s divisional foes didn’t add any substantial impact pieces to the secondary this year, and the Ryan-to-Ridley connection feasted on these teams last year. In six games against NFC South opponents, Ridley caught 30 passes on 39 targets for 472 yards and seven touchdowns! This is a fantasy friendly division for offenses, and should play that way again this season, which favors Ridley’s 2019 statistical output.

Ridley scored ten touchdowns last season, but he saw just eight targets in the red zone all season, per Pro Football Reference. Jones’ red zone woes are well-documented as well, but back under Koetter, Ryan should actually use his best offensive weapons more frequently. Ridley may not get back to ten touchdowns in his sophomore season, but the touchdown regression shouldn’t be substantial.

Our projections here on the site are pretty close to our overall calculations earlier, with Ridley catching 69 balls on 103 targets for 931 yards and 6.3 touchdowns, ending the year as the WR21. Believe it or not, that’s a pretty safe floor for Ridley in 2019 and he’s the perfect combination of stability and upside for your WR2 or WR3.

Statistical Credits:
profootballfocus.com
pro-football-reference.com
lineups.com