Everyday I will cover the fantasy relevance of each team in the NFL division by division. I start with the AFC East. Today’s team is the New York Jets. There’s a lot of questions regarding how affective this offense will be this coming season but here’s a preview of which players will likely make an impact and are worth owning in the fantasy football world this season.
Chris Johnson: Chris Johnson was finally let go by the Titans this offseason and he was quickly picked up by the Jets. Chris Johnson has struggled recently since his 2K-yard season. He’s been very inconsistent and hard to start in standard leagues because of that. Due to his price tag in the past he was usually considered a bust in fantasy football. Now he comes to a Jets team, which will probably continue to be run first under Rex Ryan. This comes to benefit Chris Johnson because he will likely get the majority of touches and it’s hard to find a workhorse back in the NFL nowadays with all the running backs by committee in the league. I can see Chris Johnson finishing in the Top-20 between RB’s in front of guys like Frank Gore and Reggie Bush. I’m not saying Chris Johnson is better than Gore or Bush but Johnson won’t have to share much time with another RB since his only competition is Chris Ivory who couldn’t even beat out Bilal Powell last season for the starting gig. While Gore will likely share time with rookie Carlos Hyde and Bush will share time with Joique Bell. Draft Chris Johnson with confidence as a low to mid end RB-2.
Eric Decker: After Chris Johnson the only other player worth owning is Eric Decker. If you want the top 10 WR Eric Decker well those days are long gone. I have him as strong WR-3 option or possibly a very low end WR-2. The reason I have him around the Top-30 range is because he is still a big WR with skill who is going to get a lot of targets. Look at Vincent Jackson last season, he had a very average QB throwing to him but he was thrown to so much he managed to get enough fantasy points to be relevant. Now why isn’t Decker higher you’re asking, well he’s going to a terrible offense and a lot of his fantasy points came from Touchdowns and I just don’t expect the Jets to have many offensive touchdowns. The Jets will likely have very low scoring boring games unless they’re being blown out. I would avoid Decker unless he drops late to you because there are many owners and analysts avoiding him like the plague in fantasy football. This year’s crop of WR is very deep there are other guys I’d rather invest in like Michael Floyd or Jeremy Maclin.
Notes: Since this Jets offense is limited offensively I thought I’d jot some notes down here about the other skill positions. I like Jace Amaro their rookie TE in very deep leagues or dynasty leagues based mostly on the amount of targets he will likely receive. I don’t like their QB situation because it’s hard to tell who will start and if Vick plays how long until he gets injured, if Geno plays how long until he’s benched for a 4-int game. There’s plenty of other QB’s so avoid this mess when drafting.