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Why Calvin Ridley is a player you should absolutely buy high. Don’t listen to the narratives, don’t chalk it up to an outlier year. Make the right decision and get an emerging star on your team.
Why Calvin Ridley is a player you should absolutely buy high. Don’t listen to the narratives, don’t chalk it up to an outlier year. Make the right decision and get an emerging star on your team.
In the last 6 games w/o Julio active, Calvin Ridley totaled 45 catches for 674 yards & 3 TD’s against some very tough defenses in Chicago, Carolina, Chargers and Kansas City. That’s 7.5/112/0.5 on 11.3 targets per game. These splits are much better than those WITH Julio healthy.
If you extrapolate that average over a 16 game szn, you’d end up with 120/1,792/8. That would have Ridley raking in 180 tgts. Of course this type of workload isn’t attainable, but w/ an achievable 150 tgts, the #’s would become 110/1,588/7. Talk about elite.
Dating back to last year, Ridleys splits in the 3 games w/o Hooper were also better than those when Hooper was healthy. It seems the more opportunity Ridley is presented with, the more he excels. He just turned 26 less than 2 weeks ago. He’s entering his prime.
The narrative that “rIdLeY pLaYs WeLl Bc oF jUlIo” is lazily inspired by the decrease in production from lesser WR’s like Juju. Ridley’s ability to get separation is almost unmatched. Week in & week out, regardless of situation, he produces. This is the type of player you want.
Ridley leads the league in 100+ yd games with 8, and also leads the league in catches of 15+ yds with 39. He leads the league in air yds w/ 1,988. That’s 41.9% (!) of his teams air yards & 244 more yards than Tyreek Hill, who comes in at 2nd. Oh, & he’s got a nose for the endzone
Ridley also leads the league in deep Targets (passes w/ 20+ air yards) with 40 and is 2nd in the league in red zone targets with 20. Matt Ryan clearly trusts Ridley in important situations. When his target share increases even more post-Julio, so will his production.
He’s not JUST a big play guy. He excels in all areas of the field. He was top 7 in 1st downs, often was looked at to move the chains, giving him a nice fantasy floor & workload. He was highly efficient with his catches as he was top 5 in Y/R and top 10 in Y/Tgt.
Matt Ryan has been average at best over the last couple of years but he still has enough left in the tank to support an elite WR for at least a few years. ATL may draft a QB soon, which would likely be a good thing for Ridley. He doesn’t need great QB play to produce.
Calvin Ridley averages 15.83 PPR points per game for his career. That’s good enough for WR 15 on the year. His averaged jumped to 19.4 in 2020, trailing only Adams, Hill and Diggs in that area. It’s safe to say he will outperform his career average fairly easily moving forward.
He’s had a few ticky-tack injuries, but nothing major/concerning for his future. He’s got an average build, he will hold up. Besides, predicting injuries is always the wrong move. There’s no reason for concern, outside of the opposing DB’s ankles.
It’s time to cash in on an alpha WR entering his prime. Had an outstanding year & there’s no reason he won’t be able to do it again, or even exceed this szn’s production. Ridley is the Falcons’ future. Don’t sell high, buy high. Take advantage of that Julio narrative if you can.
Bonus fact: Davante Adams and Calvin Ridley have played the same amount of quarters this year. Adams only has 6 more receiving yards than Ridley, despite having 27 more receptions & playing with an MVP caliber QB. Also, I do have Ridley>McLaurin in fantasy. Extremely sad times.
Double bonus fact: Ridley is only the 7th player in NFL history to record 200+ receptions for 3,000+ yards and 26+ TD’s in the first 3 years, joining an elite group of players, in Jerry Rice, Randy Moss, AJ Green among others. & Yes I know the stat is oddly specific
