Week 7 Fantasy Football Market Share Report: Amari Cooper Provides Dilemmas

Receiving Market Shares

1. Josh Doctson Gets His Opportunity

We've been waiting all year for a fantasy-relevant wide receiver to emerge from Washington's offense. Nothing has happened. But it looks like Josh Doctson will get the next crack at it.

Prior to Week 7, Docton's snap rate had never been above 52.9%, and he had maxed out at three targets. He surpassed both of those on Monday night.

Now, the quick rebuttal here is that Doctson still finished with just 5 of 40 targets, making his inclusion in a piece about market shares a tad puzzling. We do need to note Doctson, though, for a couple of reasons.

First, any wide receiver getting significant snaps in Washington's offense is noteworthy. Kirk Cousins has been an efficient passer the past few years, and efficient passers generate more touchdown drives. That gives Doctson a good amount of upside.

Second, Doctson has already shown earlier this year what he can do on limited snaps. Of his 14 targets, 4 have been at least 16 yards downfield, and he's hauled in two of those for 72 yards and a touchdown. Terrelle Pryor has three more deep targets than Doctson, the same number of catches, and 16 fewer yards. Doctson also already has more red-zone targets than Pryor with four, meaning he could be featured in high-leverage situations. That has plenty of value for fantasy, even if it does come with some high variance.

Third, this clearly means Pryor is on the outside looking in, at least for the time being. He played just 30 snaps Monday night, though 29 of those came in the second half. This could mean Pryor's role bounces back a bit next week, but for now, he's clearly not usable in any format.

Doctson's a guy you need to add if you can in season-long, and going forward, he's a worthwhile dart-throw in tournaments. He's $5,200 in Week 8 against a Dallas Cowboys secondary that has allowed plenty of yardage through the air this year. It might not be bad to give him a crank to see if he can bust out another one of those big plays that earned him this increased role.

2. Amari Cooper Goes Bonkers

Getting 19 targets ain't no joke, y'all. Amari Cooper's big night Thursday was just the second time someone hit 19 targets this year and the fourth since the start of 2016. So we can't ignore it. But it certainly does make our thoughts on him going forward quite complicated.

With that game included, Cooper's target market share this year is 25.3%, which certainly isn't a bad number. It's just masking the big issues that cropped up in Weeks 2 through 6.

From an aggregate total perspective, Cooper has 58 targets this year. Of those, 32 (55.2%) came in either Week 1 or Week 7. He had just 26 targets over a five-game stretch, which is an absolutely brutal mark. But when he goes from that to popping off for 210 yards and 2 touchdowns, how are we supposed to handle him in the future?

It's likely back to the same way that we handled him last year, which was with much care and caution. He is going to have big games because he's a young talent with a presence down the field and a good quarterback. But the duds aren't going to just flitter away. He has just two red-zone targets the past six games after getting four in Week 1 alone. Touchdowns will still have to be of the big-play variety, and it's hard to count on those every week.

If the Oakland Raiders are facing a secondary with a talented cornerback who will be on Cooper a chunk of the night, it is likely wise to look elsewhere in DFS. That wasn't the case in either of the games where Cooper saw big usage this year. But if the secondary is weak, it seems as if we can go back to plugging Cooper in and banking on the upside.

3. Adam Thielen Is Going to Blow Up Eventually

Based on FanDuel's scoring rules, Adam Thielen is the 15th-ranked fantasy wide receiver this year. There's nothing spectacular about that; it's very good, but he's not Antonio Brown or anything.

Thielen, though, has done this without the benefit of a single touchdown. That's not going to last forever, and it means he may somehow still be a tad underrated.

With Thielen, we have to view him in two separate segments: with Stefon Diggs and without him. Diggs is dealing with a groin injury that has held him out the past two games, and Thielen has been a monster in that time. He has 37.9% of the team's overall targets, which would be the highest mark in the league if it were for the full season. He's a volume machine when he's the lone ranger.

But even when you include the games where Diggs was healthy, Thielen looks like a top-shelf fantasy asset. For the full season, he has 28.4% of the team's targets, 40.7% of their targets at least 16 yards downfield, and 23.8% of the red-zone targets. He hasn't hit paydirt yet, but touchdown regression will be kind to him quite soon.

Between a Week 8 game in London, a Week 9 bye, and Diggs' eventual return, it may seem like you don't want to buy Thielen at the moment. But you absolutely do. He's bound to find the end zone soon, and the Vikings' schedule after their bye is far from daunting. He's a player to target in season-long leagues, and for $6,700 on FanDuel, he needs to be on your radar for the Thursday through Monday slate, as well.

4. Michael Thomas' Upside Is Increasing

All throughout last year, Michael Thomas was consistent. He scored at least seven FanDuel points in 13 of 15 games, and he hit double digits nine times. You'll take that floor all day. But he also was lacking the deep targets he needed to unlock any sort of other-worldly, single-game upside.

That is no longer missing from his portfolio.

In Sunday's game against the Green Bay Packers, Thomas had four targets that were at least 16 yards downfield. That pushes his season-long deep target market share up to 30.6%, which is tops on the team. He's even ahead of Ted Ginn Jr., whose specialty is supposed to be exactly that. This is pretty huge for Thomas, who had just 20.0% of the deep looks last year.

Overall, Thomas has 24.7% of the New Orleans Saints' targets, which carries plenty of weight in an offense led by Drew Brees. The Saints have already had their bye, and they're at home for three of their next four games. Thomas could be on the verge of a scoring binge, and his new-found upside means we should be buying in both DFS and season-long.