The best way to combat facing Peyton Manning in fantasy is to make an arbitrage play on his receivers. Peyton has helped make legends out of Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, but he’s also made fantasy sensations out of Blair White, Brandon Stokley, Austin Collie, and Jacob Tamme at points in his career. With Eric Decker moving on to play in New York, the Denver Broncos signed fifth year wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders from the Steelers to fill that void in the best offense in football.
Other Fantasy Free Agency news:
Fantasy Football: Ben Tate, Recency Bias and The Young Shanahan
Fantasy Football: Can Golden Tate Be Calvin Johnson’s Right Hand Man?
Fantasy Football: Rashad Jennings and the Fall of David Wilson
Fantasy Football: Donald Brown in San Diego
Fantasy Football: Josh McCown Isn’t Who You Think He Is
Fantasy Football: Hakeem Nicks Looks to Find 2010 Form
Fantasy Football: Eric Decker, The Jets, And The Infinite Sadness
Manning himself has thrown 92 touchdown passes over his two year window in Denver, 10 more than Drew Brees and 32 more than the third place gunslinger, Andy Dalton. Whoever the Broncos were going to bring in was sure to be a commodity in fantasy circles since Denver scored 30 plus points in 13 games last season and another 12 times in 2012.
What Type of Man is Manny Sanders?
Sanders is no stranger to pass heavy offenses after playing four years of college at Southern Methodist, with his final two years there under June Jones. At SMU, Sanders reeled in seven or more touchdowns in all four years and caught 98 passes in his senior season. After a strong combine performance coupled with his college production, Sanders was selected in the third round by the Steelers, ironically, five spots ahead of Decker.
Sanders has had wishy-washy production though thus far in Pittsburgh, catching 161 passes and 11 touchdowns in his first four seasons. Decker had 87 catches and 11 touchdowns last season, so Sanders has moderate sized shoes to fill. Probably the biggest misnomer about Sanders is that he’s a splash play player. While he does have some speed (he ran a 4.4 coming out of college), that hasn’t translated into him providing a big spark downfield. Checking in at Pro Football Focus, this is the damage Sanders did on throws that were 20 or more yards downfield during his run in the Steel City.
Emmanuel Sanders on Targets 20+ Yards
|
Year |
Targets |
Rec. |
TD |
|
2013 |
23 |
6 |
1 |
|
2012 |
15 |
5 |
0 |
|
2011 |
6 |
0 |
0 |
|
2010 |
11 |
4 |
0 |
Those results aren’t very flattering, as only one of his 11 scores has come from 30 yards or more in his career. Playing in Denver will surely open new opportunities, so let’s keep running parallels to Sanders and Decker in terms of deep ball usage.
Eric Decker on Targets 20+ Yards
|
Year |
Targets |
Rec. |
TD |
|
2013 |
25 |
15 |
5 |
|
2012 |
23 |
8 |
2 |
|
2011 |
27 |
7 |
5 |
|
2010 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
Decker has more deep ball touchdowns than Sanders has total touchdowns through four years. He also showed his big play ability in a season where he needed to elevate his stock, turning in five distance scores with Tim Tebow and Kyle Orton in 2011, something he’ll need to do again in 2014.
Red Zone
If Sanders hasn’t been providing splash plays, he’s surely been good short yardage, right?
Sanders in the Red Zone
|
Year |
Targets |
TD |
|
2013 |
16 |
5 |
|
2012 |
5 |
1 |
|
2011 |
6 |
2 |
|
2010 |
8 |
1 |
Believe it or not, his 2013 production inside the opposition’s twenty holds water going into 2014. Last year, the Broncos called 121 passes in the red zone including sacks. Do you know who called the second most passing plays (only nine fewer) in the red zone in 2013? The Steelers.
Now, Pittsburgh was far from as dominant and efficient than Denver and Manning, needing to call more plays because the ones they were running weren’t working. Denver and Manning were in the red zone more often than anyone else, and scored more than anyone else. Manning threw 40 red zone touchdowns in ’13 and has thrown 68 in his two seasons in Denver. That’s more red zone touchdown passes than any other quarterback has thrown total except for Brees over the past two seasons.
Decker was a huge part of that success because he was the most efficient red zone receiver the Broncos had. He converted 21 of 50 targets (42 percent) during that run with Peyton, compare that to the 13 of 41 that Demaryius Thomas converted and Decker’s strengths of being 30 pounds heavier and four inches taller than Sanders once again are impactful.
Schematically, Denver made Wes Welker into a red zone star last season, so volume and attachment to Manning will open new doors for Sanders in an area of weakness. If he can maintain converting even a quarter of his red zone targets, he should be in line for five or more scores in that area.
Should You Draft Him?
Of course. You’d like to have any receiver that comes along with Manning in fantasy. The problem is going to be the inflation that Manning will have on his stock on draft day. We could assume that Denver and Peyton will regress a touch on offense (they do also play the NFC West this season), but they’ve also made major additions to the defense. It would be a major upset in they weren’t among the top five teams in scoring offense regardless of the tougher schedule and not chasing any records.
Sanders is an extremely far cry from Decker, but should improve exponentially across the board on his reception and yardage totals from 2013 in Pittsburgh based on opportunity. I believe a 75/950/7 line is feasible, moving him into rock solid WR3 production. The issue will be monitoring where to pull the trigger because someone may jump the gun on him in hopes that he is inheriting all of Decker’s fantasy juice. If he’s being drafted as a WR2, then I will undoubtedly let another owner take him.
