Fantasy football player profile: Antonio Brown

(As fantasy football dives headlong into draft season, some players warrant a little extra attention. All August, Dom Cintorino and Adam Pfeifer will do deep dives into some of the notable names. Follow along with our player profiles series. Today’s profile: Antonio Brown)

Fantasy football value 2021 – Antonio Brown

Antonio Brown is no longer the dominant wide receiver he was during his time in Pittsburgh. However, after some time away from football, Brown not-that-surprisingly reunited with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay in 2021. He appeared in eight regular season games for the Buccaneers, finishing with 45 catches on 62 targets for 483 yards and four touchdowns. In Weeks 9-17 (the weeks he was active), Brown was the WR21 in fantasy and tied with Mike Evans for the team lead in targets (62). If you include the playoffs, Brown averaged around seven targets per game over the course of the season, a rather healthy number.

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Despite Brown playing alongside Evans, Chris Godwin and Rob Gronkowski, the Buccaneers often manufactured touches for him, as 30.6% of his targets came off screens last season, the eighth-highest mark in football. Meanwhile, his 19 receptions off the play type were the third most among all wide receivers. Brown is going to remain very involved in this offense, as Tampa Bay ran three-wide sets 63% of the time last year, which was above the league average rate of 60%. And using the FTN Fantasy tplits tool, you can see that Brown was a pretty key part of the offense, regardless of the status of Evans or Godwin.

As you can see, Brown still averaged over five catches and seven targets per game with Evans and Godwin both in the lineup. And while Brown is more of a floor play at this stage of his career, he did show that he still has a ceiling in Week 17 against the Falcons. With Evans only playing 11 snaps before leaving with an injury, Brown finished the game with 11 catches on 15 targets for 138 yards and two touchdowns. He obviously has a tremendous rapport with Brady, and while some might be concerned that there are too many mouths to feed, if the Buccaneers throw the ball like they did a season ago, all three wideouts will produce. Tampa Bay averaged 38.2 pass attempts per game last year, good for the seventh-most in football and with Brady under center and Bruce Arians calling the plays, I’d be shocked if this team, despite its stellar defense, became anything close to a run-first unit. If you look at the FTN Fantasy weekly target share tracker for the Tampa Bay receivers, you’ll notice Brown led the team in that department quite often. 

There is an outside chance Brown finishes the season with more targets than Evans and/or Godwin based on his usage from a season ago. And sure, it is likely a small chance, but even if he doesn’t lead the team in targets, I truly won’t be shocked if the difference is miniscule. I will admit that if Tampa Bay’s offense remains healthy, Brown doesn’t have a massive ceiling. Like I stated, he was used in the screen game quite a bit but not nearly as much down the field. Brown’s average depth of target was just 8.69 yards, which was nearly a bottom-20 number among all wideouts, while he only saw three targets of 20 yards or more, tied for the 12th fewest in the NFL. This obviously makes him more appealing in full PPR formats, as Brown hauled in at least five passes in five of his eight regular season contests. However, don’t sleep on some potential in the touchdown department, as Brown saw five end zone targets to Evans’ eight since making his debut last year. Brown is a serviceable WR3 or flex option in 12-team PPR leagues but based off where he is going in drafts, he very well could be on benches of fantasy rosters, which presents tremendous upside. 

Fantasy Football ADP Stock Watch – Antonio Brown

According to FTN’s ADP tool, Brown is being drafted around the WR39-40 range, and while there are plenty of young and exciting receivers coming off the board ahead of him, Brown still needs to be on your radar at this point of the draft. It really comes down to roster construction, too. If your roster consists of players with a ton of upside but a fair amount of variance, selecting Brown in the ninth round makes a ton of sense, as he’ll present a very strong floor. Brown finished as a top-30 WR in PPR leagues in five of his eight regular season weeks.

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NFL Fantasy Football Ranking – Antonio Brown

If you look at FTN’s consensus PPR rankings, you’ll see that Brown comes in as the WR49. Clearly, I am higher on him than that, as he is my WR43. However, the wide receivers in that range are potentially very, very strong, so I can completely understand why someone would be lower on Brown, especially when receivers such as Michael Gallup, Marvin Jones, Darnell Mooney and Mike Williams are all in that range. And while you can make the argument that the aforementioned receivers all have a higher overall ceiling, Brown will present a very strong weekly floor, while I believe there will still be some ceiling weeks, too.