If the Tennessee Titans can reproduce their offensive success from a season ago in 2020, this team stands to have a good amount of fantasy football assets for this coming season.
In his initial top 300 fantasy football rankings for PPR (points-per-reception), ESPN’s Mike Clay has eight Titans making the list.
They are as follows (their projected positional ranking is in parenthesis):
13. RB Derrick Henry (RB6)
44. WR A.J. Brown (WR22)
123. QB Ryan Tannehill (QB16)
160. Darrynton Evans (RB54)
228. Corey Davis (WR84)
230. Adam Humphries (WR86)
246. Jonnu Smith (TE23)
298. Titans D/ST (DST21)
In my opinion, the top-four fantasy assets to own from the Titans in 2020 are Henry, Tannehill, Brown and Smith, in no particular order. Each should drafted, regardless of format.
Here’s where those four players ranked at their respective positions in 2019 based on total points scored in PPR, according to Fantasy Pros.
Tannehill (QB21)
Henry (RB5)
Brown (WR21)
Smith (TE20)
Now, let’s play a little game.
Since Brown and Tannehill really didn’t get going until Week 7 (when Tannehill took over as starter), let’s take their average fantasy points per game from that point on and stretch it out over a 16-game span to see where they might have ranked with a full season together.
Tannehill averaged 22.5 fantasy points per game from Week 7 on, while Brown averaged 12.6 in that span. Here’s a look at what their rankings would have been based on those numbers.
Tannehill (QB2)
Brown (WR6)
That’s pretty impressive, which just goes to show that there’s plenty of reasons to believe that not only could each of these players be ranked higher on Clay’s list, but both could also challenge for top five at their respective positions in 2020.
As for Henry, he’ll likely be right around the top five at his position. We know he’ll get plenty of carries, yards and goal line looks on the ground as the workhorse back on a run-heavy offense, but will he provide consistent production in the passing game?
That will be the difference from him being around the top five to the No. 1 overall running back in fantasy this season. Regardless, he’ll be an RB1 and should be one of the first handful of backs off the board in drafts.
Smith is the biggest wild card of my Titans top four. He has insane athleticism and can make big things happen in a variety of ways, but we’ve never seen him do it for an entire season.
The good news is he and Tannehill have been working together a lot this offseason, which will no doubt help their chemistry and possibly lead to Smith getting more consistent looks.
With all that said, Smith has the potential to be an absolute steal in the later rounds of drafts, as I’m not sure the fantasy world has really caught on to just how good he can be yet.
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