Miami Dolphins receiver DeVante Parker is in a bit of an odd spot. He played through a quarterback change in 2020 and didn’t necessarily show as much chemistry with the new quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, as he did with the prior one. And the Dolphins followed up on that development by adding to premiere assets to the wide receiver room in Will Fuller (free agency) and Jaylen Waddle (the NFL draft).
And so now Parker, who is entering his 7th season in Miami and suddenly finds himself in the top-10 all-time in receiving production for the Dolphins, must reassert himself as a high-volume option in the Dolphins’ passing game. That will be easier said than done with Fuller and TE Mike Gesicki both in contract years and hungry for production and the prior chemistry between Tagovailoa and Waddle.
So what should we actually expect? Here are a handful of projected stat lines for DeVante Parker’s 2021 season courtesy of a number of the most popular fantasy services to help form expectations:
Yahoo! Fantasy
DeVante Parker – 119 targets, 74.5 receptions, 972 receiving yards, 7.4 receiving touchdowns
ESPN
DeVante Parker – 99 targets, 61 receptions, 743 receiving yards, 12.2 yards per reception, 4 receiving touchdowns
CBS Sports
DeVante Parker – 110 targets, 64 receptions, 880 receiving yards, 13.8 yards per reception, 7 receiving touchdowns
Interestingly enough, the receiving (and scoring) projections for Parker are all over the map. All three services agree that Parker is going to be a prominent piece of the puzzle — 99 targets is the perceived floor across all three services. But Yahoo! has Parker sniffing 1,000 yards for the second time in his career, whereas ESPN doesn’t seem to think that the chunk play production will be there and he’ll once again finish between 700 and 800 yards.
That’s been the “sweet spot” for Parker for his career to this point; he’s finished with over 700 yards three times in his career but only once exceeded 800 (1,202 in 2019). So while we’d like to think that Parker is due for a bounce back in 2021, the honest assessment of Parker’s skillset and career production seems to indicate that ESPN’s projection may be the most likely outcome for Parker — even with an extra game to play. After all, Parker has only played a full season once in six tries.