{"id":117497,"date":"2021-07-03T11:45:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-03T15:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=117497"},"modified":"2021-07-03T11:45:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T15:45:59","slug":"diontae-johnson-fantasy-football-outlook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2021\/07\/03\/diontae-johnson-fantasy-football-outlook\/","title":{"rendered":"Diontae Johnson Fantasy Football Outlook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/steelers\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> wide receiver Diontae Johnson is one of the most interesting players in fantasy football. Based on expected usage, the former third-round pick should have been one of the most successful players in the league last year. However, drops, injuries, and poor quarterback play limited his overall finish. With Ben Roethlisberger coming back for one more year, can the Toledo product put together a top-12 finish?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/profiles\/\" target=\"_self\"><em><strong>More Fantasy Football Player Profiles<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;5479&#8243;]<\/p>\n<h2>2021 Fantasy Football Outlook: Diontae Johnson<\/h2>\n<h4>2020 Recap<\/h4>\n<p>Diontae Johnson had a good-but-not-great sophomore season. Appearing in 15 games, the wide receiver finished the year with 88 receptions for 923 yards and seven touchdowns. This made him the WR21 in PPR leagues, although he easily could have had a much better finish.<\/p>\n<p>Over the offseason, I have built a model that predicts expected fantasy points based on air yards, red zone looks, and overall targets. According to my data, Diontae Johnson was the WR8 in expected fantasy points per game. Overall finishes can be a little misleading, as one or two big games can skew the average (see: Lockett, Tyler).<\/p>\n<p>Consistency matters, and there weren\u2019t many players more consistent than Johnson. By my calculations, Johnson was second in the league with 54% of games producing an expected WR1 finish. Keep in mind that this data is somewhat skewed against Johnson, as he left two games early to injury.<\/p>\n<p>While Johnson wasn\u2019t quite able to perform up to expectation, it wasn\u2019t due to a lack of talent. The wide receiver was one of the best in the league at getting open. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattHarmon_BYB\/status\/1407026120524918786?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to Reception Perception<\/a>, Johnson finished in the 95<sup>th<\/sup> percentile for success rate against man coverage and the 86<sup>th<\/sup> percentile for success rate against press. This shows that Johnson is a great wide receiver and has the talent to put up a better finish.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson\u2019s biggest issue last year was drops, but drops aren\u2019t that big of a deal in fantasy football. Surprisingly enough, Johnson\u2019s 18 drops since 2019 are tied with Tyreek Hill for third-most in the league. Drops are going to happen when you get targeted at a high rate, and it\u2019s no reason to fade a talented player.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Most drops since 2019 (including playoffs, PFF)<\/p>\n<p>D.K. Metcalf 20<br \/>Michael Gallup 20<br \/>Diontae Johnson 18<br \/>Tyreek Hill 18<br \/>Stefon Diggs 17<br \/>Mike Evans 16<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#39;t hold drops against DK, Gallup, Hill, Diggs and Evans in fantasy football land (you shouldn&#39;t), don&#39;t do so for Johnson<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ihartitz\/status\/1409568982017974278?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 28, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>2021 Projection<\/h4>\n<p>Johnson should have been great in 2020, and that success should come to some sort of fruition in 2021. Year-to-year consistency is key in fantasy football, as eliminating unknown variables makes it a lot easier to predict what will happen in any given season.<\/p>\n<p>The most important components to any passing attack are the quarterback, coaching staff, and offensive weapons. Ben Roethlisberger is back for (presumably) one last season, which means he should continue to target Johnson at a very high rate. Mike Tomlin is still the head coach, and the supporting cast of Chase Claypool and Juju Smith-Schuster are both back in 2021. Claypool will probably earn a larger target share in his second year, but everything else should be exactly as it was in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>This identical situation is both good and bad for Johnson. We know that Ben Roethlisberger loves to target Johnson, and there is no reason to expect that to change in 2021. However, Roethlisberger clearly isn\u2019t the player he once was and isn\u2019t capable of getting the ball to Johnson as efficiently as some other quarterbacks.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/DLPatsThoughts\/status\/1374674108160561152?s=20<\/p>\n<p>Roethlisberger\u2019s decline does put a ceiling on Johnson\u2019s potential, but the fact remains that volume alone should ensure a high finish. As of this posting, FantasyData.com currently has Johnson as the 22<sup>nd<\/sup> receiver off the board. This puts him right in the same range as guys like Kenny Golladay and Tyler Lockett, making Johnson one of the biggest values in fantasy football. The combination of volume and talent is rare to come across, and he should be an auto-pick in the fourth round. Look for Johnson to finish the year as a low-end WR1 or high-end WR2.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/profiles\/\" target=\"_self\"><em><strong>More Fantasy Football Player Profiles<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"h5cdAEQYT8dBEvNWoQY9nw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1294526657\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'h5cdAEQYT8dBEvNWoQY9nw',sig:'4iHY6yMC2PN4LF4q5Fbt9KoZlbUj41g7i-buS5bB8Bg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1294526657',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson should have been one of the best fantasy football weapons in the league last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":117500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[5702,294,349],"class_list":["post-117497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","tag-diontae-johnson","tag-fantasy-football","tag-fantasy-football-rankings"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}