Will Adam Thielen Be A Top-10 WR?

The next team up in a series that will answer one important 4-EYED fantasy question from each of the 32 clubs in the NFL heading into the 2020 season is the Minnesota Vikings.

Coming off of a career year for the Vikings in 2018, the injury bug plagued Adam Thielen’s 2019 campaign limiting him to only 10 games played for 418 yards receiving on 48 targets and 6 TDs. During the 2020 offseason, the Vikings traded disgruntled wide receiver Stefon Diggs to the Buffalo Bills and selected Justin Jefferson out of LSU, the nation’s best slot wide receiver, in the NFL draft to help fill the void left by Diggs. The Vikings, also, named Super Bowl-winning coach Gary Kubiak as the offensive coordinator. Kubiak is known for calling offensive plays that favor a zone-running scheme with plenty of outside stretch running plays that help to set up the play-action passing game. In 2019, that style of offense helped produce one wide receiver on the Vikings (Diggs) who had over 1,000 yards receiving on close to 100 targets and 6 TDs. The real question that fans have going into 2020 from a fantasy perspective given all the changes going on in Minnesota is will Adam Thielen be a top 10 WR in 2020?

Reasons for Pessimism

Thielen’s production over the years has come from his ability to evade defenders by lining up in the slot position. During his career year in 2018, he was #2 in the NFL in slot targets among wide receivers, played 57.1% of the time in the slot, and had 7 of his 9 touchdowns come from playing in the slot, per Pro Football Focus. All of this information would normally give me reasons to be excited about his outlook in 2020 except for the fact with the departure of Stefon Diggs from Minnesota, Thielen is almost certainly going to be expected to take up that #1 role in this offense and line up out wide drawing number one cornerback coverage which would limit his upside. Furthermore, with the drafting of Justin Jefferson out of LSU, widely known from his collegiate career for his proficiency as slot wide receiver, Thielen’s limited ability to operate out of that position would certainly hamper any defensive mismatch he might have had. Add on top of the fact that Thielen has never been known to be a great yards after the catch receiver i.e. good at breaking away from tackles, therefore one has to wonder if the targets that he actually will receive will allow him to do anything impressive with them from a fantasy perspective week in and week out.

Reasons for Optimism

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before but VOLUME is KING in fantasy football. Meaning the more opportunities a skill position player has to make plays with the ball the more likely he is to turn that opportunity in productivity. In 2018, despite a majority of his work being done from the slot he still put up 661 yards on 69 targets and 2 TDs lining up out wide. Speaking of targets during that season he had a whopping 155 targets with a completion percentage of 72.9% which is uncanny, was WR5 in air yards per game which is nuts for a possession wide receiver, and ended the season as WR8 in fppg with 15.7.

Now, I know what you’re thinking in that what I just described was from 2018 under a different set of circumstances such as play-calling and personnel and therefore shouldn’t be used to hype up Thielen for the 2020 season, and you would be right. Therefore, let’s draw some parallels from 2018 to 2019.

In 2018, when targeted in games 7 times or more Thielen saw a fantasy output of 17.8 fppg. During his shortened 2019 season, when targeted 8 times or more he averaged 17.7 fantasy points in those games. Not only that, but when throwing to Adam Thielen, Kirk Cousins had a passer rating of 131.9 which was 3rd best in the NFL last year among QBs/WRs with at least 36 targets.

TRANSLATION: Good things happen when Thielen is targeted in the passing game

With everything that’s going on with COVID-19 and the rookie growing pains rookie Justin Jefferson is bound to deal with, are you telling me you don’t think Kirk Cousins won’t target his trusty WR early and often in the passing game?! Let’s remember just because he might see a decrease in yards on the season shouldn’t mean you should see a decrease in targets. He’s possession wide receiver who will likely be lined up all over the field to help maximize the efficiency of this passing game as a whole. As we’ve seen in the past the higher the number of targets the more he produces from a fantasy standpoint….i.e. Volume Is King!

Answering The Question

Will Adam Thielen be a  top 10 WR in 2020?

No, he won’t be. His lack of yards after the catch upside is what REALLY stands out for me when making this assessment. Furthermore, Thielen has never shown that he can shoulder the load of this passing game and given then draft capital investment the team spent on Jefferson’s talents as slot WR, even though he’s capable of more, it’s hard to image that Kubiak will stray away from the game plan of keeping Thielen lined up outside thus drawing DB1 coverage more often. That being said I will NOT be surprised if his target volume went up given his rapport with Cousins, but I would temper expectations from a fantasy point upside as he had in 2018.