The Top 100 highlights
My second selection for the Top 100 highlight series from the 90-81 group is
Doug Baldwin
After clearly establishing himself as the number 1 Wide Receiver in Seattle in 2015. Baldwin didn’t have the kind of season Fantasy owners were hoping for last year. By no means was it an off year for Baldwin. He still had a career best 94 receptions, and 1128 receiving yards. So how was that a let down to his Fantasy Football owners? What I failed to mention was that he scored half as many touchdowns as he did in 2015. A decrease from 14 touchdowns to 7. That’s 42 Fantasy points in most formats, for those of you that are keeping track. Imagine a full roster of players that lost 42 points worth of touchdowns from the previous season. Chances are you wouldn’t even be sniffing the playoffs.
Doug Baldwin’s lack of touchdown production wasn’t all his fault. For most of the season Russell Wilson wasn’t playing at 100%. After slowly increasing Wilson’s pass production year after year, and giving him the go ahead to throw the deep ball. Seattle chose to reign him in a little last year to protect their franchise quarterback. If it wasn’t for their lack of a quality running game. Seattle would have probably dialed the passing game back even more. So even though Wilson actually threw quite a lot of passes. The majority of those were short to intermediate length routes. That’s why Baldwin despite having a career year in receptions, didn’t find the end zone nearly as often.
Am I expecting a further decline this season? No I am not. The opposite actually. This could very well be the year that Baldwin is considered among the elite Wide Receivers in the NFL. What I am actually expecting is a mixture of his 2015 & 2016 seasons. A stat line of something like 95 catches for 1100 yards, and 11 touchdowns is highly probable. I believe that he could actually exceed those numbers. It will depend on the production of recently acquired Running Back Eddy Lacy though.
Without question Doug Baldwin is a WR1. I would draft him over Fantasy favourites like DeAndre Hopkins, T.Y. Hilton, and Demaryius Thomas. With a healthy Russell Wilson back in the huddle. Look for Doug Baldwin to find lots of room on the outside, and down field. Another year in the Seattle Seahawks system has Jimmy Graham keeping defences honest so Baldwin won’t have to face too many double coverages.