Arizona Cardinals - Fantasy News

J.J. Nelson 2017 Fantasy Projections

by Adam Markowitz

8/11/17

NFL

Arizona Cardinals

J.J. Nelson

J.J. Nelson is a tiny, little blur. He's generously listed at 5-foot-10, but the man can scoot. He's averaged 19.3 yards per catch in his career, and the Arizona Cardinals are sure to try to exploit him a little more in his third season in the NFL.

Whether Nelson can carve out enough targets in this offense to be anything more than a gut shot boom or bust play on a week in, week out basis will determine whether he can evolve into a fantasy football superstar.

Why J.J. Nelson Will Be A 2017 Fantasy Football Stud

It isn't going to take a lot of targets to make Nelson a fantasy football stud in 2017. In his last five games of 2016, Nelson averaged 12.3 Dober Fantasy Points per game, and he only had a total of 14 receptions to get to that point.

What is most notable is that Nelson had a bunch of short catches underneath coverage on normal routes. He's showing that he's not just a straight-line receiver. If he can build a route tree in his repertoire, he'll have the ability to be on the field more often, thus making him a lot more dangerous. Any given catch could easily be an 80-yard touchdown when you have 4.2 40-yard dash speed, and the more opportunities for that, the better.

With Larry Fitzgerald getting up there in age, someone is going to have to step up and become quarterback Carson Palmer's top target. Nelson will never have the ability to go over the middle over and over again like Fitzgerald has done throughout his Hall of Fame career. But he won't have to if he continues to show breakaway speed through defenses.

Why J.J. Nelson Will Be A 2017 Fantasy Football Dud

There are plenty of concerns about Nelson as a consistent fantasy football performer. Though he isn't necessarily touchdown dependent, he is big-play dependent. He'll never be a guy who takes tremendous advantage of the half-point per reception in Dober scoring on a regular basis, and there will surely be games in which he flat out doesn't get the ball in his hands. Remember that Nelson had five consecutive games to start 2016 in which he either had no receptions or just one catch, and he only has one game in his career with more than five grabs.

The Cardinals averaged 366.8 yards and 26.1 points per game last season, but what are the odds Palmer can stay healthy this year? We already know this offense is absolutely worthless with backup Drew Stanton under center, and we can't imagine that Blaine Gabbert or Trevor Knight will end up being better options either.

Palmer has decayed over the course of these last three seasons, too. He was on a pace for 4,336 yards and 29 touchdowns against eight interceptions in 2014 before getting injured. Then he had 4,671 yards with 35 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 2015 before tossing 14 picks last season in 15 games. His yards per pass attempt dipped to 7.1 in 2016, lower than it's been in any year since he was quarterbacking the Bengals.

Things are delicate right now in the desert. Granted, this offense doesn't have to be top notch for Nelson to turn into a fantasy stud. But if the Cardinals take a big step backwards, he could end up suffering.

Nelson will have higher expectations this year than he did in 2016, and that could really work against him this year.