Why do you hate D.J. Moore?

I'm so behind on content but you guys keep asking great questions

I’m just going to jump into this without an intro. You know what a mailbag is, and this is sort of that, but it’s really just a couple minor things surrounding a D.J. Moore sandwich where three people have asked good questions about him lately, and I just let the fingers fly on him a little bit.

Let’s start with an FAQ, though, which I’ve also been asked about my best ball rank update speed, etc.

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Rankings updates, types

Thanks Ben, this is great. As we get closer to the start of the season will you be posting approximate auction values for drafts?

No, I won't. I've typically only done one rankings list; decided to add the second this year, but the reality is there are a ton of different league types and parameters that influence that stuff, and I can't keep multiple different valuation systems updated to the level I want to. My philosophy has always been to do one set of rankings really well, and then through my content explain the values, tiers, and adjustments I'd make strategically to all different types of leagues. I can't catch the fish for every sub for their specific leagues; I need to teach you guys to fish. It's the only practical method.

(Truly hope this doesn’t come across snarky. I mean it very genuinely. It’s the best way I can help the most people, but it does require a little proactive adjusting from you guys for your own league types.)

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D.J. Moore

One other question/comment is I am working on how I'd rank guys in that range this year and am getting a bit stuck on diggs, metcalf, and dj moore (and also cooper). I notice you are much lower on moore and cooper and wondering if you could provide some more color on that, or prehaps point me to something you may have already written.

Here’s another one, from a different commenter.

Ben I’ve been contemplating this— What do you think the chances are that the Fantasy community is overthinking DJ Moore this season? He was mega efficient in a much worse situation last year, with a decent TD rate. He’s locked into 2 WR sets, and is attached to who we think will be a real difference maker at QB. I feel like he could hurt those who didn’t have him at ADP.

I don’t think the “fantasy community” is doing anything other than massively overvaluing D.J. Moore, so this is more a “are you ignoring D.J. Moore too much?” question.

This idea that he could hurt those who didn’t have him at ADP assumes all ADPs are efficient, and while I absolutely see the excitement for Moore, his ADP is straight up inefficient. Let’s get to this last recent Moore question before I talk about why.

Hey Ben - appreciate all the content you've been pushing out. Still getting caught up on everything!

I wanted to get your thoughts on your ranking difference between Stefon Diggs and D.J. Moore. I think both guys tend to go in the same range on Underdog, but you have Diggs two tiers and 9 spots ahead of Moore. I obviously don't want to overreact to a couple preseason week 1 plays, but seeing Caleb look good and Moore get a few targets has gotten me thinking about his upside in this offense, and I've found it interesting comparing the Texans and Bears situations, both of which we see as having 3 strong receiver options that creates uncertainty for targets.

I know your optimism for Diggs is tied to your overall optimism for Stroud and the Texans passing attack, and I get that you're being a little more conservative with the Bears passing attack given Caleb is a rookie. That said, even though Diggs had the really strong TPRR numbers last year, he had a really rough second half of the year and gets traded away by the Bills in the offseason. Matt Harmon also said that Diggs' success numbers were down throughout all of last season and he expects him to play the majority of his routes in the slot in 3-WR sets. Turning 31 this year, to me, this sounds more like a similar profile to Keenan Allen, who's 32 and has had historically strong TPRR, but Harmon also mentioned saw a slight drop off last year in his success numbers, and the target dominance was likely due to limited target competition (which you could argue was somewhat similar for Diggs). Keeping the comparison going, you could argue Dell and Odunze are the explosive #3 guys who may start the season subbing off in 2-WR sets. Which leaves Nico Collins and Moore as the guys we expect to be the team's #1. Maybe you're more confident that Nico is that guy for the Texans than you are that Moore is that guy for the Bears, but I thought it was interesting to compare the offenses this way and it got me more excited about Moore, especially when we're willing to bet on Nico in the 2nd round. Obviously, the Texans optimism means that you're taking the Texans option over the respective Bears option (Nico>DJ, Diggs>Keenan, Tank>Rome), but thinking about Moore as the potential 1a in his prime vs. Diggs as the older #2 who's shown some signs of taking a step back, I might prefer Moore straight up over Diggs, so I'm not sure I agree with the 2-tier gap.

Hopefully I explained that well enough. Would love to get your thoughts. Appreciate all the hard work!

I started to write a response to this final question, and it was a big reason I wanted to launch this Q&A, because D.J. Moore is a very popular question right now. Some of my response will start with this specific Texans vs. Bears comparison.

The biggest answer to the specific comparison is that I don't really like these types of comparisons, which I often refer to as "pattern matching." There's so much nuance to each of these players, to the team-level data, and more.

So while I absolutely understand where this commenter is at and how he/she is approaching it, I almost can't have the discussion of the two offenses as a one for one, because in reality I reject the premise. Here are some of the reasons why.

• Caleb is not Stroud, at least not yet.

• Even if he proves to be that good, his Year 1 pass volume will likely be a little lower than Stroud's Year 2. Stroud's Year 1 featured some games with lower pass vol, because he was a rookie. A big part of the Texans' bet, as I've written, is about the Year 2 step forward.

• I can kinda buy the Diggs and Keenan elements, and even how Tank/Odunze fit in, but Nico had a year last year that is far better than DJM's best season (3.10 YPRR, DJM's career high is 2.31, and he was better than DJM's career high in all three of TPRR, wTPRR, and YPT).

• That part is super meaningful in terms of projecting DJM vs. Keenan for target-earning. I'll write more in Offseason Stealing Signals today, but Nico vs. Diggs is a legit "the young guy might just be better." DJM is younger than Keenan, but he's 27, and we have a good idea who he is. It's very good! But some of the Nico element, in addition to Stroud, is that he might be the next great young WR. It matters than he's 25 and just had an age-24 breakout season that crushed DJM's career-high year last year.

• This idea Keenan's target dominance was due to lack of competition fundamentally misunderstands who Keenan Allen is. This is a guy who stepped into college with a future NFL WR established two years older than him, and as a true freshman matched Marvin Jones (that future NFL WR), and then as a sophomore with Jones as a senior, he crushed him. Then as a rookie a couple years later, he matched Antonio Gates in Year 1. Then he showed over the course of a decade that in any situation, with multiple QBs, regardless of teammate strength, he earns huge volume.

• DJM by comparison, as I'll hit on today, is the one who has never had competition. Curtis Samuel for a stretch, and CMC operating in a different area of the field. But also years where his No. 2s were legit nobodies, and when Robbie Chosen was in his offense, Chosen actually out-targeted him. I truly love DJM, but people don't understand that his comparatively weak target-earning profile (relative to Keenan, Diggs, *or* Nico) includes TPRR boosting elements where really bad players were almost always running routes with him in a ton of his offenses (bad TEs like Ian Thomas, bad secondary WRs like Jarius Wright early, Terrace Marshall late). D.J. Moore's never competed for targets with multiple other high-level players, *and* his target-earning has capped at good-not-great levels (whereas Keenan and Nico and Diggs have thrived when given similar or even slightly better competition).

• Since the question was specifically about DJM vs. Diggs, here are Diggs’ past five wTPRR figures (working back): 0.69, 0.69, 0.65, 0.67, 0.64. Here are Moore’s: 0.59, 0.61, 0.64, 0.59, 0.59.

This is why my DJ Moore projection actually comes out meaningfully lower than where I have him ranked. These are the nuances of the specific players that make it so this comparison falls apart, in addition to my belief the Texans' pass production could get to really elite levels in a lot of outcomes, while I think the Bears' could too but it's like half or a third as likely (we're talking elite outcomes here, but say maybe the Texans absolutely smash pass production in 8-10% of outcomes and the Bears do in 5% or less, as an example of how I'm trying to articulate that).

More to come in other content so keep an eye out if you have other thoughts. Truly loved this question, and I absolutely do want to have some D.J. Moore. Keep pushing him up higher than I can justify in my projections or this type of analysis, literally buying into nonsense like the Keenan weight stuff so I can tell myself there’s more contingent upside than I’m giving him credit for.

I do think Moore will be a “small miss” player because I think he’s so good. Can't overstate that. But I want combinations of solid projection at cost and league-winning ceiling cases where he goes, and I just have really struggled to see it. The Diggs stuff is so, so easy to see, and I’ll throw in that these guys play indoors at home coming off a bye in Week 15 and then again in Week 17, with the Week 16 game an obvious shootout in Kansas City, and that the Bears’ playoff schedule features back-to-back outdoor home games in Chicago around Christmas.

I truly think with Moore that a big part of it is people (like me) were arguing he couldn’t hit at cost last year, and he still did some amazing things, and so people are ignoring the analysts that are like, “We’re doing it again,” because they think he can walk on water. But even that overstates his production last year! He had the biggest game of the year and was still WR9 in PPR. Some of that is because his QB was out for a while and the QB play got bad, but that was only four games, and he was really pretty poor for fantasy in about half his games last year, because he kind of does that. He kind of disappears at times, and I fear he will more with more competition. Keenan never disappears, that’s what his career of target-earning shows. You do have to reckon with how D.J. Moore last year was 50 PPR points clear of any other year in his career, and he has way more target competition this year than any other year. Maybe that was just a late breakout and this is who he is now! Feels a little like a stretch though given that 50-point gap was one blowup game and his scoring distribution otherwise looked like the rest of his career. I don’t know, man.

I’m honestly sick of being “too low” on Moore relative to ADP because I truly love his game so you guys have successfully bullied me into moving him back into the Diggs tier, but the reason I had him so low is I had him with Keenan, because I think a healthy Keenan Allen out-targets him in about 75% of seasons they play together, even at an advanced age, and that Moore will be more efficient but not so much so that it bridges that gap and means that where I have him relative to Keenan now (two tiers up from Keenan), suddenly makes sense. Unless Keenan hits the age cliff this year. Maybe he will! He didn’t last year. (The stuff about his play taking a bit of a dip last year is reasonable, but it’s relative to his own lofty baselines, and good data on players like him has shown these guys might age a bit but they mostly maintain their skills until it all goes at once, and we definitely weren’t there yet. And even if we are, that just means Moore has to content with a top-10 WR pick who could frankly quickly ascend to heights above what Moore has been. Oh, and that Gerald Everett stuff? That’s not just a Cole Kmet problem. This idea Moore is “locked into” two-WR sets that one of the commenters mentioned isn’t how I’d think of it. I do believe he’s going to play in more two-WR sets than the other two WRs, but you get a logjam for routes and yeah, Moore will come off for some of those if he has even a minor injury or whatever. And then people will say, “He was hurt!” But it matters that they are so deep that if Moore has a minor contusion his routes might dip to 60% that week. It specifically matters for a guy who has never put up a TPRR within two percentage points of what Keenan Allen did last year, at age-31. It’s more nuanced than “locked in.”)

These are the reasons, as I alluded to, I project Allen for more targets, and that Moore as a result came out at like a Round 5 valuation in my projections, around that Jayden Reed, Terry McLaurin, Michael Pittman, George Pickens, Christian Kirk, Chris Godwin group. Ask yourself: Do you really think it’s crazy to have D.J. Moore in that group? Why is it that he can’t be in that group? It’s mostly because of ADP, which had him at the Round 2/3 turn before the Keenan trade or the Odunze pick, and then he’s fallen a half round all offseason since, and he just remains locked into Round 3, where yeah, you coulda definitely got me on him there even with the questions about his profile, but only if he hadn’t added the two most significant downfield target threats he’s ever had in an offense, in the same offseason.

I’m not saying D.J. Moore sucks — I think some of those WRs he projects around are super good! You do have target questions, whether it be due to teammates or team pass volume, for all of them. Putting D.J. Moore right behind D.K. Metcalf, as I just did in my rankings, implies he’s going to get force fed volume as a pretty clear No. 1. That’s just not consistent with anything, two-WR alignments be damned. I’m not saying it can’t happen; I’m saying there are minor differences across these WR tiers (no big tier break) and we’re acting like ranking Moore lower than market value is some massive mistake. And I’m sure he’ll have his spike games again, because he’s really good! So I’m explaining that taking an age-27 WR here, who has this competition and has done what he has done through his career, is the leap of faith, not ranking him lower. Putting Diggs where I did is because of his track record of volume, which gets at stuff like me being super confident he’d get his if Nico were to miss time. I just done saying I’m not super confident Moore would get to the same consistent target-earning over Odunze if Keenan were to miss time. I think he probably would, but there are gradients to these things.

All of this is an incredible thought experiment and felt like a good time to get into some deeper concepts. I did take Moore with Erik Beimfohr on yesterday’s YouTube stream (subscribe to the channel please!), and my most frequent response when a co-manager says “I think Moore’s the pick here” is to just say “sounds good” and get some exposure to him. I really, really like him, and don’t want to go another season not having him because he’s going to do more cool stuff again this year. I still think he’s mispriced.

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A note on Kyren (h/t Imari)

Note on Kyren's usage in playoff game. He broke his hand that game.

This isn’t even a question, but I’d frankly just memory-holed this, and his playoff usage was legit confusing to me, so this is a great recent note in the comments from Imari. I recently referenced in Offseason Stealing Signals that Kyren Williams played less in the playoff game, but that was due to injury.

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I’ll be back later today with more Offseason Stealing Signals!