Allen Robinson Fantasy Outlook 2022
In perhaps the wildest NFL offseason ever, WR Allen Robinson signing with the Rams almost feels buried in the headlines. Any other year, a signing of a skill position player with the name value of Robinson’s would be considered one of the biggest stories entering the new season.
While fantasy stars and disappointments can be hotly debated, there was no player more commonly described as the biggest fantasy bust of 2021 than Allen Robinson. A perennial low-end WR1/high-end WR2 who has made a career of overcoming atrocious quarterback play, Robinson was seen as a relatively safe asset who you would not have to worry about during the year. Even worse, as the year wore on he was seen as an ideal buy-low candidate who many fantasy managers acquired only to ride out a lost season.
Now there’s a reason for hope. It is amazing how heavily a single poor season can upend the perception of a player with such a successful track record spanning multiple years with multiple teams, but that’s where we are with Robinson. There is a lot of excitement around Robinson’s prospects with a quality quarterback and a high octane offense. With Robert Woods being traded to Tennessee, Robinson’s road to bounce back just as sharply as he fell off appears clearly paved.
The lingering question that remains with Allen Robinson is the free agent status of Odell Beckham Jr. However, after winning a championship and the team bringing on Robinson, Beckham has every incentive to test the market and find a new home where he is higher on the depth chart. Even if he does stay with the Rams, however, the torn ACL he suffered in the Super Bowl puts him on yet another long road to recovery. For purposes of this article, I will assume Beckham is a non-factor for Los Angeles in 2022.
The good news about forecasting Allen Robinson’s production in Los Angeles without Beckham is that we have a pretty good comp with Robert Woods’ production last year. Woods and Beckham did not overlap at all last year, as Woods played through Week 9 before suffering his torn ACL, and Beckham’s first game as a Ram was Week 10. Robinson has some similar strengths as Woods with his route running and separation. He may lack Woods’ quickness but makes up for it with a considerable size advantage to give him added value on contested catches and broken tackles. Projecting Robinson to play the Robert Woods role is a good place to start when forecasting his outlook.
Projected Opportunity
The first things I look at when evaluating a WR on a new team are his estimated snap share and target share…
Starting with snap share, this bodes VERY well for Robinson. The top two receivers in the entire league last year in snap share were Cooper Kupp (94%) and Robert Woods (93.7%). Sean McVay simply keeps his trusted weapons on the field all the time. Robinson was limited in Chicago last year with only an 81.7% snap share due to the Bears running heavier formations. We can safely assume that Robinson is going to be out there on nearly every play-barring injury.
Target share is a more nuanced analysis. There are 3 data points we can use to estimate Robinson’s potential share with the Rams. First, his target share in Chicago in his down year last season was 19.2%. Secondly, his target share average over the previous 3 years was considerably higher at 24.9% as the unquestioned WR1 for the Bears. Lastly, Robert Woods’ target share as the WR2 for the Rams last year was 21.5%. Since the midway point between Robinson’s two extremes is actually quite close to Woods’ share last season, using Woods’ 21.5% target share should be a very reasonable estimate for Robinson. That may seem like a somewhat high number for a WR2, but it is validated by the extremely high snap share indicated earlier.
Projected Efficiency
After looking at the potential opportunity with snap and target shares, we turn to efficiency metrics. This can include many different metrics, but for this analysis, I will look at the projected catch rate and yards per catch.
Catch rate is an area where I would expect Robinson to have an advantage over Woods. Woods caught 65% of his targets, which isn’t too bad but he was an abysmal 2 for 28 on contested targets. This indicates that he caught nearly all of his uncontested targets – not surprising with a quarterback like Matthew Stafford hitting his open man with ease. Robinson by contrast has been one of the best receivers in the game at hauling in contested catches throughout his career; in 2020 he led the league in contested targets with 39 and still managed to come down with 17 of them (43.6%). He has historically seen about 25% of his targets be contested. If we can assume an 80% catch rate on uncontested catches (which is actually lower than Woods’ mark last year), but a 40% catch rate on contested catches (in line with his history), Robinson’s catch rate in the Rams offense should be closer to 70%.
The top 40 contested-catch leaders over the 3-year span from 2019 through 2021 can be found below, showing a considerable advantage for Robinson compared to Woods both in volume and success rate.
Yards per catch should be a bit more straightforward to project, as Robinson’s 2020 mark and Woods’ 2021 mark were very close (12.35 for Woods in ‘21 and 12.25 for Robinson in ‘20). We can keep this one simple and just use the midpoint of 12.3 yards per catch.
There’s no such thing as a 50/50 ball with @AllenRobinson.@RamsNFL | #RamsHouse pic.twitter.com/UrAGLVCopm
— NFL (@NFL) March 17, 2022
Touchdown Potential
Now for the dependency on quarterback play. Matthew Stafford threw for 41 touchdowns on 601 attempts last season. That 6.8% touchdown rate was good for second-best behind only MVP Aaron Rodgers at 7.0%. This is a difficult efficiency metric to replicate. To be somewhat conservative, I would knock a full percentage point off Stafford’s touchdown efficiency for next season, down to 5.8%. 5.8% is still a strong rate and would have been good for 8th best last year, so this seems like a plausible regression. If Stafford maintains his volume of ~600 pass attempts, and there’s no reason to think otherwise, this would lower his passing touchdown total to 35.
As far as Robinson’s expected share of Stafford’s touchdowns, the best bet would be to combine the scores from Woods and Beckham last year (9) since they had no overlap in games played. As those two wideouts comprised 22% of Stafford’s passing scores, this would equate to Robinson notching 8 (rounded up from 7.7) of Stafford’s projected 35 touchdowns. Some may suggest that is high considering he had 1 last year and has only exceeded 7 touchdowns once way back in 2015, but the peripherals all support that hitting this mark is entirely within reason. This is especially likely if Cooper Kupp cools off from his whopping 16 touchdowns last year.
Putting It All Together
To summarize Allen Robinson’s outlook, we can combine all of his projected opportunity and efficiency estimates against Matthew Stafford’s. Here’s how the entire funnel breaks down…
- Matthew Stafford pass attempts – 600
- Allen Robinson target share – 21.5%
- Allen Robinson targets – 129
- Allen Robinson catch rate – 70%
- Allen Robinson receptions – 90
- Allen Robinson yards per catch – 12.3
- Allen Robinson total receiving yards – 1107
- Matthew Stafford touchdown rate – 5.8%
- Matthew Stafford passing touchdowns – 35
- Allen Robinson share of passing touchdowns – 22%
- Allen Robinson receiving touchdowns – 8
My Projected stat line: 129 targets, 90 catches, 1107 yards, 8 TDs
In full PPR scoring, this stat line last year would have been good for the WR12, sandwiched between Charger teammates Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. He’s never been given much to work with, but the next couple of years could be special for ARob in his new home. Draft with confidence.
