Fantasy Football Today - Christian Kirk Profile: Ready for a #1 WR Role? (08/06 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Christian Kirk played nine games last season without DeAndre Hopkins. Make that eight games, pardon me.

Starting point is 00:00:24 His 17-game pace, 91 catches, 1,029 yards, only two touchdowns on 123 targets. Not too bad. Now he's the number one wide receiver for Jacksonville. Let's talk about it right now with Jacob Gibbs. And this is Fantasy Football Today in 5. We're giving you five minutes on Christian Kirk. So he hopefully will be in the slot. Is that what you're hoping here

Starting point is 00:00:46 in Jacksonville? Yeah, I definitely think so. Marvin Jones and Zay Jones likely set to be kind of the field stretchers from the perimeter and Kirk playing from the slot. I think Jacksonville kind of knows what they get here with Christian Kirk. There's probably a reason that they paid so much for him. I assume that they envision a specific role for him. I think that that is from the slot that's where he's been the best. We've seen that both in college and at the NFL level. So 80% of his routes came from the slot at Texas A&M. That's where 78% of his snaps came during his breakout season last year. And for his career, he's averaged 1.7 yards per outrun from the slot compared to 1.4 when running outside of the slot. So it kind of took Kirk a while to get that slot role because, of course, Larry Fitzgerald stood in the way.

Starting point is 00:01:31 So only 27% of his routes came from the slot during his first three seasons with the Cardinals. And I think that did affect his efficiency. That was kind of a part of the reason it took him a while to get going between being miscast as kind of a perimeter receiver and dealing with injuries. It took him a while to find his footing in the NFL level, but last year he really did look the part of an explosive playmaker from the slot. He actually, you know, outproduced DeAndre Hopkins in terms of both his yard run rate and his explosive reception rate, which is pretty impressive, you know, in the same offense to outproduce one of the most

Starting point is 00:02:05 efficient receivers in recent memory. And then the explosive reception rate really is what caught my eye. So among players with a hundred targets and an explosive reception rate above 20%, there are only 11 guys to do that. And they're all really, really good. Debo Samuel, T Higgins, Jamar Chase, Tyler Lockett, Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb, Devonta Smith, Mike Evans, Cooper Cupp, Devonta Adams, and Christian Kirk. So, you know, the full-time move to the slot in 2021 definitely maximized Kirk's skill set. And I think a move to Jacksonville, where an offense that's intentional about getting their slot receiver involved could allow them to potentially access a level beyond even

Starting point is 00:02:41 what we saw in 2021, which is definitely exciting. Yeah. And so in terms of targeting the slot, what have we seen from Trevor Lawrence? What have we seen from Doug Peterson? Right. Yeah. When I dug into Jacksonville's route data from Lawrence's rookie campaign, what really stood out to me was the use of the slot position. We'll be focused on two specific routes here, out routes and crossing routes, and how they're likely to affect Christian Kirk's efficiency in his first season with the Jags. So the league average crossing route rate from the slot in 2021 was 13.6%. So 13.6% of all slot routes were crossing routes last year.

Starting point is 00:03:18 The league average out route rate from the slot was 19.6%. The Jags slot receivers were used at a 16 and 23 percent rate in 2021 um and doug peterson slot receivers um have used those rates at a significantly above average uh rate as well compared to the league average and then we uh we also saw trevor lawrence historically has just peppered um his slot with his target. We saw that with Amari Rogers in college. And then in 2021, he targeted his slot receivers really heavily as well. And then particularly on those two routes, Lawrence targeted the slot on 26% of their out routes,

Starting point is 00:03:56 which was 20% above the league average on those routes from the slot. And then he targeted his slot receivers on 21% of their crossing routes, which was just above the league average as well. That brings us back to Christian Kirk, who has been really good on these routes, crossing routes and out routes. They were a regular part of his route tree in Arizona, but they were hardly the focus. They used him a lot more as a downfield guy, like we talked about.

Starting point is 00:04:18 He was more used on the perimeter. But when given the opportunity to run these routes, he was really, really efficient. So Christian Kirk averaged 2.5 yards per outrun on crossing routes from the slot in his career, which is 50% above the league average. That's a huge increase. And then averaged 1.5 yards per outrun on our routes from the slot. Not quite as impressive, but still 13% above the league average. So Kirk has been someone who's been around the league average

Starting point is 00:04:46 or maybe slightly above, um, on most routes, but on these two in particular, when running from the side has been significantly above the league average, which definitely stood out to me, given how Jackson likes to use the slot position. I know one other thing you look at a lot is man versus zone coverage and those types of splits. Did you find anything, I guess, interesting for Trevor Lawrence and Christian Kirk? Yeah, it's not quite as compelling as some of this specific route data, but I think he is someone who's going to help Trevor Lawrence a lot. I think Zay Jones could as well. Lawrence was way, way better versus man coverage in college than when he faced his own. Part of that was, you know, he had really, really good receivers who dominated against man. But last year,

Starting point is 00:05:22 he really struggled against man. He really needed somebody who could beat man coverage, who could beat press coverage consistently. And he just didn't have that in Jacksonville. So versus man coverage, the Jaguars receivers ranked 46th, 55th, and 76th among 99 qualified players in yards per outrun against man coverage. Christian Kirk ranked 30th. So better than any of the Jags, significantly better than the bottom end guys there. And then versus press coverage, same thing. Among 72 qualified players, Jacksonville's receivers ranked 39th, 49th, and 72nd. Christian Kirk was 22nd. So not necessarily like elite versus man and press, but somebody who can consistently separate versus man coverage can beat press coverage, and that's just not something that Trevor Lawrence has had. And the best thing about Christian Kirk is he's pretty cheap right now.

Starting point is 00:06:05 He's wide receiver 43. He's not even a top 100 pick according to Fantasy Pro's PPR ADP. This is a great guy to take as a number four wide receiver or something like that. I've even taken him as a number three wide receiver in some leagues. But yeah, I think the draft value is really good on Christian Kirk. That's Jacob Gibbs. I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you tomorrow with a Rondell Moore profile.

Starting point is 00:06:28 The something. He's not the king of ADOT. He's like the court jester of ADOT. We'll talk about that tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today. Bye.

Fantasy Football Today - Christian Kirk Profile: Ready for a #1 WR Role? (08/06 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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