Fantasy Football Today - Juju Smith-Schuster Profile: Was it Big Ben's Fault? (06/05 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

We know Juju Smith-Schuster has struggled over the past two seasons, but how much of that is on him and how much of that was on the Steelers offense? Jacob Gibbs attempts to answer those questions.  You can also follow the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Let's break down what looks like the number one wide receiver on the Kansas City Chiefs, Juju Smith-Schuster.

And right now, as we talk about him on Fantasy Football Today in 5, looking at average draft position since May 1st, Juju Smith-Schuster is a little bit lower than I thought he'd be, 71st overall wide receiver, 31. I'm Adam Azer. I'm joined by Jacob Gibbs of Sportsline.com. So what did you see when you looked into the metrics? Let's start with the types of routes that Juju runs. We know the 8-out's been a lot lower lately. He's changed a little bit over the course of his career. But in terms of his route tree, what can you tell us about Juju Smith-Schuster?

Yeah, it's definitely, I think, important to start with the route tree to just kind of contextualize what has happened. Because early in his career, this is a guy who's averaging over 2 yards per outrun, and then last year he averaged 0.88. Like it's been really one of the most dramatic drop-offs we've ever seen. And a lot of it does have to do with his route tree. I mean, what we've seen from him and the way Pittsburgh is using him is really more like what we would expect from a tight end

and less what we'd expect from a receiver. He's ranked dead last among qualified receivers in average route depth and uh average depth of target over the past two years his average depth of target fell from 9.1 yards in his first three seasons to 5.7 over the past two right um so like it it really would take a special type of player to um produce exciting or even relevant fantasy results in the type of role he's playing like we're doing jaylen waddle is kind of the only guy that comes to mind really uh um so like i think it's important to start there um and i was i was prepared to maybe like give him a pass for how inefficient he's been um but the more that i dug into his data the less inspired I felt to believe

that he is a victim of circumstance. I think that his role hasn't helped him, but I think really the problem does have a lot to do with Juju. Okay, so yeah, let's talk about that because you're going to compare him to his former Steelers teammates and look at the efficiency there, right?

Right. Okay. Yeah, I think to get an idea of how he's performed when he has been allowed to operate outside of this, you know, security blanket for big Ben short yardage role. Um, I think the most effective way to, to, to view that data was to, uh, compare how he performed on downfield route running opportunities compared to his teammates. Cause like if it's, if he's just a victim of circumstance and he should still be outperforming his teammates at a somewhat similar

level to like what we saw before during the more efficient years, um, when he's giving downfield route running opportunities, but that has not been the case at all. So I broke it down into two subsets and it's how, um, Juju and his teammates performed on routes that developed five yards or more downfield and on routes that developed 10 or more yards downfield um and so on five plus yard routes uh juju was 20 more likely to draw target than his teammates in 2018 in 2019 that dropped he was actually five percent less likely there's a quarterback change there's a lot of noise that happened there um and then over the past two years he has been 16 less likely to draw drop target on those routes than his teammates. Not great.

And then when you look at routes that have developed 10 or more yards downfield, Juju is plus 28% in 2018, plus 14% in 2019. And then minus 26% over the last two seasons. And so he's just not being targeted on those routes, which could have something to do with Big Ben. I remember last year I looked up, Juju ran a ton, like the lowest target per outrun rate on go routes of any player in the NFL. So they were just sending him downfield sometimes. But his yard per outrun rate tells a similar story.

So when he was drawing targets, he really wasn't efficient with them anyway. His efficiency on five plus yard routes was plus 30 in 2018 and plus 34 2019 he was insanely efficient early in his career on downfield routes he was like more efficient than antonio brown those years um across the past two seasons he's been nine percent less efficient than his teammates this is including rary mcleod this is including pat furmuth who are like all operating around the line of scrimmage really short yards guys it's not just comparing with chase claypool it's everyone in pittsburgh um on 10 plus yard routes he was he was still seven percent more efficient um which seems encouraging until you compare it to the fact that he was plus 45 percent in the years prior. So if you think that the problem was just the role,

I don't think that the data points to that. I think Juju could still be effective in Kansas City. It's a high-powered offense. He could be peppered with targets. He could legitimately be their wide receiver one, like you mentioned. But I don't think that there is much of a ceiling for him to return to the early career guy that we saw. That's really interesting because,

you know, people will blame the Steelers situation, but you're basically comparing him to the rest of the Steelers. I'm seeing how he did. And that is a really, you know, good way to look at it and interesting insight. Thank you,

Jacob Gibbs. Thank you all for watching and listening. Hope you're having a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday on Fantasy Football Today in five.