Evaluating Antonio Brown's Potential Fantasy Football Value on Buccaneers
Before the dust could even settle on the announcement that future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady was planning to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, rumors and rumblings of wide receiver Antonio Brown joining him flooded social media.
It's not just the egg-profile-picture users, either. There's actual smoke to this story.
Upon this news, Twitter went to work in full solving-a-murder-mystery style, trying to find any connection with Brown and the Buccaneers that made sense. The most obvious one is their head coach Bruce Arians, who was Brown's offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh during the receiver's first two years in the NFL (2010-11).
It does make sense that Brady wants to play with Brown again. The duo only had one game together, a 4-56-1 performance for Brown against the Miami Dolphins in Week 2, but the chemistry seemed to click immediately.
Brown was cut after only 11 days with New England in the wake of sexual assault allegations. No team signed him, reportedly because the NFL was planning to put him on the Commissioner's Exempt List until they finished their investigation. Social media tirades from Brown carried on in the months that followed.
There is no word yet on if Brown would be eligible to play right away if the Buccaneers (or any other team) signed him. Aside from everything that became public during his brief time with the Patriots, there's also the fiasco that took place in Oakland that led to him being cut by the Raiders before the start of last season.
But ... what if? What if Brown heads down to Tampa Bay to reunite with Brady and Arians?
Brown will be 32 years old when the 2020 season kicks off so he's past his true prime, but there's no reason to believe he can't be hyper productive. Will he regress from his career highs? Of course. But it's important to remember just how high those "highs" were.
Here's where Antonio Brown finished among all wide receivers on a per-game basis in PPR formats from 2013 to 2018:
2013: 3rd
2014: 1st
2015: 2nd
2016: 1st
2017: 1st
2018: 2nd
That's a remarkable run of success that is quite frankly unprecedented during that period of time. His consistent production is what often made Brown the first non-RB off the board in fantasy drafts for a half-decade. Even significant regression from those numbers should land Brown in WR2 territory.
The big unknown is what kind of shape Brown is in, physically and mentally. We've all seen his Instagram videos—which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the latter—but he essentially didn't play in the NFL for an entire season. He barely practiced in training camp with the Raiders and wasn't even on the Patriots' roster for two full weeks. But, he was really good in the one game he did play and has all this aforementioned history of tremendous success.
One other factor to consider is how many mouths can be fed in Tampa Bay's offense. There are already two superstar receivers there in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Would Brown take significant targets away from those guys? Vise versa, can Brown live with being the third option on the team?
As we've seen with the Los Angeles Rams over the last couple seasons, three receivers can, at times, all be successful in the same offense, but who succeeds changes on a weekly basis. Brown being on the Buccaneers would limit the value for all three big-name receivers. You can read about how Brady's signing impacts Evans and Godwin here.
So where does that leave us in this hypothetical?
Assuming Brown signs with the Buccaneers and is allowed to play by Week 1, I'd have him ranked somewhere between WR16-21 as a mid-range WR2. There is a ton of risk that comes along with him, even if he's cleared to play immediately, but the potential reward could be league-winning. Brady would be solidified as a top-seven quarterback in fantasy football, while both Godwin and Evans would get slight downgrades. They'd remain in WR1 territory, but would be late second-round picks in this scenario.
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