Detroit Lions fan’s 2020 fantasy football success guide
Detroit Lions starting wide receivers
Moving on to the wide receivers, the Detroit Lions boast a very good receiver corps headlined by Kenny Golladay but that also features Marvin Jones, Danny Amendola, Marvin Hall, and rookie Quintez Cephus. Not to mention that cornerback-return man Jamal Agnew will spend a lot of time as a slot player getting screens and jet sweeps to take advantage of his speed.
Do not forget that we should also include T.J. Hockenson as a likely second or third option in this offense moving forward. We will cover him in the next section, though.
Kenny Golladay
At the moment there is no Lions player worthy of first-round consideration in any fantasy format that we’re aware of. The first instance to grab a Detroit player is among this group with Golladay. ESPN fantasy tools rankings have him at an average pick of 30th overall.
Meaning that you should target him near the back half of round two, or by early in round three of a standard 12-team league. If it is high-performance, or in a PPR (point-per-reception) format, which many are, his value drops a bit due to his number of touches. He is probably due for an increase in touches but his average amount of receptions has been 65-70.
Even if it were to go up by 20% from 70, that wouldn’t put him above 85 receptions. His 65 receptions in 2019 ranked 41st in the NFL according to Pro Football Reference. The top ten in receptions started with 92 receptions for all positions.
That all sounded bad but Golladay has posted back-to-back 1,000-yards-plus receiving seasons with 16 touchdowns during that period, 11 of which came in his 2019, Pro-Bowl campaign. Target him pretty early for his contested catches and red zone prowess and consider him a low-end WR1 or an ideal WR2.
Marvin Jones, Jr.
Marvin Jones has had a bit of a roller-coaster impact in fantasy circles, drifting from fantasy starter in 2017 to an injured but still relevant reserve the past two years. Simply put, he hasn’t played enough games, missing ten games completely and including three games last year. However, his 779 yards and nine touchdowns on 62 receptions are still enough to keep him on your fantasy radar.
Jones ranks 86th at Pick 97 on average according to ESPN fantasy, leaving him in the late-eighth or early ninth-round WR4 or WR5, ideally. If he’s your third wide receiver, you should find a backup that you can trust there almost as well. After a tragic year for the Jones family, who lost their son Marlo, nothing would be better to see than a big come-back year for Number 11.
Danny Amendola
Amendola functions out of the slot and is a security blanket for Stafford. The problem in fantasy terms is that his 2019 where he put up a stat line of 62-678-1 on 97 targets is that 34-year-old receivers who only had one touchdown are not likely to suddenly perform a whole lot better in successive years.
He is important in his function to the team, may have a couple of games where he plays like he belongs on a fantasy roster but he’s probably not worth drafting.
You can keep an eye on him, though, if you like him, and what’s not to like about him as a player? If another wideout went down, perhaps that might mean extra looks but it is also just as likely that other players would absorb the load.