Going Against the Dominant Narrative: DJ Chark v Courtland Sutton

In my ethnic studies course, I talk to my students about the concept of the dominant narrative and counter-narrative. A dominant narrative is a story that is continually told and perpetuated through media to become ingrained in the public’s opinion. We discuss the city that we live in and the one I grew up in Stockton, California. The dominant narrative about our city is that it is dangerous, crime-riddled and that the youth are nothing but hoodlums. We always see it in stories that come across our social media pages. We hear the news discussing how we rank as one of the worst to raise a child. We listen to the pundits continuously joke about avoiding our city. As a class, we talk about these narratives and how they affect the way we view ourselves and our lives. Often times kids will fall victim to this nihilistic approach to life. The problem is, that narrative isn’t completely true. Often times we hear the dominant narrative so much that we start to believe it ourselves. That’s when its time to start questioning it.

In fantasy football, there can be a herd mentality to pushes dominant narratives consistently. Anytime someone pushes back against it, they are considered to give a hot take. Even the use of that word demeans the argument that is being given. So here is my pushback against the dominant narrative that Courtland Sutton is a better dynasty asset than DJ Chark.

We’ve been blessed as a community to witness some really good and talented young WRs coming up. Between the last two years and the next two years, we might have to start moving to 4 WR leagues with all the talent that is available. This week I’ve been looking at candidates to buy at WR in dynasty leagues. Scouring through fantasy websites and looking at some of the options I noticed something that stood out on FantasyPros ECR dynasty rankings. Courtland Sutton was ranked 15th, 6 spots ahead of DJ Chark. Both guys are 3rd-year WRs drafted in the same round (2nd), have new coordinators and sophomore QBs throwing them passes. I wasn’t sure why there appeared to be this gap. I thought maybe I was missing something. So I polled Twitter to see what their fantasy community thought. These were the results.

The results left me astounded. 80/20 split in favor of Sutton? Why? Was he really that much better than Chark? Is Denver really a better situation? I had to take a deeper look. I broke it down into these categories: Consistency, QB Play, and fit with their new scheme.

Consistency

In fantasy, we want guys that can provide us some consistent numbers or at the very least consistently deliver higher numbers more than those low weeks. If a WR can consistently deliver WR1 and WR2 weeks against the rest of the competition then I’m going to have a better chance to win that positional battle than not. Here is how they shaped up:

So immediately you can see that both guys were extremely similar. Chark did play one less game and showed a slightly higher ceiling at WR1 than Sutton, but Sutton showed slightly more consistency at being a WR2/3.

One issue with this is that we aren’t taking into account that the guy throwing both Chark and Sutton the football next year (Minshew/Lock) didn’t play in all those games above. Nick Foles started 3 of the games for Chark while Joe Flacco/Brandon Allen started 11 games for Sutton. If we isolate these statistics to just games where Minshew and Lock were the QBs then the numbers look like this:

Now obviously we are working with a SSS here but Sutton actually had worse numbers with Lock under center than Chark did with Minshew. Chark’s overall numbers improved with Minshew under center compared to Foles.

QB Play

Everyone knows that QB play is important when it comes to WRs. Even the worse QBs can absolutely sink a WR. If a QB and WR don’t sync well then that can create a problem as well.

I'm going to make an assumption on this part. Garnew Minshew will win the starting job in Jacksonville this year. Between his stellar play as a rookie (15th in TD%, T-6 in INT%) and the fanfare for him, I can't see Foles taking back the starting job. He was benched midway through the year when he came back and Minshew was instantly put back into the driver's seat. Garner Minshew is an absolute stud when it comes to the deep ball. He is one of the best in the league.

Well guess where Chark happens to excel? That’s right on the deep ball. Chark accounted for ⅓ of the Jaguars air yards last year. With his 4.34 speed it makes sense to utilize him as that deep threat. There is no denying the connection that Minshew and Chark have built. That will only continue to rise as we go forward.

On the flip side this is Drew Lock’s chart:

As you can see, Lock struggles with the deep ball. He is well below league average. His deep ball completion percentage is a measly 29%. Sutton is the deep threat for the Broncos. He doesn’t have the same 4.34 speed but he uses his size to go up and get it. The problem is that Lock never really gave him a chance to go up and get those balls.

Fit With New Scheme

Both of these young offenses will have new coordinators at their helm. Both were former NFC East coaches who were let go because of their ineptitude as head coaches: Jay Gruden (Jax) and Pat Shurmur (Den). The one great thing for both offenses is that they are both men are very good offensive coordinators.

I took a look at Pass Attempts in Gruden’s offenses and the % of targets that the WR1 in the offense got during that time period. This is the breakdown below.

Last year, Minshew attempted 439 passes with Chark on the field and targeted him 90 times. That is a target% of 20.5. With the emphasis that Gruden places on a True WR1 (Like he had in Green) it isn’t unreasonable to think that Chark could be in for an increase in targets. There isn’t another player on this offense that can match him in terms of ability.

While some may argue that the WR1 in Washington never saw that 30% share, there might be two reasons for this. First, there was never a real WR1 on those teams. Pierre Garcon was the closest thing to one and had to compete with Jordan Reed for targets. There isn’t anyone close to that on the Jaguars. With their lack of cap space, I don’t foresee them bringing in anyone that is going to compete.

Here are the numbers for Pat Shurmur’s offenses:

Shurmur has a history of getting some high scoring offenses going. During that time frame, his WR1’s target percentage has varied. They’ve hovered around the 24% mark. Last year in the Broncos offense, Sutton was targeted 26% of the time already on 504 attempts. That 504 number should grow but the % of targets will likely come down. It won’t completely offset the increase in pass attempts but the drop in % will hurt the positive regression in targets for Sutton.

Final Point

Sutton is favored across fantasy circles but I think it is time to rethink this dominant narrative. He struggled to get catchable passes under Lock during the final month+ of the season. Lock’s inability to throw a deep ball could really hinder Sutton’s upside next year. Meanwhile, Chark instantly connected with Minshew. His skill-set and speed set up perfectly for what Minshew does.

I fully acknowledge that this isn't a perfect analysis. We are working with small sample sizes of less than a full 16 games for both guys with these quarterbacks. Hell, Minshew might not even be the starter in Jacksonville. Foles sampIe size with Chark is even smaller (~3.5 games) but he did contribute to two of Chark's WR1 games last year [Week 1 & 11]. In the event that Foles is named the starter, I still wouldn't worry as a Chark owner.

Both of these WRs are incredibly talent. This isn't a "Courtland Sutton sucks" article. He displayed some incredible athleticism and made some outstanding plays with guys like Brandon Allen throwing to him last year. He is a terrific young WR who I'd love to have some shares of in my dynasty leagues. But the gap between these two is way less than what the public would like to admit. Shurmur could help Lock with adjusting to the game and work on the touch on his deep ball passes. That would go a long way to helping Sutton regain some value in my mind.

With public opinion so heavily sided towards Sutton. I think it might be time to sell on Sutton and use a portion of those assets to grab Chark and put the rest of the excess into acquiring more talent.