Few wide receivers have had to endure worse quarterback play over the past few seasons than Emmanuel Sanders. The dropoff from Peyton Manning to Trevor Siemian, Brock Osweiler, and Paxton Lynch is steep, and the effect on Sanders' Fantasy value was obvious. Sanders was Fantasy's WR5 in 2014, and remained a top-20 Fantasy WR in 2015 and 16, before falling all the way to WR54 in 2017.
The Broncos landed Joe Flacco in 2018, and just that upgrade was enough for Sanders to rank 15th in Fantasy WR scoring before tearing his Achilles in Week 13.
Entering his age 32 season, Sanders' chances of making a full recovery from one of the most devastating injuries in sports seemed slim. Still, he managed to get cleared to play in Week 1 and caught a touchdown in each of Denver's first two games. Sanders and the Broncos offense as a whole struggled over the ensuing month, before the 49ers traded for him prior to Week 8.
For any shortcomings he may have, Jimmy Garoppolo was clearly the most accurate quarterback Sanders played with since Manning. And despite San Fran's run-heavy approach, Sanders was able to maintain Fantasy relevance while learning a new offensive system. From Week 8 on, Sanders was the WR30 in Fantasy.
Heading into his age 33 season and seeming unlikely to re-up with the Niners, Sanders' days of Fantasy relevancy appeared to be nearing their end as we entered the free agency period. Then, he landed a two-year $16 million deal to become a member of the New Orleans Saints.
There aren't many possible landing spots that would have been better for Sanders' Fantasy value than New Orleans. He goes from the 31st-ranked team in pass to rush ratio to the Saints, who ranked 13th in 2019. And that is with Drew Brees missing a good portion of the season. In the games Brees started, New Orleans ranked seventh in pass-to-rush ratio.
The Saints have unsuccessfully tried to find a third competent pass-catching option to complement Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara for years, and Sanders would seem to be the perfect fit. Like Thomas, he has a diverse route tree and can attack opposing defenses from the slot or perimeter.
What type of target share will Sanders be looking at after MT and Kamara have had their fill, though? The two combined for a massive 51 percent target market share in 2019, which didn't leave much room for anyone else to eat. I'd expect Kamara to maintain a target share somewhere around 20 percent, but I do not expect another 32 percent market share from Thomas in 2020. He hadn't topped a 28 percent share prior to 2019, and I believe his 2020 mark was due to the lack of other viable weapons in New Orleans. We saw Brees feed 100-plus targets to three different receivers in 2016 -- the last year Thomas had a complementary receiver (Brandin Cooks) with the ability to get open consistently.
If New Orleans throws exactly as many passes in 2020 as they did in 2019, all Sanders will need is a 16.7 percent target market share to reach the 97 targets he saw in 2019. That seems like the absolute floor for Sanders, and if he's able to demand closer to a 20 percent share, he could see 115-plus targets in the most efficient offense he's played in since 2014.
It has been some time since Sanders was a strong Fantasy producer. Is that a result in a loss of the ability to create separation as he enters the latter years of his career? Or has Sanders just suffered from his surroundings -- playing in run-first offenses designed to protect severely limited quarterbacks from making mistakes.
According to PFF, the latter appears to be closer to the truth. Sanders posted a receiving grade of 77.9 and 80.1 in his past two seasons, which isn't too far from his average grade 84.6 during the 2014-16 seasons. The 2.12 yards per route run Sanders posted in 2018 was the best since his career-season with Manning in 2014. That fell to 1.76 last year, but there is reason to believe that quarterback play was the primary reason for the drop in efficiency.
77 percent of Sanders' targets in 2018 were deemed "catchable" by PFF, which was the highest mark since the Manning days. That dropped to just 69 percent in 2019. New Orleans' pass-catchers benefited from an 82 percent catchable rate from Brees and Teddy Bridgewater in 2019. Among qualified receivers, Michael Thomas ranked first in catchable target rate.
So, Sanders' skills still seem to be intact. New Orleans felt comfortable enough in that belief to invest $16 million in the aging wide out. What about Brees, though? Was there any discernible decline in Brees' game in 2019?
Brees has aged like fine wine -- his PFF passer grades of 89.2 and 93.6 over the past two seasons are the two best among his past eight seasons. His passer rating when blitzed and when in the red zone over the past two seasons are the best of his career. He led the NFL in 'on target' rate and had the second-lowest "uncatchable" rate.
If there is one potential area of concern, it is Brees' ability to push the ball downfield. Brees' deep ball rate, or the percentage of his throws that traveled 20-plus yards in the air, was the lowest of his career at just 8.2 percent. He also completed fewer than half of his downfield attempts for the first time since 2015. Brees' accuracy grades when throwing downfield were still better than league average, but the results weren't there.
Sanders has the ability to stretch the field if needed, but prefers to do his damage on intermediate routes -- where Brees is still as accurate as ever.
Brees' best results last season came when throwing between 10-20 yards downfield, which just happens to be where the bulk of Sanders' targets in 2019 came from. Only 14 percent of Sanders' targets came on deep passes in 2019. 41.7 percent of his targets and 46 percent of his receiving yardage came in the 10-20 yard range, where Brees posted a passer rating that was nearly 50 points above the league average.
At the moment, Sanders is going off the board as the 52nd wide receiver on average. His ADP has risen by a full round since signing with the Saints, and it will likely continue to climb over the ensuing months. Still, his ADP would suggest that perception is that Sanders doesn't have much left in the tank. Given what we have seen from him over the past two seasons, that is clearly not the case. With the move from one of the most run-heavy offenses to one of the most efficient passing systems in the NFL, Sanders should have every opportunity to prove that.
Sanders' new quarterback Drew Brees has posted career-best numbers over the past two seasons, from an accuracy perspective. He showed no signs of decline in 2019, again ranking near the top of the NFL in 'on target' throws. After being limited by a combined 68 percent catchable target rate over the past three seasons, Sanders will catch passes from a quarterback who delivered a catchable ball over 82 percent of the time in 2019.
The last time we saw Sanders playing with an accurate QB, he was regularly a top-15 Fantasy wideout. His play has fallen off some since then, but not as much as you might expect. He has the potential to sneak into the top-30 at the WR position in 2020, which would present terrific value at his ADP.
