Amari Cooper Fantasy football ranking: 2020 outlook, projections, ADP, value, predictions, stats

Amari Cooper has been among the league's best Fantasy wide receivers since Dallas traded for him in 2018, finishing as the WR9 and WR10 during the weeks he's been a member of the Cowboys over the past two seasons. Despite that, Cooper is being selected as the WR12 in Fantasy heading into 2020. Cooper's Cowboys did use their first-round selection on a wide receiver -- adding the immensely talented CeeDee Lamb with the 17th-overall selection.

Will Lamb's addition and another year of development from Michael Gallup be enough to cause a dip in volume for Cooper in 2020? Early Fantasy drafters seem to think so. Where should he be in your 2020 Fantasy football rankings, and what Amari Cooper Fantasy football outlook can you expect?

The 2020 Amari Cooper Fantasy football value remains strong, as he's set for another 1,000-yard campaign. He's a top-12 WR candidate in most formats, but how high should he be in your 2020 Fantasy football rankings? Here's what you need to know:

So which players are poised for breakouts, which sleepers do you need to jump on, and which busts should you avoid at all costs in your Fantasy football league? Join SportsLine now to get early 2020 Fantasy football rankings, plus see which WR is going to come out of nowhere to crack the top 10, all from the model that out-performed experts big time last season.

Amari Cooper Fantasy ADP & ranking (via SportsLine's projection model)

No. 34 ADP
No. 12 WR

Amari Cooper Fantasy projections (via SportsLine's projection model) 

73.5 catches, 1,073 receiving yards, 7.8 receiving touchdowns
155 Fantasy points (non-PPR); 228.5 (PPR)

Amari Cooper 2020 Fantasy outlook 

Amari Cooper is one of my favorite 2020 Fantasy draft targets because there are multiple realistic paths to him providing league-winning value at his current ADP. I see Cooper potentially turning in a career year as a result of one of two things. The first is if Cooper sees a spike in his usage from the slot. In the one game Randall Cobb missed last year, Tavon Austin and Jason Witten soaked up nearly all the reps from the slot. With none of Cobb, Austin, or Witten on the 2020 Cowboys roster, Cooper and Lamb stand out as the two logical choices for heavy slot usage.

If preseason roles around and we see Cooper lined up in the slot at a higher rate, he should shoot up draft boards. Slot targets are worth 11.5 percent more in Fantasy than perimeter targets. For reference, if you increased Cooper's 2019 Fantasy point total by 11.5 percent, he would have ranked as the WR2 rather than the WR10.

To add to that, Cooper is now playing for Mike McCarthy, who has loved targeting the slot historically. Dating all the way back to 2012, only one of McCarthy's teams has not featured at least one receiver who saw 60-plus targets, and it came in 2018 when Randall Cobb was pacing to finish well above that mark but was limited to just nine games. In 2014 and 15, McCarthy's offenses led the NFL in slot targets. And the propensity for utilizing his slot receiver hasn't been just a product of having a talented slot specialist in Cobb, either. Any time Cobb has missed games with injury, we have seen McCarthy increase the slot snap share of other top weapons -- whether it be Jordy Nelson in 2016 or Davante Adams in 2018.

The other path to massive upside for Cooper could come as a result of the team's 29th-ranked pass-to-rush ratio when in the red zone normalizing without Jason Garrett in charge. Mike McCarthy has been very pass-happy when in scoring distance, and the coaching change could mean far more red zone targets for Cooper in 2020. The Cowboys are missing 35.3 percent of their red zone targets from 2019, and it's unlikely that Lamb accounts for even a 20 percent target share as a rookie. Cooper ranked 15th among receivers in end zone targets in 2019, but was just 37th in red zone targets. Both an increase in the team's red zone target total and an increase in Cooper's percentage of said total are realistic outcomes for 2020.

If the slot role belongs to Amari Cooper in 2020, finishing as a top-five WR in Fantasy is within his grasp. If he gets the slot role and the Cowboys pass at a higher rate when in the red zone, Cooper could realistically finish 2020 as the WR1 for Fantasy. That type of upside is unique for a player being selected anywhere near Cooper's current ADP.