As the great movie “Talladega Nights” informed us all, America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed. Washington has taken that to heart and signed arguably the most competent and fastest wideout on the free agency market. Curtis Samuel. His signing now makes the college dream of his and Terry McLaurin into reality and nightmares for NFC East defensive coordinators. This one, two, punch is now in my mind, one of the best in the NFC, if not the NFL.
The Breakdown
My initial thoughts on Curtis Samuel when he came into the league was that he was a gimmick player, one of those hybrid WR/RB combos that don’t know what position he is supposed to be playing. However, the past three seasons have shown he is the poor man’s Tyreek Hill. He has not only steadily increased his catches from 39 his rookie year to 77 last year, but when he’s running the ball, he finishes his runs. Last year, he averaged 2.8 yards after contact which puts him on the same level as Derrick Henry. Yes, that Derrick Henry.
Oh and what about his primary job? You know, catching the pigskin? Despite playing with a below-average quarterback last year, he still put up over 13 ppg in fantasy (WR24) despite seeing the 37th most targets and only a paltry 19 percent target share. This proves that he can make the most of what he gets. Need more proof? He had the second-best catch rate in the NFL last year and the 15th best-contested catch rate, better than Tyreek Hill. The question that looms though is how will that translate to Washington with their gigantic question at quarterback not completely answered.
Fantasy Impact
For this, I have to give two different positions on the topic. Position one will be with Ryan Fitzpatrick being the quarterback all season and position two will be with there being some sort of timeshare at the signal-caller position. First off, Fitz is king all year. If Fitz is the quarterback all season, I’m expecting Curtis Samuel and Terry McLaurin to both flourish as top 20 if not top 15 wide receivers. Fitzpatrick proved with his time in Tampa, that when given toys to play with, he makes things happen. We saw Chris Godwin go from a relatively unknown third-round draft pick to a 1,300-yard receiver that dominated fantasy. Option two isn’t as promising with the quarterback position being in flux all year. However, as Curtis proved last year, even when he doesn’t have the best quarterback situation, he can still produce. In regards to fantasy, he will still end up as a top-30 wide receiver who will flourish some weeks and post duds in others.
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