It’s a new year for the Jacksonville Jaguars, but from a fantasy football perspective we’re expecting more of the same. The Jaguars rank No. 30 in the 2015 fantasy football power rankings.
Believe it or not, that’s a slight improvement from where they finished the 2014 season. They stumbled in dead last in the 2014 fantasy football power rankings, meaning no team offered fantasy football owners less than the Jaguars did last season.
Heading into 2015, the Jaguars offer fantasy owners 63.7 percent as much as the average NFL team and 44.2 percent as much as the NFL’s best team.
Blake Bortles finished the 2014 season as the 24th highest-scoring quarterback, meaning he was the worst possible starter in 2-QB leagues. We don’t have him doing any better this year. In fact, he’s currently projected to finish as the 29th-scoring quarterback, meaning his contribution to fantasy teams – whatever that may end up looking like – isn’t projected to be large enough to impact these power rankings in any way.
Jacksonville’s running back situation appears to be in a better place today than it has in some time, but we were saying the same thing at this time last year. In all seriousness, rookie T.J. Yeldon does bring some excitement to the Jaguars’ backfield.
We currently have Yeldon slotted for about 235 carries, just over 1,000 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns to go along with about 30 receptions, 225 receiving yards and another score through the air. These reasonable projections would peg Yeldon as a solid RB2 in fantasy leagues.
Denard Robinson will be a change-of-pace back, but it’s doubtful he’ll get enough touches to be a reliable fill-in for your fantasy squad. Toby Gerhart has fallen from grace and should not be on your radar.
The team’s wide receiving corps is exciting on paper – and looks like a good group to bet on for the future, assuming Justin Blackmon is able to get back on the field – but their 2015 prospects are bleak. Allen Robinson is the only Jaguars receiver worth owning heading into the new season, and even he is only a tail-end WR2 or flex option.
The team's other leading receivers, Marqise Lee and Allen Hurns, will eat into each other's production throughout the season. Combined, they make a WR2 candidate, but unfortunately fantasy football doesn’t let you plug two players into one roster slot. You’d be taking a risk by drafting either one of these receivers, but they are worth eyeing during the early weeks of the season in case one starts to clearly outperform the other.
The most exciting add to Jacksonville’s roster this offseason was undoubtedly tight end Julius Thomas, the touchdown-scoring machine that comes from Denver. We’ve already been over why the move from Denver to Jacksonville is detrimental to Thomas’ fantasy value – with the key point being that there’s no chance he’ll score touchdowns at the same clip with Blake Bortles throwing him the ball as he did with Peyton Manning – but he’s still a solid TE1 investment.
In other words, gone are the days of Thomas singlehandedly putting your team on his back with a three-touchdown performance, but he gives you a viable alternative should you miss out on the top six or so tight ends.
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