Kenny Golladay Fantasy Autopsy: What Killed His Season And Where Should We Draft Him in 2022?

Kenny Golladay was the big ticket item of last season’s free agent WR market, and the Giants pounced, inking him to a four-year, $72 million deal to be the dominant receiving option necessary to take QB Daniel Jones to the next level. Instead, Golladay was an all-time Year 1 bust on the NFL’s worst offense. His second straight bad season leaves fantasy managers wondering if he’s done. Let’s dig in.

It’s hard to overestimate what a colossal bust Golladay was in 2021. He played in 14 games, and put up 37 receptions for 521 yards and zero touchdowns. Let that sink in. While injuries are definitely part of Golladay’s downfall, he played in far too many games for those to be his season-end numbers. The campaign was utterly catastrophic, and was the second season in a row he was a major letdown. While he was limited to just five games in 2020, Golladay has now accounted for two touchdowns and just 859 receiving yards in the last two seasons across 19 games. He ranked 59th among all receivers per PFF. If you take a trip to Football Outsiders, the picture is grim. Golladay posted a -32 DYAR (Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement), a -17.9% WR DVOA and a 49% catch rate, all marks that landed outside the Top 80 in the league.

Part of the issue is the Giants offense on the whole. Those numbers sure indicate a receiver who was playing at a subpar level, but context is really important. As mentioned here when we discussed his teammate Saquon Barkley’s bust of a season, the Giants offense was a black hole for production. As a unit, the Giants posted a -41.7% Offensive DVOA, and Jones put up a -10.6% QB DVOA. The Giants’ 15 passing touchdowns were the third-fewest in the league, and – sit down for this one – they threw a league-worst five touchdown passes to wide receivers. That is not a mistake. The Giants threw five touchdown passes all year to wide receivers, and none on the team had more than one. That means LT Andrew Thomas caught as many touchdown passes as any WR on the Giants, and he caught more touchdown passes than either Golladay or first round pick Kadarius Toney. So while we have data showing that Golladay was just not good last season, he may not have been close to full strength for most of it, and this offense was a dumpster fire that led to an overhaul of the coaching staff and got the GM fired.

All of this makes Golladay’s future very murky. While we can chalk up some of the letdowns to injury, injuries are a constant theme for him. He’s missed significant time in three of his five NFL seasons. He also has shown massive talent, but rarely converted it to elite production. Golladay has only surpassed five touchdowns once in his career and reached 70 receptions once (same season). He has primarily been a deep threat, doing his damage via downfield strikes and relying on efficiency rather than volume. That’s problematic in the wrong circumstances, and Jones’ 6.4 air yards per attempts certainly look like the wrong circumstances. That mark is 10th-worst in the NFL among QBs who have started at least five games, and if you up that number to eight games, Jones’ mark is seventh-worst. Among QBs with at least eight starts, Jones’ 2.8% touchdown rate was fifth-worst, and it’s been below 3% for two consecutive seasons.

At his best, Golladay is an efficient, high yards per catch threat with the upside of elite touchdown output. The best example of this was in 2019, the only season in which Golladay played in every game. He caught only 65 passes, but put up 1,190 yards and scored 11 touchdowns, while averaging a career-best 18.3 yards per reception. He had an average depth of target of 14.6 yards in that season, and his ADOT was down a full yard in 2021. While a 13.7 ADOT isn’t shabby, the quality of his targets are significantly worse when coming from Daniel Jones than they were in 2019 with Matthew Stafford. We still have an entire offseason to go, and the direction new management wants to take is critical to figuring out how to treat Golladay. The wisest path seems to be a full rebuild, which likely involves running Daniel Jones out there as the starter and pretty much tanking for a better QB class in 2023. If that happens, it’ll be impossible to trust Golladay as anything more than a boom-or-bust WR3. If the Giants manage to pick up a legitimate veteran upgrade in the offseason like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers, Golladay suddenly becomes an interesting player with high-end WR2 upside. He’d also probably be a value, since Kadarius Toney will probably lead the team in targets and be more exciting to fantasy managers after Golladay has burned people for two straight seasons. That’s a far less likely outcome, though, so unfortunately Golladay is not a player I expect to be thrilled about drafting this year.