On The Move: Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the Chiefs

As noted here, Juju Smith-Schuster is a poor fit as a WR1 for an offense, given that he’s well-below average on most routes that aren’t slants. So when the Chiefs decided to trade away Tyreek Hill, it was pretty clear there were future moves to be made to re-stock the cupboard for Patrick Mahomes, who also saw Byron Pringle and DeMarcus Robinson leave to the Bears and Raiders, respectively. Enter Marquez Valdes-Scantling, the first piece to be added since Hill’s departure.

Valdes-Scantling has long been frustrating for fantasy managers, flashing massive big play ability for four years in Green Bay, but never finding the consistency necessary for people like us to trust him. While he’s capable of flashy, impressive, long plays, it is a real stretch to believe he can meaningfully replace Hill. MVS has never finished a season with 700 receiving yards, 40 receptions or more than six touchdowns. He was graded as PFF’s No. 71 WR and his -14.6% WR DVOA per Football Outsiders was good for 79th in the NFL. He has also never averaged more than 2.4 receptions per game; while Hill was notoriously dangerous down the field, it wasn’t the only part of his game.

Now, while all that seems pretty negative, MVS is a real downfield weapon. He has never averaged fewer than 15.3 yards per reception, and he was averaging more than 20 in 2019. He was also successful on 59.6% of his nine routes per Reception Perception, which made up 26.3% of his total routes run. In four seasons MVS hasn’t proven he can do much besides go deep, but he has proven useful when he does. This skillset does make the Chiefs fit interesting, because he figures to be a good complement to Smith-Schuster, who thrives out of the slot. As mentioned when I covered Juju, he lined up in the slot on 78.5% of his snaps; Valdes-Scantling, on the other hand, lined up on the outside of 71.7% of his snaps.

There was nothing on the field Hill couldn’t do, and he seemed to be almost as important to this well-oiled machine as Mahomes himself. In his absence, it does appear that the Chiefs are trying to replace Hill’s production in the aggregate, with a slot specialist and an outside burner specialist. Consider me a skeptic of this strategy, and fantasy-wise, while Mahomes should still put up big stats all season, I do not see MVS emerging as a consistent WR2 for fantasy managers. He’s a one-dimensional receiver, and while Mahomes is arguably the best in the game at getting the ball to his receivers downfield, MVS is nowhere near the caliber of Hill. There will be chunk plays and highlights throughout the year, but we won’t know when they’re coming, and can’t regularly count on them.