All Faceoffs · Ted Ginn Player Page · MIA Projections · WR Projections · WR Rankings · MIA Team Report
Faceoff - WR Ted Ginn, Miami Dolphins
Posted 8/28, exclusive to Footballguys.com
Upside - by Will Grant
The Miami offense seems to be the forgotten place of fantasy players. Most people look to pick up Ronnie Brown in the early rounds and forget about the other skills positions until much later. Ted Ginn Jr. is one of those guys that people forget about and think 'Dammit' when someone else drafts him. Don't be that guy.Last season, Ginn finished 33rd among fantasy WRS with almost 800 yards receiving and 2 TDs. Not exactly something to write home about, but certainly better than anyone else on the WR corps. As he begins his third season, look for Ted Ginn to continue to produce as the top rated WR for Miami and post similar receiving stats with a few more red-zone targets and TD receptions.
At QB, Chad Pennington has firmly cemented himself as the starter. He finished last year with a career best in total passing yards and Yards per Catch. His 19 TDs compared with just seven INTS also landed him on the fantasy top 10 last year. Expect similar numbers for him as he enters his second season as the confirmed starter.
As competition goes, Ginn is competing against a couple relative unknowns. Davone Bess finished his rookie season with 54 receptions for 550 yards and a TD. He entered the season in fantasy obscurity but was able to prove the he could play at this level. Greg Camarillo has been around Miami and San Diego for several seasons now, but never really caught on until last year when he posted 55 receptions for just over 600 yards and 2 TDs. Former Cowboy Anthony Fasano finished the year with career bests in all categories including 450 yards from scrimmage and 7 TDs.
Yet with all this emerging talent, Ginn is still the go-to guy. His relatively low price tag of 101 overall (WR39), off the board means Ginn can be had for 9th round pick. Given the fact that he's already proven he can post those kinds of numbers, you should consider him a solid pick for the potential upside. With a full season to get acclimated to the offense, Pennington should be much more comfortable with Ginn and company this season. That could easily mean a 10-15% increase in Ginn's project numbers. If that happens, Ginn near the top 30 for fantasy WRS and will provide excellent value for the place that he's being drafted.
Downside - by Sigmund Bloom
Once you draft your first three wide receivers and your draft crosses over to the tenth round, it's time to turn to your WR sleepers, guys with big upside, even if they have a small chance of hitting that upside. Because Ted Ginn was a top 10 pick and because Ginn is entering the magical third season for wide receivers, he'll be one of the first wideouts to go off the board in this phase of almost every draft - but should you be the one to pull the trigger on him?The main argument against taking Ginn is his lack of consistency. He had more games with two or less catches (5) than games with five or more catches (4). For every one of the five games that Ginn hit double digit fantasy points, he had a game with two points or less. Nearly one-quarter of his receiving yards came in a 175-yard game vs. Buffalo when Dan Henning found a flaw in the Buffalo defense that the Dolphins could exploit. Henning was able to turn Patrick Cobbs into the fantasy stud RB of Week 6 vs. Houston, so don't give Ginn too much credit for the outburst. Even Ginn's output on direct handoffs was inconsistent - he scored two TDs, but only got carries in four games.
The problem is that even though Ginn was a top-10 draft pick, he's not a do-everything WR in the mold of recent top-10 picks that have panned out like Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, and Andre Johnson. He isn't a great leaper to go get jump-balls or make acrobatic catches, he isn't going to out-physical any DBs, and he isn't going to make the tough catch over the middle. A lot of his draft value was from his ability to be a weapon in the return game, and that hasn't panned. Ginn was also the signature pick of the previous Cam Cameron regime - the same group that took John Beck in the second and Lorenzo Booker in the third.
The Dolphins have a variety of weapons and approaches in their bag of tricks; Ginn is just one of them. Trusting him as anything more than a "shot in the dark" bye week/injury play is not a good idea.