7th overall pick, AJ Green vs. Jordy Nelson

This post is in response to an article by Ryan Weisse of thefantasyfootballers.com, “A.J. Green & Why the 7th Pick is a No-Brainer”. 

Let me start off by stating AJ Green is an absolute stud and I would 100% support drafting him at the 7th overall position.  But is the selection really a “no-brainer”?  I was thinking Green, but more in the sense of Green Bay.  Let’s compare A.J. Green to Jordy Nelson. 

It is referenced that AJ Green scored double digit fantasy points in 80% of his games.  He actually did so in 7 of 9 games (77.8%), whereas Nelson scored double digit fantasy points in 13 of 16 games (81.3%).   

In your Competition for the 7th pick, arguing Green over Mike Evans, you are taking targets away from Evans for Desean Jackson and OJ Howard.  However, a paragraph earlier you note how John Ross’ speed should take coverage off of Green.  How is that different than Desean Jackson, a speedy veteran.  And will a rookie TE take away more targets than a “healthy” red zone target hog named Tyler Eifert.    

In my rankings, I agree that I would draft AJ Green ahead of McCoy, Evans and Gordon, however you might want to reconsider Jordy Nelson here. 

Looking at injury risk, over the past 4 seasons, AJ Green has only played 6 more games than Nelson despite Nelson missing an entire season.  Not counting the 2015 season he missed, Nelson has played all 16 games in each of the last 3 seasons.    Over the past 3 years, Nelson has averaged 93.3 receptions and Green has averaged 93.75 receptions (prorated to per 16 games).  Over the past 3 years Nelson has averaged 11.33 TD’s to Green’s 8.21.  Over the past 5 years that TD rate is 12 for Nelson and 9.46 for Green.    Both receivers have a career yards per catch of 14.8.  In summary, over a 16 game schedule, both players project to have around 93 catches for over 1300yds, however Nelson has averaged almost 3TD’s per season more than AJ Green.

In fantasy, sometimes you have “your guy”.   When players are close in stat projections and in the same tier, then you should take ‘your guy’ and there is nothing wrong with that.  Being from Ohio, I’m sure AJ Green is your guy.  But who would you rather have throwing you the football, Andy Dalton or Aaron Rodgers?  Rodgers and Nelson have connected for 64 TD’s, 11th most in NFL history.   AJ green is a great pick at #7, but I ask again, is it really a no-brainer?