By Chet Gresham – @ChetGresham
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Last season, Aaron Rodgers never seemed to feel comfortable with a No. 2 receiver, which led to many getting players their shot, diluting the individual target numbers. Usually, Rodgers likes to give the No. 2 receiver plenty of targets. Five times in Rodgers’ career, the No. 2 receiver topped 100 targets, while Rodgers has only played eight full or nearly full seasons, including last year when both Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison were injured, Cobb playing in nine games and Allison in four. To start last season, Cobb, Allison and Davante Adams played three games together, and Adams saw 29 targets, Cobb 27 and Allison 18. Cobb was then injured, and Allison moved into the No. 2 role, and in the fourth game of the season, Adams had 14 targets and Allison 11, catching six passes for 80 yards. Over those four games, Allison totaled 19 receptions on 29 targets for 289 yards and two touchdowns. If you extrapolate those numbers over 16 games, he would have ended up with 76 receptions on 116 targets for 1,156 yards and eight touchdowns. We can’t rely on extrapolating numbers, but Allison was consistent in those four games despite being the No. 3 receiver in the first three, as he never dipped below 64 yards receiving.
Allison’s season ended with a core injury that he had surgery for, and in March, he reported that he can still do the things he could do before the surgery. The Packers also re-signed him to a 1-year deal in March, paying him more than his RFA tender, which shows that they at least felt good about where he was physically.
Allison will compete with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Equanimeous St. Brown and J’Mon Moore, all sophomores this season, but Allison should still have a leg up on them. Valdes-Scantling would seem to be Allison’s biggest competition, as he played in all 16 games last year and finished second on the team with 72 targets but also caught just 38 passes for 581 yards and two touchdowns. Valdes-Scantling had an excellent stretch Weeks 5-9, but he fell down a hole to finish the season as he lost favor with Rodgers.
Rodgers showed early on that Allison was someone he wanted to get the ball to, and that faith proved to be justified by Allison’s early numbers. Now that Randall Cobb is gone, Allison is poised to step into the No. 2 role on an offense that should be more innovative under new head coach Matt LeFleur, who was quarterbacks coach with the Falcons during their great 2016 offensive season that got them to the Super Bowl with Kyle Shanahan as offensive coordinator. LeFleur was then the offensive coordinator for the Rams in 2017, with Sean McVay, when they turned the Rams’ offense into the highest scoring one in the league. Couple that with Rodgers, who was hurt Week 1 in 2018 and played through pain all last season and who also has the biggest chip on his shoulder known to man, and I expect this Packers offense to take a big step back into the elite offenses.
Allison has the upper hand for the No. 2 receiver position in Green Bay, which has historically been a reliable place to be for opportunity, and Allison has shown that he can get the job done. His ADP may rise this offseason, but since we can’t say without a doubt that he’ll be the No. 2 receiver, there’s a good chance his price doesn’t get out of hand, meaning I’ll roster him on many teams in 2019.
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