In just a few short weeks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ wide receiver room went from one of the most predictable to least predictable. Chris Godwin is done for the season. Antonio Brown is done with football (at least for now). Mike Evans is looking around asking for some help. The question for fantasy football managers is whether it will come from Tyler Johnson or Cyril Grayson?
Who is Cyril Grayson?
I’m not sure there’s another player in the NFL with a story like Grayson’s. He didn’t enter the NFL until age 26 after not even playing football at college. Over his first two professional seasons, he caught just 1 pass. I would go so far as to say out of every wide receiver to play in NFL history, his breakout is the least likely to have occurred.
Despite having a roster full of tenured NFL pass catchers, the Bucs turned to Grayson in Week 16. He played 79% of the offensive snaps and caught 3 passes for 81 yards. Of course, I didn’t care. I’ve been watching football long enough to know random wide receivers pop off for nice games sporadically throughout every season. He caught one 62-yard pass that accounted for his production — nothing to see here.
Is Grayson the Bucs’ new WR2 ahead of Tyler Johnson?
Two weeks ago, I thought the Bucs’ WR2 would be Johnson. In that peculiar game against the Saints where Tampa Bay didn’t score, Johnson played 95% of the snaps. Heading into Week 16, surely it would be Johnson as the WR2 opposite AB with Evans out, right? Nope.
Johnson played just 54% of the snaps and wasn’t targeted. Some guy named Cyril Grayson played the same snap share as Brown. With AB seeing 50% of Tom Brady’s targets, there really wasn’t much for anyone else. Evans and Breshad Perriman were expected back in Week 17, so there seemingly wasn’t much value in any other Bucs wide receiver.
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Perriman had played ahead of Johnson in Week 13 with an 84% snap share. The hierarchy, in my mind, would be Evans-AB-Perriman-Johnson-Grayson. Instead, Grayson was second to only Rob Gronkowski in Week 17 targets with 8. He caught 6 of them for 81 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, he legitimately looked good doing it.
Grayson looks like a starting wide receiver. He played just 2 fewer snaps than Johnson last week and led all Bucs wide receivers in targets. Given his performance, I trust him more than every other Tampa Bay wide receiver not named Mike Evans.
Should fantasy managers add Grayson or Johnson if they have a meaningful Week 18 matchup?
We’ve all spent enough time fantasizing over Johnson breaking out. It’s not happening in Week 18. Head coach Bruce Arians said the Bucs would be playing their starters. The game isn’t super meaningful with just one bye available (which already belongs to the Packers). However, playoff seeding still matters for the purposes of increasing a team’s odds at having more than one home game. The Bucs would certainly like the No. 2 seed if they can get it.
If Tampa Bay weren’t playing their starters, it would be good news for Johnson. Since they are, we can safely ignore the wide receiver that has just one game of double-digit fantasy points and no touchdowns all season.
As for Grayson, to quote Gordon Ramsay during MasterChef auditions, “it’s a resounding yes.” The Bucs seem motivated, and Brady has an outside shot breaking the single-season passing yards record. He needs nearly 500 yards, but hey, he’s done it before.
Grayson should be third on the team in targets behind Evans and Gronk. Even though the game matters to an extent, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bucs protect Gronk a bit, given their likelihood of beating the Panthers without him. Grayson could very well have his best game of the season in Week 18.
