Fantasy Fallout: Jerry Jeudy Traded to Cleveland

Jerry Jeudy — and now-former teammate Courtland Sutton — were the subject of trade rumors for upwards of a year, and the Broncos finally shipped Jeudy off to Cleveland on Saturday. Jeudy will join Amari Cooper and Elijah Moore as the starting WRs for the Browns; meanwhile, Marvin Mims will take on a bigger role alongside Sutton (if he’s still on the team in December) as Denver retools their entire roster. Let’s dig into the fantasy implications of this move.

JERRY JEUDY

Old ranking: 132nd overall on Underdog

New ranking: 128th

• Jeudy hasn’t lived up to his first-round draft capital through four years in the NFL, failing to eclipse 972 yards in a single season thus far. Maybe a fresh start is what he needs in Cleveland. With the Browns, he’ll compete with Moore for WR2 duties. Jeudy likely has the edge in that battle after Moore’s disappointing 2023 campaign, but it’s not like Jeudy has done so much in the league that he’ll immediately walk into triple-digit targets. He’ll face robust target competition from Cooper and Njoku and likely falls into WR4 range for fantasy purposes. He’s shown enough flashes to maintain optimism that he can ascend into a weekly fantasy performer, but he remains a mere upside play in his new home.
• It’s worth noting the Browns only traded a Round 5 and Round 6 pick for Jeudy. That indicates a lack of interest in him, plus Cleveland traded more for Moore a year ago. However, the decision to bring in Jeudy likely means they aren’t satisfied with Moore, giving him the upper hand in the WR2 battle.

OTHER BROWNS RECEIVERS

• Jeudy should assume WR2 duties for the Browns, though he’s closer to battling Moore for WR2/3 than he is to challenging Cooper as the WR1. Moore struggled mightily in 2023 with just 6.2 yards per target and an average 15.8% seasonal target share despite having a full-time role and a clear path to targets.
• David Njoku also emerged as a go-to target for Browns QBs down the stretch with only two games under a 20% target share after Week 6. With Cooper and Njoku handling 40% of targets combined, Jeudy, Moore, and Cedric Tillman (who was woefully inefficient as a target earner during his rookie season) are left to duke it out for the scraps.
• He didn’t really have any excuses before, but 2024 feels like a do-or-die season for Deshaun Watson with a pretty strong receiving corps and another year to get his legs under him after two years away from the game. He was legitimately bad in 2023, ranking 26th out of 39 QBs (min. 200 dropbacks) in PFF passing grade. He’ll need to be way better to sustain 3+ fantasy-relevant receivers.

BRONCOS RECEIVERS

• Mims is likely the WR2 on the depth chart right now, although Tim Patrick should be fully healthy by Week 1 after tearing his Achilles last summer. Sean Payton noted at the NFL Combine (via Matthew Berry) that the Oklahoma speedster plays the same position as Jeudy and was road-blocked last year, which leads us to believe he’s the primary beneficiary of this move. With that being said, Payton was frequently complimentary of Mims last year, yet he still insisted on playing guys like Lil’Jordan Humphrey ahead of him. Still, Mims now gets another offseason to acclimate to the NFL game, so he’s a fun dart in drafts despite the overall uncertainty surrounding the Denver offense right now.

• Sutton benefits too from a target share perspective, but his name has been in trade whispers for more than a year at this point, so it’s unclear whether he’ll be with the Broncos come Week 1. John Daigle noted Sutton has a 22.8% target share over the past three years with Jeudy out, and his raw box-score lines in those games are strong too.
• Denver will likely add another WR and the QB is still a massive question mark as well. There are a lot of moves still to be made for this offense, so we’ll have a better idea of where the targets will go in two months after free agency and the draft. At the very least, Mims and Sutton should be upgraded (especially Mims) with Jeudy out of the picture.