For a couple of days, the Rams’ receiving corps was stacked with big names. Cooper Kupp. Odell Beckham. Allen Robinson. Robert Woods. Even Van Jefferson came into his own as a sophomore last season.
But it wasn’t to last. The Rams traded Woods and his $13.8 million cap hit to the Titans for a sixth-round pick on Saturday. The price indicates it was nothing more than a salary dump for Los Angeles — which makes sense given their cap situation — but the Titans got an accomplished second wide receiver to complement A.J. Brown for just a late-round pick.
Let’s take a look at how Woods going to Music City affected ETR’s projections.
ROBERT WOODS
Old projection: 64.9 catches on 97.6 targets for 752.2 yards and 4.5 touchdowns. WR45 on Underdog.
New projection: 61.8 catches on 92.7 targets for 712.9 yards and 4.4 touchdowns. WR51 on Underdog.
- Woods’ projected target share rises from 15.3% to 17.4% with the move from Los Angeles to Tennessee, but his raw target total goes down due to the low-volume Titans passing attack. We project the Titans for 31.4 pass attempts per game, while the Rams are six attempts per game higher at 37.4. Woods will have less competition for targets in Tennessee, but the style of offense is a major factor working against him. He’s in WR5 territory as a Titan.
OTHER TITANS PLAYERS
- We had already baked in the possibility of the Titans adding a wide receiver after they cut Julio Jones because we didn’t believe they would go into 2022 with Nick Westbrook-Ikhine as their WR2. For that reason, Tennessee pass catchers weren’t affected too heavily by the trade, even though Woods projects for a significant target share.
ALLEN ROBINSON
Old projection: 61.8 catches on 97.6 targets for 758.2 yards and 4.5 touchdowns. WR44 on Underdog.
New projection: 67.7 catches on 107.0 targets for 830.9 yards and 4.9 touchdowns. WR39 on Underdog.
- Previously, we had Woods and Robinson sharing WR2 duties with identical target shares of 15.3%. Woods’ departure establishes Robinson is the clear WR2 for Matthew Stafford, so the 28-year-old sees a pretty significant bump with Bobby Trees out of the picture. We increased his target share to 16.8%, giving him 9.4 more targets on the season and bumping his positional ranking up five spots. Of course, the Rams seem likely to re-sign Beckham now that Woods is gone, but he tore his ACL in February and could start the year on the PUP list as he recovers. That means it’ll likely be Kupp, Robinson, and Jefferson in 3-WR sets to start the season, with Beckham as a question mark as he recovers from his second major knee injury. Robinson is on the fringe of top-36 WR status.
OTHER RAMS PLAYERS
- We bumped Jefferson and Beckham’s target shares back to where they were before the Rams signed Robinson (i.e. Robinson holds the WR2 role previously occupied by Woods, so Jefferson and Beckham are back to where they were as WR3/WR4). We increased Kupp’s target share slightly, although he was already at a mammoth number. Otherwise, we didn’t change much. The elephant in the room with Rams receivers is Beckham’s health, so hopefully we get more information on that as the summer progresses.
