Fantasy: 6 players whose 2017 stats were inflated by big games

Get ready for your season with theScore's 2018 Fantasy Football Draft Kit.

It can be dangerous to look at a player's fantasy production from the previous season and gauge draft value based on cumulative stats.

A big day in a skewed matchup can inflate season totals and make fantasy managers ignore poor performances.

Here's a look at six players who, although may seem like intriguing late-round options, are most likely to regress and find themselves on the waiver wire.

All rankings and statistics apply to 12-team leagues with standard scoring.

Jared Goff, QB, Rams

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
3	23.58	9.2
9	28.44	11.1
10	26.5	10.4
16	25.44	10.0

The biggest concern with Goff is a staggeringly low floor. He had more outings with fewer than 11 fantasy points (five) than he had games with more than 20 points (four).

Though he did finish with the 12th-best season at his position, over 40 percent of his fantasy production came in just four games.

Goff doesn't have the safety net of gaining yards or touchdowns on the ground - he has just one rushing touchdown in each of his first two seasons - and the Rams' plethora of offensive weapons may limit the team's need to air the ball out downfield. It was a strategy with which they had plenty of success in head coach Sean McVay's first season, and helped prop up Goff's fantasy totals.

The third-year signal-caller is best left for DFS and is a bye-week streamer against only the most appealing opponents.

Nelson Agholor, WR, Eagles

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
5	15.3	11.6
12	15.2	11.6
13	20.1	15.3

The opening for extra targets following the trade of Torrey Smith to the Carolina Panthers quickly closed with the free-agent addition of Mike Wallace.

While Agholor averaged 8.2 points per game, he finished below that number on nine occasions and twice caught just a single pass. But the 25-year-old still finished as the No. 22 receiver last season.

He led the Eagles with 19 red-zone targets and caught 13 of those, with five going for touchdowns, and his 68.42 percent catch rate was well above the league average. Agholor's other three touchdowns on the season came on big plays of 24, 58, and 72 yards.

Agholor set career highs across the board in his third season. But, he won't have the volume necessary to account for the incoming regression as he battles for the role of No. 2 receiver.

Ted Ginn, WR, Saints

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
3	11.9	11.2
6	12.9	12.1
7	14.1	13.2
9	11.9	11.2
16	15.0	14.1

Ginn and his owners enjoyed the third-best fantasy season of his career in 2017. He finished as the position's No. 35 option, even though he received 25 fewer targets than he did in either of his last two seasons with the Panthers.

Despite the end-of-year ranking, Ginn topped 10 points just five times and finished below five points in six of his active games. Three of his four touchdowns on the season came on plays of more than 35 yards, and he had another two receptions exceed that figure.

Ginn has always been a big-play threat, and although quarterback Drew Brees is fully capable of utilizing his skills, those plays don't come with enough frequency for him to be a consideration on draft day. He lacks the volume required to accurately project his production and start him in lineups.

Bilal Powell, RB, Jets

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
4	25.0	20.5
16	20.5	16.8

Powell finished as the RB26 and RB22 in each of the past two seasons, respectively, and relied on big plays and big games to accomplish the rank in each year.

He set a career high with 772 rushing yards in 2017, but 308 of those yards came in just two games. His combined 45.5 fantasy points in those outings represented 37.2 percent of his season total.

Moreover, Powell faces added competition for touches in the Jets' backfield this season with the additions of Isaiah Crowell and Thomas Rawls. He'll lose the stable workload that aided his success the past two seasons.

Chris Thompson, RB, Redskins

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
2	22.6	20.1
3	24.8	22.1

Thompson finished as last season's RB31 despite being limited to 10 games. His 112.4 fantasy points were more than he had in each of his previous two campaigns.

His two rushing touchdowns on the season came in the same game against the Los Angeles Rams, who allowed the fourth-most touchdowns on the ground last year. The contest also included his longest run of the season at 61 yards.

His longest reception of the year came the following week on a 74-yard catch.

Those two games were his best fantasy performances of the season, and he'd total just 27 yards on eight touches a week later.

Rookie Derrius Guice has been drawing praise from training camp and is likely to earn an early shot at the lion's share on the ground, removing all safety from starting Thompson in fantasy lineups.

Cameron Brate, TE, Buccaneers

Week	Fantasy Pts.	% of year total
3	9.3	9.8
4	14.0	14.7
5	12.9	13.6
6	13.6	14.3
13	15.9	16.7

All five of Brate's red-zone receptions last season went for touchdowns, even though he caught just 35.71 percent of his 14 targets in that area of the field. He had just one touchdown catch longer than 20 yards.

Brate didn't exceed 6.4 points in any of the 11 games in which he didn't cross the goal line. While he's likely to retain his significant edge over O.J. Howard in red-zone work, Brate lacks the insurance that comes with consistent targets over the rest of the field.

He could be worthy of streaming in certain matchups later in the season, but he should be left alone on draft day with the Buccaneers opening the campaign without quarterback Jameis Winston.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)

(Fantasy points courtesy: Fantasy Data and Fantasy Pros)

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