NFL

The 7 Riskiest Players in Fantasy Football

Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse the slideshow

7. Alshon Jeffery, WR, Philadelphia Eagles

Lucky number 7.

Or is it unlucky number 7?

In craps, that depends what you're betting on, and whether or not the point has been set.

In the case of Alshon Jeffery, it starts with whether or not he can stay healthy for a full 16 games. In each of the 2013 and 2014, Jeffery played in all 16 games and finished above his 171-fantasy-point ceiling projection, per our models, in each of those seasons.

Unfortunately, those are the only two seasons of his career in which he didn't miss a game. In the other three seasons of his career, he missed a combined 17 games, including 11 missed games in the past two years alone. In fact, he actually finished with less fantasy points in each of those seasons than his 119.12 floor projection for this season.

Then there is also the factor of Jeffery moving to the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason after playing his first five NFL seasons for the Chicago Bears. In 2016, under first-year head coach Doug Pedersen, the Eagles dropped back to pass 642 times, which ranked sixth in the league. That alone provides great opportunity for Jeffery and the rest of Eagles' pass-catchers, but volume isn't everything.

Here at numberFire, we use our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric to measure each player and team's efficiency. When he did play last year, Jeffery was pretty darn good, finishing first in Reception Success Rate -- the percentage of his catches which positively impacted NEP -- among wideouts to see at least 80 targets.

If Jeffery can stay healthy for a full season and connect with his new quarterback, he has the opportunity to be a top-10 fantasy wide receiver this season. But if all does not go to plan and he ends up near his floor as a back-end WR3, he could leave fantasy owners wishing they didn't spend a fourth-round pick on him, which is where he's currently going in standard 12-team leagues, per average draft position (ADP) data from Fantasy Football Calculator.