I've seen some talk suggesting Marquez Valdes-Scantling is a nice sleeper. This includes not just Kansas City fans, but fantasy pros who can see him putting up nice numbers on a regular basis with Patrick Mahomes. I can see him having some nice weeks and the occasional long touchdown. But steady production? Unlikely.
At times it seemed like it would happen for him in Green Bay. He was starting and playing a majority of the snaps for most of his four seasons, and he was working with one of the game's best quarterbacks. Yes, Davante Adams was the alpha, but there were certainly opportunities for a solid No. 2 wideout. Only seldom was it MVS.
Valdes-Scantling has played at least half the snaps in 44 games in his four-year career, starting the vast majority of those contests. In just 12 of those (27 percent) did he catch more than 3 passes. In just 14 (32 percent) did he have double-digit fantasy points (PPR). In seven (16 percent) he was completely shut out.
In the table, sorted by fantasy points per game, the contests where he caught more than 3 passes are in bold. Data from pro-football-reference.com was used in compiling this table.
| MARQUEZ VALDES-SCANTLING, OVER 50 PERCENT OF SNAPS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Tgt | Rec | Yds | TD | Pct | FF Pts |
| 2020 | Jac. | 6 | 4 | 149 | 1 | 92% | 24.9 |
| 2021 | at Min. | 10 | 4 | 123 | 1 | 81% | 22.3 |
| 2019 | Den. | 10 | 6 | 99 | 1 | 87% | 21.9 |
| 2021 | at Bal. | 7 | 5 | 98 | 1 | 66% | 20.8 |
| 2020 | at Det. | 6 | 6 | 85 | 1 | 70% | 20.5 |
| 2018 | at Det. | 11 | 7 | 68 | 1 | 95% | 19.8 |
| 2020 | at Min. | 6 | 4 | 96 | 1 | 54% | 19.6 |
| 2020 | at S.F. | 4 | 2 | 53 | 2 | 89% | 19.3 |
| 2021 | at S.F. | 4 | 3 | 59 | 1 | 63% | 14.9 |
| 2018 | S.F. | 6 | 3 | 103 | 0 | 93% | 13.3 |
| 2018 | at N.E. | 6 | 3 | 101 | 0 | 81% | 13.1 |
| 2018 | at LAR | 5 | 2 | 45 | 1 | 60% | 12.5 |
| 2018 | at NYJ | 9 | 5 | 75 | 0 | 79% | 12.5 |
| 2018 | Mia. | 7 | 6 | 44 | 0 | 95% | 10.4 |
| 2020 | Det. | 7 | 3 | 64 | 0 | 63% | 9.4 |
| 2019 | at Chi. | 6 | 4 | 52 | 0 | 67% | 9.2 |
| 2021 | LAR | 9 | 4 | 50 | 0 | 70% | 9.0 |
| 2020 | Atl. | 8 | 4 | 45 | 0 | 97% | 8.5 |
| 2020 | at Ind. | 6 | 3 | 55 | 0 | 85% | 8.5 |
| 2019 | Phi. | 7 | 3 | 47 | 0 | 86% | 7.7 |
| 2018 | Det. | 8 | 3 | 43 | 0 | 91% | 7.3 |
| 2019 | Det. | 2 | 2 | 48 | 0 | 77% | 6.8 |
| 2020 | at T.B. | 5 | 3 | 32 | 0 | 84% | 6.2 |
| 2021 | Sea. | 2 | 1 | 41 | 0 | 66% | 5.1 |
| 2021 | Chi. | 5 | 3 | 20 | 0 | 66% | 5.0 |
| 2019 | Min. | 5 | 3 | 19 | 0 | 87% | 4.9 |
| 2018 | Buf. | 3 | 1 | 38 | 0 | 71% | 4.8 |
| 2021 | at N.O. | 8 | 3 | 17 | 0 | 63% | 4.7 |
| 2018 | Ari. | 7 | 2 | 19 | 0 | 84% | 3.9 |
| 2021 | at K.C. | 2 | 2 | 19 | 0 | 54% | 3.9 |
| 2020 | Min. | 1 | 1 | 19 | 0 | 82% | 2.9 |
| 2019 | at Dal. | 4 | 1 | 18 | 0 | 94% | 2.8 |
| 2018 | at Sea. | 3 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 98% | 1.8 |
| 2020 | at N.O. | 4 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 92% | 1.5 |
| 2019 | at K.C. | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 61% | 1.4 |
| 2018 | at Min. | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 83% | 1.3 |
| 2021 | Min. | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 65% | 1.3 |
| 2019 | at LAC | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | at Hou. | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 82% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | Chi. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 79% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | Phi. | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 75% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | Car. | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 65% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | Ten. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 62% | 0.0 |
| 2021 | Det. | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66% | 0.0 |
Granted, MVS was working across from target-monster Adams in most of these games. Now it will be JuJu Smith-Schuster, who's unlikely to have the incredible rapport that Aaron Rodgers and Adams had.
But still: four years of working with Aaron Rodgers, and he helped fantasy teams in lineups about 30 percent of the time. In nearly half of his games (20 of 44) he finished with 5 fantasy points or less, again while playing more than half of the snaps. Fourteen times, including nine the last two seasons, he caught 1 or no passes.
I don't think he'll go late enough in drafts to be on any of my teams.
--Andy Richardson