Addison’s 70-911-10 line as a rookie was very impressive, but context is very important. He started off red-hot through eight games with the help of Kirk Cousins (18:5 TD:INT ratio in that span), scoring seven touchdowns in eight games despite just a 16.2% target share. Addison averaged 15.8 PPR points per game with Cousins under center, good for the WR15 in that timeframe – but things fell off dramatically once Cousins went down.
Where Addison was hyper-efficient on just 36 receptions through Cousins’ eight starts (catching a TD on nearly 20% of them), he felt the ill effects of backup QB play in the back nine of the 2023 season, scoring just three more touchdowns on 34 more receptions (~9% clip). His reliance on touchdowns to remain productive was evident and only further magnified by the return of Justin Jefferson to the lineup following their Week 13 bye: Addison garnered just four or fewer targets in four of the Vikings final five games while finishing inside the weekly top-20 just once with non-Cousins quarterbacks at the controls. His 16.8% target share on the season ranked just 47th among all wide receivers, and a 1.63 yards per route run was low compared to other rookie WRs. That’s despite working in a Kevin O’Connell offense that passed the ball at the third-highest rate last year.
The bad news is that 2024 figures to put Addison in an environment much more similar to the one he struggled in last year than the one he thrived in. Heading into 2024, Kirk Cousins is out the door and off to greener pastures in Atlanta, leaving veteran QB Sam Darnold and first-round rookie J.J. McCarthy as the heirs apparent to the Vikings QB throne. Regardless of which signal caller starts this year, they’ll have big, productive shoes to fill in Cousins’ wake.
The return of TE T.J. Hockenson looms in the more distant future, providing Addison an opportunity to earn some looks in the early going – but without Cousins, as well as having the league’s pre-eminent talent at wide receiver to contend with and with a question mark at quarterback, it’ll be an uphill climb to fantasy relevance outside of anything more than a flex start on a regular basis for Addison in 2024.
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