We shall see. I think his efficiency could/should go up in terms of yards per target, but I think his raw production is going to drop pretty dramatically on volume alone.
Landry has averaged over 150 targets per year over the last four years, about 9.5 per game.
But there’s almost no way that number doesn’t drop for several reasons.
1. Beckham justifiably has averaged 10.5 targets per game for his career. This shouldn’t drop at all (and frankly should go up) because he’s that good. There’s almost no way for Landry to continue to get 9.5 targets a game with Beckham presumably getting 10+.
2. Mayfield last year under Kitchens threw the ball about 33 times a game. Going off Kitchens half a season as a play caller, Monken’s time as a play caller and historical averages, I think we can safely estimate Beckham for 10-11 targets a game, the RB group for 5-6 a game and the TE/FB group for 5-6 a game. Add all that up and you’re at roughly 22 of 33 targets accounted for. That only leaves approximately 11 more targets to be split among the rest of the WRs. Do we really think Landry’s gonna get 9.5 of those abs Callaway/Higgins are going to split the other 1.5? More realistically given Mayfield’s ability to break and make plays out of structure combined with his desire to NOT get sacked, a fair number of projected targets for Landry is 6-7, Callaway 3-4 and Higgins is the odd man out getting 1-2 a game.
3. Landry’s targets already dropped from 11.7 under Haley to 6.9 per game under Kitchens and that was WITHOUT target a target vacuum OBJ in the mix.
6-7 targets a game for Landry over the whole season would project out to around 96-112 total, which would be the lowest figure of his career.
I’m guessing something like 65-70 catches for 800-850 yards and 4-5 touchdowns for Landry.
There’s only so many passes to go around.
As funny as this sounds, I actually feel OBJs targets are going to be less than in the past since he is on a team with a lot of targets and a QB who isn't afraid to spread and will spread the ball around.
Reason why I say this is, teams arent going to allow OBJ to beat them one on one, he is way too good, but that means if you put an extra/spy on him in a sense, it will allow the other guys to get open and with Landry being an extremely good slot style guy, maybe the best in the business there, plus having Njoku, Duke (hopefully) who are also good, then you have Callaway, Higgins, Chubb and Hunt (later), the ball will get spread around a lot more than his days at the Giants.
Going by the 33 a game passes, you can OBJ to get 25% (He's always been 25-30% in his career, I expect a lower percentage this season so lets say 25 then), so he will get about 8 per game, Landry I think will get 6, Njoku about 6, Then 13 spread between everyone else.
Mayfield is the type of QB who is going to normally go for the high percentage of completion possibility on most plays, so he was only averaging 7ish yard per play and if Odell gets double teamed like we expect, it will be the other guys who benefit, get more catches and everything else.
Landry's catches went down because he was the guy who was the main threat on this roster and when that happens and he is the guy who is double teamed, Mayfield will go to the opening in the defense which wasn't then landry, but Landry this season will be put into a role he is meant for plus will not often be double teamed plus have Njoku beside him drawing attention too. I don't actually expect as big of year from OBJ as some people would, but I expect a well round and spread out offense that is hard to contain, so I think the numbers may end up going up because of that fact.