Jeremy Maclin is a better fantasy option than Julian Edelman in 2016

After tackling the battle of Eli Manning vs. Philip Rivers Friday, we’re going back to the wide receivers portion of our head-to-head series. There have been eight wide receiver battles to this point, covering a variety of wide receivers who are being drafted inside of the top 30. Today, it’s the same, focusing on a pair of receivers going in or around the fourth round of fantasy football drafts: Julian Edelman and Jeremy Maclin.

Both of these guys are entering their eighth season, so we have some history to go off of when projecting them. I can tell you that one of them is being drafted at their ceiling (Edelman), while the other has room to grow (Maclin). Read on to see why you want to go with the Chiefs receiver over the Patriot.

Quarterback strength

This isn’t a fair fight for Maclin, as he is being thrown passes by Alex Smith, and Edelman has been catching passes from all-time great Tom Brady. But even so, it’s part of our comparisons, so we need to take it into consideration.

Brady has thrown at least 33 touchdowns in five of his last six seasons, and hasn’t thrown fewer than 23 since way back in his rookie year, when he only started 14 games. He’s one of the safest bets at the quarterback position, although he does spread the ball around a ton, which is something we will discuss in the “volume” section below.