One of my favorite penny stocks heading into 2019 is Vance McDonald. For starters, he’s coming off his best year as a pro, setting career highs in targets (72), receptions (50), and receiving yards (610) in 2018. And his tight end counterpart from a year ago, Jesse James, just signed a 4-year deal with the Lions, making McDonald the team’s undisputed TE1. Between James and Antonio Brown, the Steelers now have 207 targets from last season up for grabs, and McDonald has certainly shown he’s deserving of an increased role in Pittsburgh.
Vance McDonald‘s numbers don’t immediately indicate a star in the making, but he’s a bit of an athletic freak — just ask Chris Conte. McDonald is 6’4″, 267 pounds with a sub-4.7 40-time and great hands. He was already 3rd on the team in red zone targets last season with 10, behind only JuJu Smith-Schuster‘s 29 and Antonio Brown‘s 24, and that number should only rise after Brown’s departure. Even with Donte Moncrief now assuming the team’s WR2 duties behind JuJu and likely amassing the 90-100 targets he typically garners over a full season, there’s still plenty of room for McDonald to shine in what should still be a very lucrative offense.
McDonald currently sits as The Wolf’s TE9 for 2019, 8 spots ahead of the Experts’ Consensus. Mike Tomlin has gushed about McDonald in the past, but also said recently that the team will likely look to add at the tight end position, which could severely limit McDonald’s ceiling. But for now, he remains a strong penny stock that will be available late in most drafts.
