Let’s get it out of the way early: Arthur Smith hates your fantasy football team. He just does. He won’t throw to Kyle Pitts or Drake London. Promising young back Tyler Allgeier is now stuck in a three-way committee, and even before Cordarrelle Patterson was back from injury, he still struggled to get a full-time load of snaps with Caleb Huntley also on.
But, as much as he has owned us all, it’s important to talk about the fact that what he is doing is actually working. The Falcons are 4-5. If you look at the talent of this team on paper, not only did I not expect them to be 4-5, I wouldn’t have pegged them to reach four wins this season. Their run offense -- the thing that we all dumped on in Week 7 when they refused to throw -- has been one of the most impressive units in the NFL this year.
Atlanta finished 2021 with the 31st-ranked rushing DVOA in the NFL, ahead of only false NFL team Houston. In fact, the Falcons have been horrendously bad at running the ball for years. They have not finished higher than 22nd in rushing DVOA since 2018. That, along with some bad seasons, has often led to them abandoning the run -- you may remember a certain Super Bowl where this was important. The Falcons were 29th in rushes in 2021, 20th in 2020, and 29th again in 2019.
In 2022, they returned almost the exact same offensive line as they had in 2021. The only change they made was removing major early failure Jalen Mayfield from the equation. They added in Marcus Mariota, and they do run some with Mariota -- but he has a 1.8% rushing DVOA and is tied for eighth in quarterback rushing DYAR behind notable scramblers Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow.
...And somehow, this unit is fourth in rushing DVOA out of nowhere. And they have rushed more than any non-Bears team in the NFL. That is both the thing that makes Allgeier an interesting play for this year and beyond and simultaneously the thing that makes it hard to point to a reason for him to get more playing time.
The Allgeier Profile: Everything we want but playing time
Somehow, Allgeier generated hype in the early offseason but wound up inactive for Week 1. The Falcons at one point in the preseason listed him eighth on their running back depth chart behind names like Avery Williams and “John Raine.” Allgeier took 61 preseason snaps, finishing with a 78.5 PFF run grade and 3/25, 6/17, and 8/26 rushing lines in his three games. Caleb Huntley wound up with way more preseason totes than Allgeier, showing that Allgeier was actually ahead of him on the depth chart.
After getting on the field in Week 2, Allgeier’s role grew with Cordarrelle Patterson on IR, and now that Patterson is back, it has shrunk to just about where it was in Weeks 2 and 3.
In retrospect it’s easy to say something like: “Well, Allgeier was worth a roster spot while Patterson was out but never really delivered outside of the touchdowns.” I agree with that, but also, his touch volume had been heavy enough and the Falcons run offense has been good enough that he returned value whenever they didn’t play a good defense. Tampa’s rush defense has been one-of-a-kind for years. The 49ers are dominant. Even the Bengals have been pretty good without D.J. Reader. All three of those are top-15 run defense DVOA units.
We saw what happened when you put Allgeier against a bad run defense on Sunday, as the Chargers lost Austin Johnson in the fourth quarter and got pummeled with Atlanta’s run game. Only a (eye test, not fantasy) QB1 game by Justin Herbert kept the Chargers from falling to the Falcons.
Tyler Allgeier Week 9 44 yards pic.twitter.com/wkl2oDO8nh
— rivers mccown (alt) (@mccownclips) November 8, 2022
Allgeier has shown plenty of ability to run to daylight, but he also layers his moves well. Gets away from someone in the open field on this carry to create more space, and his feet keep churning on contact. I feel like this is the year where every fantasy comparison winds up being to Dameon Pierce because of the instant success -- Allgeier is not Pierce against contact, but he does get plenty of broken tackles. His main problem is that, well, so does everyone else in the backfield!
The system is the way, but the system is the roadblock
Here’s Allgeier’s main problem summed up in one screenshot:
Allgeier is in the top 18 in rush yards over expectation on the season. He’s played really well. So have his two teammates, who are sandwiching him in these Next Gen Stat rankings. Huntley has the highest percentage of his carries go for positive rush yards over expectation in the NFL. Patterson is third. It’s hard to tell yourself a Tony Pollard narrative about the Falcons because, well, there’s no Ezekiel Elliott in Allgeier’s way. They’ve all shown to be good enough to keep using.
At the same time, Allgeier’s situation makes it hard to bail on him even with Patterson back. Patterson is a) not actually a running back and b) is reliably dinged up. That’s the reason Allgeier had an opportunity to play in the first place. I think he profiles as a fantasy hold. Atlanta, frankly, doesn’t have many intimidating teams left on their schedule. They play the Ravens in Week 16, but otherwise they’ve got games against the Bears, Commanders, Steelers, Saints, Cardinals, and Bucs after their Thursday Night jaunt with the Panthers. That is not exactly a murderer’s row for running defense -- the Commanders have been pretty solid there empirically, but have still given up plenty of fantasy points to backs. One more Patterson knee tweak and we’re talking about an easy FLEX play the rest of the year as the leader of a committee on a good rushing offense -- with RB2 upside.
The reality is that Allgeier has already shown us everything we need to see to believe in him as a fantasy back. And the reality is also that Arthur Smith‘s system is not going to let that happen in a real way on its own. He needs another Patterson injury to see major fantasy value, but everything has stacked up this year to make it easy to believe in him if he gets that chance.
