Unlike projections –which are a checks and balances built around the highest probability—bold calls are more of a look at one extreme in a range of outcomes for an individual player or team. Even when we have a full palate of probable data at hand to combine with our film and situational data, the absolute best at forecasting in this profession still only hit on a 55-60 percent of their statements when playing things close to the vest. When making “bold calls”, you can expect the success rate of those outcomes to be significantly marginal, but whether we’re labeling them as hot takes or bold calls, brash statements that inherently have a lower percentage of being successful should still be rooted with an evidence-based approach over just throwing darts at the board with your eyes closed.
When looking back at last year’s post, the results were exactly that. There were some great calls (LeGarrette Blount), some mixed (A.J. Green was the top scoring WR per game when he was injured) and some downright ludicrously awful statements (pick one, there are many). In these extreme cases of a singular outcomes, I want to treat them as more of a sobering piece of analysis than having a standalone impact on the draft implications for a player. Especially in the cases where we’re exploring an extremely negative outcome that I’m still interested in drafting for probable and positive outcomes.
The Jets score fewer than 20 offensive touchdowns in 2017
The Jets are going to be bad at football in 2017, but just how bad can they be? In a better situation last year, the New York offense managed to score just 26 touchdowns, which ranked only ahead of Houston and Los Angeles, who each scored 23 times on offense. No team has scored less than 20 times in a season since the 2012 Chiefs scored just 17 times rushing and receiving and just seven teams have “accomplished” the feat since 2000. That Chiefs team also the last team in the modern offensive era to throw for fewer than 10 passing scores, throwing for just eight passing touchdowns, something the Jets and their personnel can duplicate. That Chiefs team started Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn and two of their top three leaders in receptions were running backs. This Jets team holds similar parallels in that they have the worst quarterback situation in the league with their best offensive players are in their backfield. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have Jamaal Charles or a wide receiver coming off back-to back 1,000-yard receiving seasons like that Chiefs squad did.
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Shane Vereen leads the Giants backfield in PPR fantasy points
The Giants are a team that just isn’t built to run the football and their offseason moves told us they are still trying to swerve into a pass-first identity. The Giants threw percent 61 percent of the time and on those plays, they used three or more wide receivers on 97.4 percent of the time, which was the highest rate in the league. They went out and added Brandon Marshall and Evan Engram, while not making key additions to their offensive line or backfield. Paul Perkins is the lead back on the depth chart, but Vereen fits the offense the best and his role should outscore Paul Perkins even if that depth chart never alters throughout the season. The Giants have 11 rushing touchdowns combined the past two seasons and have not had a 1,000-yard rusher since 2012 or a top-20 scoring fantast back since 2011. Before injury last year, Vereen went from 43 percent of the snaps to 51 and 54 percent and was a top-36 scoring back in every one of those games. Perkins was a top-36 scorer just three times and even in the five games in which he accrued 40 percent of the team rushing attempts, cracked the top-40 just twice. I believe we’ll see Vereen’s snaps expand as the Giants throw the ball and more.
Sammy Watkins is outside of the top-30 scoring wide receivers
Watkins has flashed a major ceiling at times, but also comes with health risks and has been a volatile producer. He’s been a top-24 scorer in just 15 of 37 career games to this point. Just 7.3 percent of Watkins’ career targets have come from inside of the red zone --the fourth lowest rate of all active wide receivers with 100 plus career targets—and has since been traded to the team that ranked 31st in red zone plays in 2016. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Watkins score five or fewer times on the season. His transition from a vertical passer such as Tyrod Taylor to Jared Goff also hurts his playmaking ability down the field. Just 7.1 percent of Goff’s completions were 15 yards or further down the field in 2016. Sean McVay’s system and Watkins himself can aid an offensive growth for Goff and the Rams, but the move from Buffalo to Los Angeles is still a big downgrade in terms of expected target share and quarterback play to his strengths while adding games versus premier teams that are expected to defend the pass well such as Seattle and Arizona twice, Jacksonville, the Giants, Vikings and Texans as well as another game that should see him locked up with Josh Norman.
Zach Ertz leads all tight ends in targets
Ertz’ familiarity with Wentz and the Eagles’ lack of interior pass catchers bodes well for him rolling over his end of the season production into 2017. Over his final nine games he received 86 targets (fifth in the entire league), catching 63 passes (second) for 666 yards (eighth) as he was the highest scoring tight end in both formats over that span. Ertz benefits from Jordan Matthews’ absence--he received 31 targets in the two games Matthews missed a year ago--and being the most reliable target that has a body of work with quarterback Carson Wentz. The addition of Alshon Jeffery will prevent Ertz from pushing those 15 targets per game without Mathews available, but the average amount of targets per game for the leader at the tight end position over the past five years has been 8.9, which is attainable.
Matthew Stafford is in the back half of QB scoring through 8 weeks
Stafford has been the QB7 and the QB8 in overall scoring in each of the past two years as he’s re-invented himself as an efficient, shallow passer. Over his past 24 games, Stafford has completed 66.8 percent of his passes after completing 59.6 percent over his previous career. But what gets lost in Stafford’s re-invention and the credit Jim Bob Cooter has taken for it is that Stafford has been extremely matchup dependent over the past two seasons for fantasy. Over that span, Stafford has faced 20 pass defenses in the top-20 and in those games averaged just 249 passing yards and 1.6 touchdowns per game while finishing as the QB16 or lower in 14 of those 20 games. In 12 games against the extreme bottom feeders, Stafford has been a top-12 scorer nine times, throwing for 302 yards, 2.0 touchdowns and scoring 21.4 fantasy points per game. This year, Detroit has a rough opening slate, with matchups against the Cardinals, Giants, Vikings, Panthers and Steelers through their opening seven games.
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Russell Wilson is the top overall scoring quarterback for the season
Wilson threw just 21 touchdowns to 11 interceptions with a career-worst 3.9 percent touchdown rate in 2016. He also set career lows in rushing output, carrying 72 times for 259 yards. Wilson’s early season play was hampered by an ankle injury sustained Week 1 and then a knee injury that forced him to exit in Week 3. Over the first seven games of the season, Wilson had thrown just five touchdowns and rushed for only 44 yards as he was the QB24 over that span in fantasy. Once his health returned, so did his fantasy production. Over the final nine games of the season, Wilson was the QB3 in overall scoring, passing for 16 touchdowns and adding 215 yards rushing on the ground as he was a top-12 scorer in six of those final nine games. High expectations for both Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady could get in the way here, but Wilson’s pass attempts and passing yardage have risen in every season of his career with room to still rise and Seattle has one of the most favorable schedule layouts for any team in the league. We’ve seen Wilson put together stretches of being the premier fantasy quarterback and 2017 will be the first time he does so throughout an entire season.
Emmanuel Sanders outscores Demaryius Thomas
Sanders came close a year ago, finishing just .7 standard and 11.7 PPR points below Thomas, but in summer drafts, Thomas is the WR15 while Sanders is the WR29. Sanders matched or received more targets than Thomas in eight games a year ago and has a much higher weekly ceiling post Prime Peyton-Manning, albeit with a lower floor, which is partially why you see the discrepancy in ADP. Sanders has the same number of touchdowns (11) as Thomas on 42 fewer receptions over the past two years and had 14 end zone targets a year ago to seven for Thomas. Sanders has been a top-12 scorer in nine games with five top-5 scoring weeks to just seven WR1 weeks for Thomas and just two inside of the top-10. If talking bang for your buck, Sanders can manipulate more weeks on your roster.
Charles Clay will be a top-12 scoring PPR tight end
Clay should easily push the 100-target mark in 2017, but is being drafted as the TE29 this summer. The Bills are missing 65 percent of their targets and 59 percent of their receptions a year ago and are shifting to a new offensive system. Rick Dennison’s lead tight end has averaged 22.9 percent of the team targets and that number was at 24.6 percent prior to the past two years in Denver, who were never able to fill the position with a capable pass catcher. He is just one of seven tight ends to catch at least 50 passes in each of the past four seasons and is the only pass catcher that has familiarity with Tyrod Taylor, for however long he remains the starter.
Terrance West will finish as a top-20 scoring RB
West may not be very good, but it may not particularly matter. Averaging just 3.9 yards per carry for his career, West was still a top-24 scorer in seven of the nine games in which he received at least half of the Baltimore rushing attempts a year ago. Danny Woodhead is no threat to carve into that rushing workload as Woodhead has averaged 21 percent of his team’s carries per game over the past five years while averaging 6.0 rushing attempts per game. The Ravens have only played Buck Allen out of complete necessity through two seasons, so it’s hard to buy into the smoke coming from his revival tour. West also had three or more receptions in each of the final six games of the season sharing time with Kenneth Dixon and tacked on 34 receptions for the season, so he’s not a total dud out of the backfield. With the benefit of being a cheaper back in a Greg Roman ground game, which has continuously produced productivity in each of his stops in the NFL, West yields RB2 value for the season.
Both Jamison Crowder and Jordan Reed outscore Terrelle Pryor
Starting with Pryor first, who undoubtedly has immense upside. He is an older player switching teams, which is inherently risky, no matter how exciting the move to Washington from Cleveland may be. Over the past 10 years, there have been just six top-12 scoring wide receivers—Pryor is currently the WR14 in ADP-- playing for new teams and just 12 top-20 scorers. It’s not often that highly productive players actually immediately change teams, so of the 11 top-20 wide receivers to change teams over the past decade, just three were top-20 the following season for their new teams and just two –Vincent Jackson and Brandon Marshall (with the Jets) – increased their per game scoring output. Both Reed and Crowder already have a familiarity with Kirk Cousins and Reed is being selected 16 picks after Pryor while Crowder goes 42 picks later than Terrelle. Reed has never played a full season in his four-year NFL career, but has averaged more points per game than Gronk in each of the past two seasons and his six games with multiple receiving touchdowns over that span has only been matched by Antonio Brown. Crowder is a third-year player on an upward trajectory in an offense with a lot of open targets that aren’t just from Pryor, and 15.3 percent of his targets so far for his career have come from inside of the red zone, the fourth highest rate for an active wide receiver player with at least 100 targets.
Darren McFadden will be the second-highest scoring fantasy RB in the NFC East
Behind Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys are tough team to have a hot take for and we were ahead of the “fade Dez” chatter going on this summer a year ago in this same post. McFadden was the RB12 in 2015 and the fourth in the league in rushing yards while attached to a miserable offense. He ran for 87.3 yards per game as the lead back over the final 11 games that year, a mark that would’ve ranked third in the league a year ago. Even in six starts and then mop up/spot duty when Elliott returns, McFadden will make more of a fantasy impact than any of the remaining backfield members within the division as I believe those situations cannibalize each over the course of the season.
Jameis Winston is the only NFC South QB not to be a QB1
Top to bottom, the NFC South is the best division in football for quarterback play, so this isn’t ultimate shade towards Winston, but he is currently overvalued as the consensus QB7 this summer. Even as the only quarterback to ever begin his career with 4,000-yards passing in each of his first two seasons, Winston has yet to demonstrate a major weekly ceiling at the position for fantasy, scoring as a top-12 quarterback 11 times over his first two seasons with just six games in the top-10 of his position. Tampa Bay will also have to showcase the pass more in 2017. The Bucs offensive additions may unlock a ceiling for their passing game that hasn’t existed, but Tampa Bay showed their hand a bit in season when they tasted their first bit of success under this new regime and blossoming as a younger franchise. The Bucs went 6-2 over their final eight games last year and over that span they were 27th in the league in pass rate (54.7 percent) and were 15th in plays per game after running the third most plays and passing 60.3 percent of them prior. Over that timeframe, Winston was the QB17 in scoring and his highest rank in weekly scoring was QB11. If Tampa Bay can control games, Winston will continue to be a floor play at a position filled with floor options.
Steelers have the highest scoring fantasy DST in 2017
The Steelers DST finished 15th in overall scoring a year ago and are currently the 10th defensive unit off the board in ongoing drafts. That overall rank a year ago doesn’t tell the complete story, however as Pittsburgh made a fundamental shift defensively after their Week 8 bye. After that span, they blitzed 43 percent of the time, the third highest rate in the league. Over their final nine games, Pittsburgh was the DST5 in fantasy leagues while having the second most sacks--3.4 per game with multiple sacks in eight games-- and forcing at least one turnover in every one of those games. The Steelers return all their defensive starters with the exceptions of Lawrence Timmons (their lowest graded player in 2016 per Pro Football Focus) and Jarvis Jones while adding first round selection T.J. Watt and having Bud Dupree (who missed nine games last year) ready to start the season. On top of that, Pittsburgh kicks off the year with Cleveland, Minnesota, Chicago, Baltimore and Jacksonville over their opening five games and face just six quarterbacks who finished inside of the top-15 in fantasy points per game all of 2017.
Isaiah Crowell outscores Jordan Howard
I’m taking liberties here and lumping both Bears and Browns calls into one take, but I have that kind of authority. Both backs are in very similar production profile buckets as lead backs on teams with bottom of the league expectations that will turn to rookie quarterback play at some point, but Crowell is being selected 20 picks later than Howard in drafts.
Howard was just one of 24 backs since the 1970 merger to be a top-12 scoring back on a team with three wins or less, so he’s no stranger to overcoming a climate that has historically failed to aid fantasy production. His 5.2 yards per carry ranked fourth in the NFL of all backs with at least 100 carries, but was aided by many long runs. 17.1 percent of Howard’s runs went for 10 or more yards, which ranked second in the league, but he ranked 17th in percentage of runs that gained five or more yards. Howard also scored just seven total touchdowns – the fewest of all top-12 scoring backs - and three of those came in one game, leaving him with 10 games without a touchdown. I’d anticipate Howard’s yards per carry to return to league normality a bit and the Bears still project to be a team on the wrong end of game script, making Howard a strong candidate to decline in year two since he caught just 29-of-50 targets on the season and will be challenged for receiving opportunities more this season.
Crowell’s 4.8 yards per carry were accrued in a similar fashion. He was 10th of all backs in rate of carries that went for 10 or more yards, but he also ranked 11th in rate of runs that failed to gain any yardage at all (22.7 percent), even below Todd Gurley. Crowell wasn’t able to stay consistent for fantasy like Howard because the Browns never even tried to run the football, something Hue Jackson has sworn to rectify. Cleveland invested into one of the best lines in the league and in the seven times they got Crowell to just a low volume-level of at least 15 touches in a game, he was a top-12 scorer five times. Crowell also sneakily out-targeted Duke Johnson 34 to 27 over the final eight weeks of the season. Crowell also averaged 5.0 yards per carry out on 171 career carries from the shotgun, something Cleveland should use a lot more with DeShone Kizer as the starting quarterback. If Cleveland remains more competitive in 2017 just to the point of being competent, Crowell should return on the RB14 price tag he currently carries and will be a better selection than grabbing Howard where he is selected in drafts.
And Carlos Hyde outscores them both
Hyde is in almost an identical spot to the previous two backs in terms of talent, usage and offensive climate, but costs the least. In fact, four rookie running backs have a higher ADP than Hyde with a potential fifth in Kareem Hunt on the way. Of course, Hyde’s injury history and presumably shaky status on the depth chart for the summer are baked into that depressed cost, but the latter has already proven to be #FakeNews. Hyde ranked 10th in standard league points per game (12.7), 15 spots ahead of Crowell’s 10.4 and just behind Howard’s 13.4 while ranking 12th in PPR points per game. Hyde is playing for a future contract in the NFL in 2017 and gets the Kyle Shanahan bump. Young Shanny’s lead backs have averaged 176.2 standard points and 210.4 PPR points per year through nine years and the highest any of those backs were selected in the NFL draft was Steve Slaton at pick 89 (Hyde was the 57th pick in the 2014 draft).
Marlon Mack leads the Colts backfield in fantasy points
Mack was a 70th percentile prospect in the 40-yard dash and burst score per Player Profiler while closing his collegiate career with three 1,000-yard seasons. He is a boom/bust runner, with 54.1 percent of his rushing yardage in 2016 coming from carries of five or more yards (seventh in the country for all backs with at least 100 carries), but that is exactly what the Colts need infused into their offense. Indianapolis had just four runs of 20 or more yards last year, the fewest in the NFL. Frank Gore has consumed backup running back souls like Shang Tsung, but is 34 years old and hasn’t missed a game since 2011. There’s some fortune in there considering his workload. His 595 touches the past two years are the second most in the league. Robert Turbin managed to score eight times on 73 touches a year ago, but is a 28-year old journeyman who has played for four teams over the past four years of his career. On a team desperate for playmakers, Mack should find opportunity sooner than later.
DeAndre Hopkins is a WR3 per game at season’s end… again
This shouldn’t be considered bold when we’re talking about the WR34 in points per game from a year ago, but not many seem concerned on any level with Hopkins as he’s being selected as the consensus WR13 across the industry. It’s not just last year, either, as Hopkins has finished as a WR1 in just five of his past 26 games with just four 100-yard receiving games. Hopkins will be hard pressed to run into the lowly numbers he had in 2016, but he’s been a WR1 for fantasy purposes during only one unique bubble of circumstances when the Texans were a pass-happy team that consistently trailed games for a half of a season. We also shouldn’t just blindly accept his quarterback situation to improve to a quality that can hold his cost, either. With his immediate return tied to Tom Savage, we inherently know that Deshaun Watson is around the corner from playing. There have been 54 rookie quarterbacks to start five or more games since 2000 and only five WR1 scoring wide receivers for the season have been attached to those passers.
Leonard Fournette is out-scored by five or more rookie running backs in PPR leagues
Fournette was the first running back selected in the real NFL draft and is currently the top rookie back being selected in fantasy circles with an average standard selection of pick 21 and a PPR ADP of pick 25. As the summer has played out, it’s arguable that Fournette is in the worst offensive climate of the four main backs in contention here – Joe Mixon, Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook and Kareem Hunt—and I’m leaving the door open for another rookie to jump him by season’s end. Jacksonville hasn’t finished higher than 24th in rushing attempts since 2011 as they’ve had five or fewer wins in six straight seasons. Their current over/under for wins in 2017 sits at 6.5. 77 percent of all top-12 fantasy backs have come from teams that have won at least seven games and that number is 73 percent when extending out to the top-24 backs per season. Overall scoring is one thing, but opportunity is another. Of teams with seven or fewer wins since the NFL merger, just 19.9 percent have had an individual running back hit 300 touches in a season with 40.7 percent reaching 250 touches. Of the 13 teams to finish under .500 in 2016, just two had a 300-touch back with six having an individual back hit 250 touches. Looking for Fournette to have an Ezekiel Elliott-esque fantasy impact year one is a tall order, and I believe the rookie backs being selected after him have stronger situations to squeeze fantasy juice from.
Jay Ajayi finishes lower than an RB1 in PPR points per game
The eighth running back selected in PPR fantasy drafts this summer has a wealth of talent and upside, but also a litany of risk. From Week 5 on, Ajayi averaged 74 percent of the Miami rushing attempts per game and his 1,197 rushing yards were second in the NFL. He was carried by spike weeks, rushing for at least 200-yards in three different games, but over that same span, he had seven games with fewer than 80 yards on the ground and was outside of the top-20 scorers at his position six times. Despite his rushing volume, his floor was severed because he caught one or fewer passes in eight of those 12 starts. Miami went 9-3 to close the season despite leading for just 34.5 percent of their plays (16th in the league), which suggests they were far more fortunate than truly a good team. With his lack of receiving work, the team expected to regress in terms of wins, and his fantasy production being carried from inflated weeks, Ajayi is a risky proposition for his cost within the position.
Tyler Eifert finishes outside of the top-10 tight ends
Eifert has scored the seventh most fantasy points at the tight end position despite missing 11 games. That’s because his 18 touchdowns are still the most at the position over that span. 51.6 percent of his standard fantasy points have come from touchdowns alone, the highest rate at the position. He’s caught a touchdown on 22.2 percent of his receptions over that time while the average of the top-30 at his position outside of him have scored on 7.8 percent of their catches. That touchdown prowess is hardly stable while Eifert hasn’t been a high-volume option. He’s had more than six targets in just eight career games. Tack on all the players the Bengals have added on offense, and you’re left relying on Eifert needing that touchdown output to carry his fantasy production.
Jonathan Stewart outscores Christian McCaffrey in standard leagues
McCaffrey is currently the RB13 off the board in standard formats per aggregate ADP while Stewart is the RB38. Sportsbook Bookmaker.eu set McCaffrey’s over/under touchdown total at just seven over the summer. The average number of touchdowns the top-24 scoring standard running backs have scored per season over the past decade is 9.2 with 24.5 percent of those players scoring fewer than seven times over the course of a season and just 14.6 percent have scored few than six times. Stewart’s rushing opportunity dipped down to 16.8 carries per game in 2016 after 18.6 in 2015 and stands to be shaved down once again with the addition of McCaffrey, but still should be in line to share enough touches to thwart McCaffrey’s ceiling and is expected to still hold significant usage near the goal line. In 2016, Stewart handled 66.7 percent of the Panther’s carries from inside of the 5-yard line with nine rushing scores from there. Ironically enough, it could be McCaffrey’s impact on the offense that sets Stewart up to push a new career-high in rushing scores.
David Johnson has more receiving yards than Larry Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald enters the season at 34-years old with a declining resume per opportunity. The last time a player 34-years or older hit 900 receiving yards in a season was 2014 and his average depth of target fell for the fifth consecutive season all the way down to just 8.1 yards in 2016, which ranked 117th at the wide receiver position per Pro Football Focus. His yards per catch fell for the second straight year, down to 9.6 yards per reception, which ranked 90th of all 112 NFL players with at least 40 receptions on the season. With 1,239 yards rushing and 879 yards receiving, Johnson may flirt with becoming just the third back in NFL history to have 1,000-yards in both rushing and receiving since Johnson has averaged 11.5 yards per reception through two years and only finished 144 yards away from Fitz in receiving a year despite receiving 30 fewer targets. Per Josh Hermsmeyer’s Air Yards Database, Johnson’s 559 air yards in 2016 were 330 yards more than the next highest back (Duke Johnson) and the highest in his database for a running back in a season by an extremely wide margin.
Derek Carr will finish the season lower than QB15
Carr has gone from the QB20 in his rookie season to QB15 and QB14. His completion rate (63.8 percent), yards per game (262.5), adjusted yards per attempt (7.5) and most importantly, fantasy points per game (17.2) all rose for third consecutive season to start his career. Fantasy owners are expecting another climb this year, selecting him on average as the QB6. That’s lofty, because to this point, he’s been all or nothing. Over his 31 games the past two seasons, Carr has been a top-12 scorer in 15 games, but also the QB20 or lower in 14 games. Most of Carr’s struggles have come from interdivision games as he’s been a top-12 scorer in just two of 11 games over the past two years and a QB20 or lower in eight of those games. Carr’s opening three weeks are favorable, but then go south in a hurry as seven his next 10 games are against teams that ranked inside of the top-10 in fewest fantasy points allowed per pass attempt to opposing quarterbacks in 2016.
Both Mark Ingram and Adrian Peterson finish as top-20 scoring PPR backs
There have been just six sets of teammates to both finish as RB20 or higher in PPR leagues since 2000, but it’s happened in four straight seasons. In 2013, Reggie Bush and Joique Bell, in 2014 and 2015, we had Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard and last year, both Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman accomplished it. The common theme is a strong offense and players in compartmentalized roles, which I believe we may be missing with assuming Ingram and Peterson are solely going to cannibalize each other from one role. Ingram has been a top-15 scoring fantasy back in each of the past three seasons and a top-10 one over the past two despite never having more than 255 touches in any of those years. He’s also a good receiver that has managed to catch 50 and 46 passes in each of the past two years while the Saints have had a pure pass catching back catch 30 plus passes out of the backfield and another back that filled the role Peterson will be taking over and then some catching another 20 plus passes each year. As for Peterson’s role, New Orleans ranks eighth in the league in rushing touchdowns over the past four seasons (59) and Peterson will see the softest set of opposing defenses over his career given Drew Brees and the passing game. Even with preseason All-Star Alvin Kamara popping up in the offense, Ingram and Peterson are undervalued due to their perceived ambiguity on one of the best offenses in the league.
Julio Jones leads the NFL in touchdown receptions
It’s a testament to how good Jones is that he’s able to remain a year in and year out stud despite having just one double-digit scoring season under his belt in six years. Not many players could lose 74 targets, 53 receptions and 462 yards off their prior season totals and only score six total touchdowns and still finish as a top-5 scoring receiver per game. But that’s what Jones did in 2016. In 2016, just 6.9 percent of Jones’ targets came from inside of the red zone, which was just 9.6 percent of the Atlanta total. New offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian came out early and say he wants to maximize Jones in the short area of the field and we know that he’s capable from a talent perspective. Jones averaged 100.6 yards per game, the fourth consecutive season in which he’s averaged triple digit receiving yards per contest. No other player in NFL history has even averaged 100 yards receiving per game in four years of their career, let alone four in a row. There’s a leap of to go from an increase of scores to league leader, but if Jones keeps posting those lofty yardage totals, the touchdowns are surely bound to come around one of these years.
Sam Bradford finishes as a top-12 scoring quarterback
Bradford had far and away the best season of his career in 2017, completing an NFL 71.6 percent of his passes for 3,877 yards and 20 touchdowns with just five interceptions. Unfortunately, for fantasy purposes that amounted to just a QB22 finish overall in which he was 21st in points per game (14.7). But Bradford did come on strong to close the season. After Norv Turner resigned, Bradford was the QB13 to close the season, completing 79.5 percent of his passes. Over the final month of the season as he was a top-8 scorer in three of his final four games played. More bizarrely, Bradford is the QB24 in current ADP, but people are selecting Dalvin Cook as the RB16, Stefon Diggs as the WR28, Adam Thielen as the WR44 and Kyle Rudolph as the TE7. With an opening tilt at home against the Saints and the softest projected passing schedule of the season, Bradford is being and overlooked.
Ty Montgomery is lower than a RB2 in at least half of his games played
There will be spike weeks in the Green Bay offense, but Montgomery’s weekly floor may be lower than anticipated. Due to his in-season position change while dealing with sickle cell, Montgomery never garnered a full workload at the running back position. In his 10 games at running back, Montgomery reached double digit rushing attempts just once. He also may not possess the receiving ceiling some believe because Aaron Rodgers is just so good at getting the football to his wide receivers. Montgomery was just the second back to reach 40 catches in a season with Rodgers and even though he has receiving pedigree, Montgomery had more than three receptions in just one game after the move to the backfield. He also may have a lower touchdown ceiling than assumed solely from his offensive attachment. Since Rodgers took over in 2008, the Packers have thrown 52.8 percent of the time inside of the 5-yard line, trailing only the Colts (53.6 percent) over that span while the league average passing rate has been 41.9 percent. With the Packers keeping the ball in Rodgers’ hands when it’s time to cash in drives, just four times over those nine seasons has an individual Green Bay running back had more than four rushing touchdowns in a season, and just three times have the Packers’ stable of running backs collectively rushed for more than seven scores in a season.
Rob Gronkowski leads the NFL in receiving yards
This is implying that Gronk will play a full season for the first time since 2011, so that should be bold enough. Also, no tight end has ever led the league in receiving yardage, so I’m doubling down my dose of crazy pills. But hear me out on this. The Patriots used Gronk like they’ve used him before in 2016. Gronk averaged a career-high 21.6 yards per reception (this is a real number) and his averaged depth of target was 15.6 yards after averaging 10.3 yards for his career prior. He had only 25 receptions last year, but 12 of them were for 20 or more yards, higher than the total posted by lid poppers such as Mike Wallace, Allen Robinson and Kenny Stills had in full seasons. It’s an abbreviated sample (even for him), but in the five games in which he played over 70 percent of the team snaps, Gronk averaged 105.8 receiving yards per game, which is a 1,693-yard pace for a full season. The average league leader in receiving yardage since 2000 has been 1,612 yards. With both Brandin Cooks and Chris Hogan able to stretch defenses, Gronk should terrorize secondaries in what could be a career-season.
Marcus Mariota finishes lower than a QB1 in 2017
High expectations for Mariota are warranted, and the added weapons that Tennessee has accrued this offseason don’t make it easy to suggest disappointment from him. Still, it’s hard to see Tennessee shifting completely to a pass-first team, especially since we believe they are going to win more actual games by having one the most favorable schedules in the league. If that does indeed occur, that leaves Mariota reliant on maintaining lofty efficiency in the touchdown department. He ranked just 28th in the league in attempts (30.1) and completions (18.4) per game while 27th in passing yardage per game (228.4 yards), but was a consistently high-scoring fantasy producer because had the fourth highest touchdown rate in the league, throwing a touchdown once every 17.4 pass attempts. Since entering the league, only Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Tom Brady have better touchdown rates than the 5.5 percent rate Mariota has posted. Maybe he truly belongs in that class of company, but we’ve seen setbacks from young, low-volume, highly-efficient passers occur more often than consistent elevation. Mariota also destroyed cupcakes a year ago, averaging 26.2 points and 261.5 passing yards per game against bottom-half pass defenses versus 17.5 points and 190.6 yards per game in seven matchups against front-half pass defenses. While that’s not a concern for the long haul, Tennessee does face Seattle, Jacksonville and Houston in three of their opening four games.
Travis Kelce finishes at least 20 spots below his ADP in overall standard scoring for all non-QBs
I threw shade at Kelce a year ago here and he came on to have a stellar back-half of the season to stick it to me. Still, Kelce is currently the 34th non-quarterback being selected in standard fantasy drafts despite his placement among top non-passers in fantasy scoring being 68th in 2014, 74th in 2015 and even in his breakout season, 38th a year ago. Even factoring in his breakout and usage after Jeremy Maclin was injured and Kelce became the focal point of the offense, he ranked 29th overall from Week 11 on for non-passers. To put it simply, he just plays the wrong position for fantasy and doesn’t have the scoring prowess to warrant such high cost. His TE1 scoring finish the lowest scoring TE1 season in standard leagues since 2002 and the lowest scoring TE1 season in PPR leagues since 2006. With Gronk, Jordan Reed and Tyler Eifert combining to miss 20 games in 2016, we’re anticipating the field to be better around Kelce, who has never scored more than five times in a season.
Melvin Gordon is outside the top-12 running backs
There really wasn’t much difference in terms of Gordon’s performance on field as opposed to his rookie season, but the opportunity was massively different. Gordon rushed for fewer than 4.0 yards per carry for the second straight year, and just 26.8 percent of his carries went for at least five yards, the third lowest rate in the league. After just 5.9 percent of his 2015 touches came from inside the red zone, Gordon had 18.6 percent of his touches in that area of the field in 2016. He had just one lone touch inside of the five as a rookie, but received 17 in his sophomore season. Gordon’s average length of rushing touchdown last year was just 2.1 yards as nine of his 10 came from three yards or closer. That type of usage near the goal line is a fantasy deodorant for any type of inefficiency, but it’s also a lot harder to rollover relying on layups year over year. From Weeks 3-13 as the feature back before Gordon suffered his knee injury, he had 87.3 percent of the Chargers’ rushing attempts and 53.6 percent of the team touches. For context, that would’ve been the third highest team rushing attempt rate in NFL history for a full season (Edgerrin James has the top two spots ever in 1999 and 2000 at 88.1 and 88.9 percent) while 2014 DeMarco Murray was at 53.7 percent of his team touches, the highest total of the past decade. With his percentage of team touches and short yardage opportunities expected to normalize, Gordon will need to be more than the .240 hitter that still hit 30 homers a year ago to match the fantasy output he had in 2016.
