Last week, I provided a look at some play calling notes that we could use for the upcoming season. One set of coaching moves created such a windfall of new opportunities that were directly related that I wanted to give that carousel its own forum. The highest impact coaching shakeup for play calling potential occurred when the Eagles moved on from Chip Kelly and replaced him with ex-Philadelphia quarterback and offensive coordinator to Andy Reid, Doug Pederson. Kelly found a new home in San Francisco shortly thereafter.
One of Kelly’s main objectives on offense is to dictate tempo and he did just that in Philadelphia, as the Eagles ran the most plays in the NFL (68.4) over his three years as head coach. Compared to Pederson’s Chiefs over the same span, there’s a night and day difference in overall volume, especially with the pass.
| Team | Plays/Gm | NFL Rank | Rush/Gm | NFL Rank | Pass/Gm | NFL Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eagles | 68.4 | 1 | 29.6 | 7 | 38.9 | 14 |
| Chiefs | 61.4 | 27 | 27 | 12 | 34.3 | 28 |
*Pass Plays Include Sacks
Over that same stretch of time, the Chiefs ran 339 fewer offensive plays than the Eagles -- essentially five full games worth. Even though he wasn’t the primary play caller in Kansas City, over the past two years with Pederson labeled as offensive coordinator, the Chiefs ranked 30th in offensive plays run (59.9 per game) and 30th in called passing plays (33.2 per game).
The Chiefs were obviously helmed by Alex Smith, a quarterback who is no stranger to game managing conditions, and led by arguably the best running back in the league in Jamaal Charles for two and a quarter of those seasons. They also boasted a superior defense to the Eagles to dampen any comeback-driven passing. I would also argue based on the way the Eagles’ roster is currently formed on offense -- without any overwhelming skill-player talent -- that it’s very unlikely they try to outpace opponents this season and the majority of their passing game volume will be a byproduct of game script.
Regardless of how the game scripts play out, Eagles offensive players could stand to lose in the neighborhood of 100 plus total plays with two to three games worth of passing volume. The Eagles don’t have Alex Smith, nor do they project to nurse an abundance of leads to inflate rushing volume. There’s potential trouble in looking for any fantasy progression from the passing game due to the volume loss alone.
Sam Bradford is coming off of a season in which he threw for a career high in yardage (3,725), but was still a subpar fantasy producer, finishing as a top-12 fantasy scorer in just three of his 14 weeks. That was while averaging a career high 38 pass attempts per game. He went on a solid three game run to end the season, passing for 1,061 yards, which was second behind Drew Brees, but Bradford also led the league in pass attempts over that span (135).
Asking Bradford to offset a dip in attempts with marked efficiency is a tall task, as his yards per attempt (7.0) and completion rate (65 percent) were also career highs. Sprinkle in the notion that Carson Wentz could eventually find the field and Bradford is bottom tier quarterback option for 2016.
Jordan Matthews ranked 19th in targets per game (8.0) last season, but he had just 20.7 percent of team targets, a modest number for a lead receiver in any passing game. If the Eagles throw in the neighborhood of 540 passes (at the higher end of outcomes), Matthews is going to need his share of team passes to jump into the 25 percent range just to roll over his target total from last year. That’s possible if he’s used in the same capacity as Jeremy Maclin was last season in Kansas City, but we’ve yet to see Matthews consistently work on the exterior of an offense. It’s not necessarily that Matthews can’t do it; we’ve just strictly seen him deployed one dimensionally to start his career. 95 percent (145/152) of J-Matt’s career receptions have come from the slot.
Zach Ertz’s 112 targets last year were 6th most at the tight end position and his 7.5 targets per game ranked 7th. If we’re using Travis Kelce as a proxy for what could be in store for Ertz, Kelce slid in just below Ertz in targets (103) with over one fewer target per game (6.4). If Ertz can directly inherit Kelce’s usage, then he can stave off major regression, especially given the position he plays for fantasy purposes.
The first issue is that Ertz hasn’t been as good as Kelce. For their careers, a target to Kelce has been worth 9.1 yards as opposed to 7.8 yards for Ertz. The second is that Ertz has reliably shown that he’s allergic to the end zone. He scored on just two of his 75 catches a season ago and on just seven of 94 receptions over his first two seasons. Generally, such a low output in touchdown rate would point to eventual positive recoil, but history has not been kind for tight ends to see a major bounce in touchdowns. In the history of the NFL, there have been 36 tight ends with a sub 5.0 percent touchdown rate on 60 or more catches. Those tight ends have only seen an average increase of 1.6 touchdowns the following year.
Even if the Eagles lose roughly a game’s worth of rushing attempts, the offensive system that Reid and Pederson hail from has always centered on the running back position. In 17 seasons, running backs tied to Reid have been top-20 scorers 14 times with 10 times scoring in the top 10. Reid has had attachment to some excellent backs in Brian Westbrook, Duce Staley, LeSean McCoy and Jamaal Charles, but he has also gotten the most out of backup players such as Correll Buckhalter, Bryce Brown, Knile Davis and this past season Charcandrick West and Spencer Ware. All of these backfields have been strongly driven by their receiving game attachment as they have averaged 79 receptions per season, but just five times in 17 years has a Reid-coached back reached 250 rushing attempts.
Pederson will take this system to Philadelphia, where he largely has a compartmentalized backfield. Darren Sproles is 33 years old and among active backs, only Matt Forte has more receptions than the 473 Sproles has caught for his career. Sproles also has had double digit carries in just nine of his 153 regular season games, so we know how he’ll be positioned at this point in his career. Wendell Smallwood is an intriguing late round rookie selection that can carve into being a backup to both roles, meaning an injury to either the lead back or receiving back would vault Smallwood’s relevancy. He may need multiple injuries to truly be relevant on his own, however.
While those two stand to be the primary pass catchers, that leaves Ryan Mathews to soak up the bulk of the ground work. He’s burned fantasy owners in the past, seeing over 200 rushing attempts in just two seasons to date, so he’ll inherently carry the stigma of being untouchable for many owners, suppressing his overall interest and draft cost. In a subpar season for the Eagles a year ago, Mathews was a bright spot. In terms of fantasy points per rushing attempt, Mathews’ .84 points per carry trailed only David Johnson’s .85 mark for all top-36 scorers in the league.
Sproles and Smallwood’s involvement caps his reception ceiling, but Mathews is also a viable receiver if given the opportunity. He’s caught 78.3 percent of his targets, the 11th best mark for any running back with at least 100 career targets since Mathews entered the league in 2010. I doubt Mathews is a league winning selection on his own without carving out a receiving role, but he stands to be a value as a secondary option in your lineup.
While Kelly’s departure from Philadelphia should create a loss in play volume, his move to San Francisco is a much needed infusion for a 49ers offense that’s been stuck in mud in terms of offensive pace. The 49ers have run 7.2 fewer offensive plays per game than Kelly’s Eagles over the past three years, close to two full games worth of plays per season. Kelly’s work is cut out for him, however, as the 49ers have left the offensive cupboard bare. Banking on increased tempo can still aid an offense that ranked 32nd in both points scored and points per drive, as well as 31st in yards and 30th in yards per drive.
For us fantasy players, we’re really only sinking significant draft capital into one player in this offense, and the increased play volume should have a direct impact on Carlos Hyde. There’s definitely going to be an increase in rushing plays by default of San Francisco running more plays overall, but the effects that could have on Hyde may be overstated due to how bad the 49ers could potentially be.
Philadelphia was one of the most run heavy in teams in the league during Kelly’s tenure, averaging 29.6 rushing attempts per game, good for 7th over that time. The rub here is that we’ve also seen the rushing volume from his offenses progressively decrease with game script as the Eagles’ rushing attempts per season dipped from 500 to 474 to 443 as they led for 44.9 percent, 45.2 percent and just 30.3 percent of their plays per season.
The 49ers team that Kelly is inheriting led for just 15.7 percent of their plays in 2015 and face arguably the worst schedule in the league for this upcoming season. If San Francisco can somehow manage to get that leading on the scoreboard total up to 25 percent of their plays and Kelly maintains his career play splits, the 49ers are looking at a game and a half’s worth of extra rushing volume from their 2015 totals. When he was active a season ago, Hyde ranked third in the NFL in first half rushing attempts while ranking 10th in second half carries, so even a modest increase in overall volume may not be enough to vault him over 300 carries for the season.
Hyde has been an inadequate receiver to date (23 career receptions at 5.3 yards per catch) and the 49ers don’t stand to score buckets of points, so scoring and receiving production still stand to be major thorns in the side of Hyde’s fantasy potential. But the types of runs he’ll now be getting under Kelly could prove more valuable than the volume increase. Hyde has been a more dynamic runner out of the shotgun over the brief start to his career, rushing for more yards (444) on fewer carries (84) than he has under center (359 on 114 attempts). That +2.2 yards per carry average is another area that can be harnessed under Kelly. 78 percent of the Eagles’ running back rushes came from the gun on Kelly’s watch, including runs similar to what Hyde ran at Ohio State.
There’s also going to be more passing plays on the 49ers’ menu unless they make an unforeseen jump in team performance. While trailing on the scoreboard, Kelly’s offenses have passed at a 64.7 rate compared to 46.8 percent while ahead. Even if the 49ers can get to that same 25 percent rate of winning that we gave to Hyde, it would put San Francisco in the ballpark of running 85 more passing plays than they did a year ago. Even if San Francisco rolls over their heinous 9.2 percent sack rate, that’s crudely 77 more pass attempts for the season.
It’s unlikely that the 49ers will be a good enough real team for either to start 16 games, and I’m not going to say that either Colin Kaepernick or Blaine Gabbert will be good real life quarterbacks. But they will have fantasy viability because both are very active on the ground, something Sam Bradford couldn’t add to his middling passing output. Kaepernick tallied a rushing attempt once every 6.6 drop backs (4th) last year while Gabbert had one per 10.3 drop backs (10th). Many people likely don’t want to believe this, but once Gabbert took over as the starter, he outscored Alex Smith, Matt Ryan and Philip Rivers in fantasy on a per game basis. We’ve seen Kelly vacuum tangible fantasy stats in small samples from subpar career passers in Michael Vick, Nick Foles and Mark Sanchez. So at worst, whoever is the 49ers’ quarterback will be a volatile volume play with rushing upside.
Of course, those increased targets have to go somewhere, and while you can take a late round flyer on DeAndre Smelter, Bruce Ellington or Eric Rogers, the 49ers have just two receivers on their current roster with more than 50 career receptions. One is Jerome Simpson, while the other is the only 49er outside of Hyde currently holding a fantasy ADP within the first 10 rounds in Torrey Smith. Endorsing kicking the tires on both Ryan Mathews and Smith in the same breath of analysis is similar to Charlie Brown trying to kick a football, but here we go.
Smith has been an unstable fantasy producer throughout his career, even before seeing a career low 62 targets in 2015. For being known as a splash play producer, Smith has topped 100 yards receiving in just seven of his 88 career games including the postseason while posting 50 yards or fewer in 45 of those games. Despite that unsteady production, Smith has an eerily similar resume to another inefficient, low volume, known only for big plays receiving option that exploded once he was funneled targets in Kelly’s offense.
| Player | Year | G | Tgt/Gm | Rec/Gm | Ctch% | Yd/Gm | Yd/Rec | TGT/TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeSean Jackson | 2008-2012 | 71 | 7.4 | 3.9 | 52.4% | 67.4 | 17.5 | 22.7 |
| DeSean Jackson | 2013 | 16 | 7.9 | 5.1 | 65.1% | 83.3 | 16.2 | 14 |
| Torrey Smith | 2011-2015 | 80 | 6.2 | 3.1 | 49.6% | 53.2 | 17.3 | 14.6 |
Smith isn’t Jackson as a player -- especially after the catch -- but one thing Smith has consistently done through all of his inconsistency is score touchdowns. Smith has had only one NFL season in which he failed to find the end zone once per every 16 targets. There still largely exists the fact that Smith is the type of player he’s shown us to be. But at WR50 pricing, he can still be that player and return value with little risk as an option that could see 115 plus targets.
Pederson’s departure doesn’t hold significant ramifications in terms of play calling splits for Kansas City since he was running Reid’s offense, but the Chiefs still benefited from one of the best rushing climates in the league a season ago, which harbored late season fantasy production from Charcandrick West and Spencer Ware.
The Chiefs closed 2015 in a 10-game winning streak, masking their early play when they began 1-5. Even with that poor start, the Chiefs trailed last season for just 27 percent of their offensive plays, good for the NFL’s 5th best rate. Where the Chiefs were really able to scale back their passing game a year ago was in the second half of games.
| Year | 2nd Half Trail % | NFL Rank | Pass Plays | 4Q Trail % | NFL Rank | Pass Plays |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 46.9% | 12 | 286 | 51.6% | 15 | 155 |
| 2015 | 30.5% | 4 | 252 | 29.5% | 3 | 122 |
Kansas City dialed up 34 fewer pass plays in the second half of games from a season earlier. While that may not seem like much, it’s an entire game’s worth of passing plays from their seasonal total (32.4 pass plays per game). Through the team’s first six games prior to that massive winning streak, Alex Smith was averaging 35 pass attempts per game as opposed to 26 when the Chiefs became good. We don’t anticipate the Chiefs to be a poor team in 2016, but the final two-thirds of their 2015 season was nearly perfect offensive script for running a low volume offense.
Smith should get back up to the 500 pass attempt mark, which isn’t overly exciting in elevating him beyond his high QB2 fantasy status. Smith remains the ultimate floor play at the position. Since joining the Chiefs in 2013, Smith has had single digit points in just eight of his 48 games -- and just 13 games in which he’s scored 20 or more points -- but any uptick means we’ll see a small increase in opportunity for both Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce.
Maclin has been ultra-consistent through a plethora of quarterbacks and offensive climates. He’s been a top-30 scorer in each of his past five seasons played and is coming off a WR17 season in his first year in Kansas City. Maclin was already the 19th highest scoring receiver in points per game (16.2) while ranking 21st in targets per game (8.3) in a high leverage, low volume offense, so any drop in efficiency stats or overall team share of targets can be countered here in Maclin maintaining strong WR2 value.
Kelce has shown to have premier real-life tight end qualities, but still hasn’t been able to climb over the bar to get to the premier fantasy tier. No tight end has more yards after catch than Kelce over the past two seasons, as he’s had 541 and 503 yards once the ball is in his hands, and he’s ranked first and third in yards per target over the past two years for tight ends with 50 or more targets. Kelce’s offensive environment has slowed him down: He’s ranked just 13th in targets per game (6.4) among tight ends in that span. There’s unlikely to be much of a discount on Kelce this season to truly exploit, but with a slightly lowered cost, I give him much better odds at meeting his fantasy investment this season than a year ago in this offense.
A bump in overall passing work can also neutralize any restrictions the Chiefs place on Jamaal Charles’ carries coming off another ACL tear since he’s one of the best pass catching backs in the league. Even off of injury, Charles has proven that he’s capable of sustaining high-end fantasy appeal on limited rushing attempts, as he’s been a top-12 seasonal PPR scorer on four separate occasions with fewer than 260 carries in a season. As it stands, I believe Charles will be one of the players I target the most in the second round of drafts this summer.
