Winter is Coming (for your job) III
Winter is Coming (for your job) III
Continuing our march through the uncertainties of Winter, our scouts up ahead are on the lookout for fantasy safe heavens as well as hidden traps.
Wrapping up this series, we trudge on in our accent up Alphabet Mountain, sharing thoughts on each team we pass along the way.
Stay close together and watch your step, the cliffs are treacherous.
Cincinnati Bengals
After 16 straight seasons (256 games) as the Bengals Head Coach, and ZERO playoff wins to show for it, Cincinnati finally decided to move on from coach Marvin Lewis. They brought in Zac Taylor who served as QB and WR coach under Sean McVay the past two seasons to be their new HC. For OC, they added Brian Callahan, who was the Oakland Raiders QB coach in 2018. We can talk about the blatant cocoon effect of bloodlines and who you knows, but I’d rather take my chances on a fresh, wet cocoon than a crusty old dry one.
RB Joe Mixon led the AFC in rushing as a 22 year old while scoring 9 TD’s in his second NFL season. He’s been quoted as being very happy with the new coaching staff as he prepares his body to handle and even larger load in 2019. With a solid rushing average and excellent hands in the receiving game that have yet to be tapped into, he is dynasty and redraft gold.
WR A.J. Green has become a jaw dropping value as he’s pushed down draft boards while everyone clamors for the next big thing. Quite often drafters are turned off by how a players final stats look or where they ended up in positional rankings, but on a per-game basis, I’ll take the almost 19 FPTS (18.93) he put up in 2018. He has a little good season, bad season, good season, bad season trend going in his career, and 2019 sets up to be a good one.
Thanks in part to that bad season mentioned, WR Tyler Boyd had a breakout year, crushing his previous career highs and putting himself on fantasy radars. It sounds like CIN will be shopping WR John Ross, opening up room for Boyd to continue alongside Green next year. Ross is fools gold. A one year wonder in college who took advantage of a soft schedule and then reset the Combine record in the 40 yard dash. Like I’ve mentioned before, his garbage game vs. Alabama was a hint of things to come.
Hmmm. The player with the fastest time in the history of the Combine averaged less yards per reception than 265 lb. teammate TE C.J. Uzomah? This is football, not track. Small hands and cold weather are a poor combination, as his 36.2% catch rate seems to show. Tavon Austin 2.0
RB Gio Bernard filled in like a champ when Mixon was out, but disappeared otherwise. New coaching could change that, but Mixon does everything better, so I can’t see them forcing too much of a split.
QB Andy Dalton is the new Alex Smith. The NFL quarterback litmus test. If you are better than he is, you’re pretty good. If you are worse…you suck.
The Bengals have plenty of room for new blood. TE, backup WR & QB, (starting QB?) and depth at RB are all on the table. No better time to clean house than after a regime change.
Chicago Bears
Hell of a job by first year HC Matt Nagy, taking a 5-11 Bears team and turning them into a playoff bound 12-4 team. In a season with many worthy of the honor, Nagy took home the NFL Coach of the Year trophy in 2018.
Getting back to their roots, Chicago was led by their NFL-best defense, allowing only 17.7 points per game.
I like to call QB Mitch Trubisky “HYPE” after his one word line in that “NFL Play Football” commercial. Perfect. He improved big time from his rookie year and had his own Band Camp game week 4, exploding for over 400 total yards and 6 TD’s! HYPE!
A bit smoke-and-mirror like, the Bears somehow managed a top 10 season in scoring offense, spreading the fantasy points out like mustard on rye.
The star of this sandwich was RB Tarik Cohen who piled up over 1100 yards from scrimmage while rushing for 2 TD, catching another 5 TD’s and even throwing for 1 TD. Not bad for a 5’6” 180 pounder who paid no attention to the doubters.
RB Jordan Howard plodded along carrying the load as the grinder. His overall numbers have gone down across the board in each of the last two years, but his role has some value if he holds it.
Players aren’t usually quite comfortable with their bodies in the first year after major surgery, and WR Allen Robinson had to deal with both that and a new QB and system. He struggled in 2018, but put it all together in their close playoff loss to the Eagles, going for 10 receptions (on 13 targets), 143 yards and a TD. His price is right, and he looked good to my eyes.
Rookie WR Anthony Miller was impressive. I loved him coming out of college, then began to fade him big time after reading Dr. Chao’s blog about his sloppy shoulder that kept popping out of socket. No player at this level is so good they can wear a limiting harness and be the best they can be, so when I read he had corrective surgery this offseason, I jumped back onboard.
In a down season for tight ends, many were hyping TE Trey Burton as a special player, but count me out.
There are job openings in the Windy City all over the place, but no serious voids to fill.
Carolina Panthers
Thank you OC Norv Turner for not only turning RB Christian McCaffrey into the star he deserves to be, but for telling everyone (who would listen) your plan all offseason last year.
Sure, QB Cam Newton’s damaged shoulder may have factored in to the dink and dunk game, but when CMC catches your passes 86.3% of the time (107 of 124), you keep feeding the beast. Cam winces too much, lays down too long, and plays his injuries up like a Hollywood prodigy, but all in all, he’s been very durable and reliable. You could tell his arm was toast early on, yet he found a way to play out the season until all playoff hope was lost.
Rookie wideout D.J. Moore had a predictably slow start to the season, but gathered steam as it went along and finished the year #2 in targets for Carolina. He flashed his talent here and there, and showed me enough that I’ll be buying again in 2019. With the return of a healthy Newton being able to sling the long bomb, the sky is the limit for the 21 year old phenom. The only thing that worries me is wondering how hard Cam will lean on him. Seeing seasons where TE Greg Olsen or WR Kelvin Benjamin received 124-145 targets, I think Moore will be fine.
Speaking of Olsen, new rumors are swirling about luring him into a broadcast booth. The same noise happened last offseason, so I’ll believe it when I see it. As of now, he’s a super bargain going after the likes of TE’s Doyle or McDonald in the 9th round or later. Those two won’t sniff the potential targets Olsen could return to. If Olsen actually does hang ‘em up, rookie TE Ian Thomas showed some promise last year.
With WR Devin Funchess looking on the way out, that opens up the 80-110 targets he received the past two seasons to be divvied up. WR Curtis Samuel flashed enough scoring upside to earn a chunk of them.
The Panthers could use depth all over, from backup QB, to backup RB, plus added depth at WR and TE.
Best fans ever.
Buffalo Bills
I’m one of the fools who couldn’t buy in quick enough to the amazing hot streak that never ended from rookie QB Josh Allen who turned into the Yeti version of Michael Vick. Mixed in over his final six games, Josh had RUSHING totals of 95 yards, 99 yards, 101 yards and 135 yards , tacking on 5 rushing TD’s to boot! He closed 2018 out with a bang going for 319 totals yards and 5 TD’s! This coming from the guy who went all Pat Mahomes with his long balls at the Combine.
One thing I love about watching the entire Combine, is how the players subtly signal to each other (non-verbal) while standing in groups together. I noticed Josh Allen radiated a ton of swagger, even though he came from a small school. That swagger sure translated to the field as he showed no fear, to the point of bordering on recklessness.
RB LeSean McCoy pulled a Gronk and looked like a shell of himself in 2018. I’m having a hard time selling him for peanuts in dynasty, and he’s now falling below a handful of rookies and disappointing guys like Howard and Penny in bestball, despite Buffalo coaching verbally committing to him in 2019. They have nobody currently rostered behind Shady that would challenge him, so unless they add a pretty damn talented running back, the job is his for as long as he can survive.
Fresh off going Cray-Cray in some hotel, WR Zay Jones was pure waiver wire fodder. Somehow, some way, he put that all behind him, focused on football, and wound up the #1 target in Buffalo, surpassing 100 targets. Not only that, he got better as the season got colder, and scored six touchdowns over the final seven weeks. Still only 23, there’s a glimmer of upside here.
That said, the only Bills player to have job security is the Yeti. Most everything else is up for grabs.
Baltimore Ravens
The biggest SIGNAL to come out of Baltimore this offseason came from the mouth of new OC Greg Roman.
"(We) really want to start fresh, start new, and (with) everything from our language, our formations, how we do everything, rebuild the thing from the ground up," Roman said. "(Lamar Jackson is) a unique player with a unique skill set, so let’s build an offense that really accommodates that, as opposed to try to fit him into something that other people had once done."
He basically just said, “Winter is Coming, Bitches!”
This will be fun to watch unfold. Becoming a run, run, play-action pass type of team with taller speed demons at wide receiver who can win those jump ball scenarios would be much more conducive to Lamar Jackson’s game.
Precision route runners like WR Michael Crabtree rely on timing and accuracy to make up for being slow of foot. Buh-bye. It looks like WR John Brown could also be leaving town. That would free up 197 targets from those two alone. These slow or small wideouts are replaceable. I get the feeling WR Willie Snead will stick, but for sure, the Ravens will be adding plenty of wide receiver comp in the coming weeks.
I was more impressed by TE Mark Andrews than by the other 20 tight ends Baltimore seems to roster.
The only Baltimore running back that I have interest in is RB Kenneth Dixon. I’ve been patiently waiting a long time to see what he can do, and he showed me just a peek, like a beautiful woman pulling her dress up just a tad to show some leg. That’s all I got from him in 2018, but it kept me interested.
Like Coach Roman implied…Winter is Coming to Baltimore. Lamar and just a sprinkle of the current roster are safe, the rest better dress warm.
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons brought over inter-division rival Tampa Bay Buccaneer Head Coach Dirk Koetter to be their new offensive coordinator. Kind of weird. I mean Atlanta was a top four passing team in 2018 who sucked in the run game. Why bring over the guy who coached their team’s doppelganger?
QB Matt Ryan has been on fire. He returned to 2016 form, throwing for the exact same 35 TD’s to 7 INT’s as Russell Wilson, but with an extra 1476 yards on top. Ryan finished 3rd best in the NFL in both passing yards and passing touchdowns. He’s finally getting some of the respect he’s earned by going 5th QB off the board in my most recent draft, right before Mr. Wilson.
WR Julio Jones ate up his 170 targets and spit out the second best season of his career, walking away from second place Hopkins, and winning the receiving title by over 100 yards.
WR Calvin Ridley had an impressive rookie season, finishing with 10 touchdowns. His targets, receptions and yards looked identical to those of the younger WR Mohamed Sanu. (Rimshot!) ;-)
For some reason, everyone seems to be falling in love with TE Austin Hooper. The team couldn’t run to save their life, so of course they leaned on the pass more. He looked like the same Hooper I’ve moved on from already. I’ve seen him get drafted before Engram and Njoku. Fools gold.
It sure felt to me like RB Tevin Coleman had a crappy season, but maybe we were expecting too much once RB Devonta Freeman went down. Tevin ended up with a solid rushing average, over 1000 scrimmage yards and 9 TD’s, yet it felt so flat. Folks are hyping up RB Ito Smith now, but his per touch averages paled in comparison to Coleman. When I see Smith’s 3.5 yards per carry and 5.6 yards per reception, I think: Garbage.
RB Devonta Freeman was close to making it back on the field late last year, and with Tevin likely leaving town, he could be returning to a workload he’s thrived in before with Judge Ito as his Robin.
Hard to say regarding job ops in Atlanta, but adding either competition or depth at RB should be expected.
Arizona Cardinals
“With the first pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, the Arizona Cardinals select…”
Are you telling me that future Hall of Fame WR Larry Fitzgerald, 2016 Fantasy MVP RB David Johnson, and highly touted rookie WR Christian Kirk all suddenly suck, or was rookie QB Josh Rosen in way over his head?
I tried to keep thinking positive, but Rosen showed absolutely nothing in 2018. Not one flash of upside. In fact, he seemed to get worse as the season rolled along, finishing with ONE TOUCHDOWN over his final five games combined! Draft that baseball player already!
Sure, the 2018 coaching staff in Arizona could go toe-to-toe with anyone in a sucking contest. Thank goodness they’ve been fired.
New HC Kliff Kingsbury (reminds me of the name of that guy from Cheers) comes over from Texas Tech, and ex-Packer assistant coach Tom Clements will be the new Cardinal OC. Great.
Adding a new system to learn to my lack of confidence in Josh Rosen and the new coaching staff has me in an uncomfortable limbo where I’d like to buy David Johnson at his very reasonable new price in dynasty, but I’d also like to sell him where I own him before he creeps closer to 30, should this be another lost season of high volume wear and tear. The talent is still there for sure with DJ, and I’m more of a buyer than seller, but damn.
Please either draft QB Dwayne Haskins or Kyler Murray, or trade back and draft OT Jawaan Taylor or Jonah Williams.
If the Cardinals cut the cord on mental softie Rosen, I’d heap tons of respect on the new regime. Arizona should be looking to add WR talent for sure, and after TE Ricky Seals-Jones turned the 3rd most team targets (69) into mush (catching less than half with a single TD) I’d consider moving on there as well.
This team needs all the talent they can add. Offense, defense, you name it.
Poor Cardinal fans.
Well that takes care of that!
The NFL Combine is already creating buzz as coaches drop soundbites like birdseed, and reporters fight over them like Central Park pigeons.
I sure hope you enjoyed this series as we prepare for 2019.
I’ve got damn near all of the rookies stats sorted out, but need to watch film for close to 60% of them still. I figure a bad combine performance will allow me to cross plenty of names off my board, so that otherwise wasted time can be averted by procrastinating.
Win Win! :-)
Cannot wait for the on-field drills, sprints, jumps and official combine measurements.
2019, here we come!