Fantasy football analyst Matt Harmon does his own player projections every draft season. Here, he’ll be sharing some interesting findings from his latest results.
We aren’t necessarily going to clear up crowded WR rooms
It’s important to remember the difference between fantasy football rankings and projections when looking at crowded pass-catcher corps. The math has to work out when you go through the latter, but that doesn’t mean you need to draft based solely on that math.
If you’re doing median projections, there’s almost no way you can realistically project all three Texans wide receivers to finish inside the top 28 at the position unless you go outrageous with the C.J. Stroud forecast. You probably can’t find a way for Rome Odunze to be a relevant producer and have DJ Moore and Keenan Allen approach their ceilings with a rookie quarterback under center. It might even be a stretch to get the Packers’ top-four wideouts into the top 60 while maintaining the usability of their tight ends and/or running backs unless Jordan Love is throwing for 50 touchdowns in your model.
It’s okay to not care about that.
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Your projections won’t always line up with ADP, which right now does have the receivers corps from those three teams aggressively slotted. The idea of “too many mouths to feed” is real. Unless the quarterbacks from Houston, Chicago and Green Bay are going supernova, there will be some whiffs in those wide receiver rooms. And that’s totally fine.
Fantasy managers, in general, need to become more comfortable with a small miss in the pursuit of a big hit.
Injuries and chaos are some of the few prevailing constants in the NFL. Those unavoidable and unfortunate realities often clear up crowded situations. Let’s go to Houston as an example.
It may be unlikely that, if all three Texans wideouts stay healthy and play at their peak, Nico Collins exceeds his late Round 2, early Round 3 ADP. However — with all wood knocked on and fingers crossed — what if Tank Dell misses time again or Stefon Diggs declines another level off his 2023 performance? We already know Collins can be a dominant No. 1 wide receiver and perform at an efficient level as a target vacuum. If chaos strikes, we know the ceiling the player offers and if the situation stays as it is on paper, Collins is still an ascending talent tied to a great quarterback. Those types of players can only fall so far. If the pick is a miss, it’s a small one, but the potential hit is enormous, so you take the swings anyway.
If you draft based on projections, you’ll always avoid ambiguous situations and crowded but talented rooms. Yet, the biggest profits lie in uncertain depth charts and strong ecosystems. Don’t be afraid of them, no matter what projections tell you.
There are thin margins for error in Raiders passing game
The Raiders quietly have a strong set of pass-catchers at their disposal. Davante Adams played at an elite level in isolation last season, Jakobi Meyers remains one of the most underrated pro receivers and they added enthralling rookie Brock Bowers to the mix to pair with another young tight end in Michael Mayer. Of course, we know the quarterback situation isn’t settled as Las Vegas is working through an open competition between Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew this preseason.
The ceiling proposition for either isn’t tantalizing but the projectable volume in this offense is the bigger issue for the production of the pass-catchers.
Anyone who has listened to any of the public remarks of head coach Antonio Pierce knows his intentions. That’s a man who wants to see the running game established and provide a runway for his top back to get into a rhythm with a heavy rushing workload. That directive lines up well with his hand-picked offensive coordinator.
Perhaps it was all because Justin Fields was his quarterback but Luke Getsy’s Chicago offenses were among the slowest, run-heavy units in the NFL. The Bears ranked 30th and ninth in plays per game the last two seasons and first and second in rushing play percentage. His play-calling background lines up with an offense that wants to lean on the ground game and hide the quarterback.
Then there’s the defense. The Raiders’ stop unit was one of the best groups down the stretch last year. They added Christian Wilkins to play alongside Maxx Crosby, creating a formidable front line in both the run and pass game. If the defense is able to carry over their late-season performance into 2024, that will also contribute to the Raiders taking the air out of the ball.
Nothing should get in the way of Adams maintaining something close to his 44.1% air yard share and 30.5% target share from last season, both of which ranked third among all pass-catchers. If Meyers once again comes close to a 20% target share, that leaves half of the targets up for grabs but if both Mayer and Bowers are on the field together often, neither is likely to carve out a target share north of 15%. Only 16 tight ends did that last season, to begin with.
Now, if a third wide receiver or running back heavily eats into the target pecking order, that could create serious issues for Meyers or the tight ends.
The Raiders have some signals building of a team that could finish in the button-five in overall plays and, therefore, pass attempts. They have an elite target hog and three guys behind him who should command legitimate volume. The quarterback position is unsettled, at best, right now. That all adds up to a team with little margin for error when it comes to the projections of their top fantasy options.
The Commanders are tricky
If you’re just projecting based on recent offensive coordinator and head coach history, your system will love the Commanders’ offense. Kliff Kingsbury’s offenses ranked third, eighth and third in plays per game from 2020 to 2022. Dan Quinn came from Dallas, where they have routinely played fast and pushed the ball through the air in recent seasons. Even if you don’t believe Quinn as the defensive coordinator had anything to do with that — not an unreasonable assumption — his Falcons teams routinely finished top-10 in passing yards and ranked fifth, first and third in attempts from 2018 to 2020.
Fast, pass-friendly offenses with heavy play volume are usually the recipe for fantasy football success. If you’re using that model, it’s pretty easy to get Terry McLaurin to a career-high target total, Austin Ekeler back to his receiving-back glory days and even Jahan Dotson into post-hype sleeper territory with room to spare.
I just don’t know if I buy that the 2024 Commanders will actually play that way, despite what the history of their new coaches tells us.
It’s okay to be subjective when putting projections together. I personally struggle to see the Commanders as a 600-plus pass-attempt team with a rookie quarterback under center who was no stranger to scrambling in college. Not to mention, their offensive line could be a bottom-three unit and prevent them from sustaining drives to push the ball through the air.
I’m not even saying to avoid targeting Commanders players in fantasy. Jayden Daniels should score rushing points, and I want to take shots on McLaurin and Dotson because they’re underrated talents. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see the offensive environment as voluminous as my projections initially suggested.
Concentration needs to be key in Atlanta
You’re excited about the coaching staff and offensive change in Atlanta. I’m excited about it. We’re all excited about it. Let’s just try to not misrepresent what new play-caller Zac Robinson is going to bring to the Falcons offense.
Robinson has been with the Rams as a coach since 2019 and was the passing game coordinator for the previous two seasons. Head coach Raheem Morris, of course, came from the same team. The Rams under Sean McVay have been one of the best offensive ecosystems in the league. However, they’ve hung around the middle of the pack in terms of play and pass attempt volume.
The Rams ranked 19th, 18th and 13th in run play percentage the last three seasons with Matthew Stafford under center. They also ranked 14th, 29th and 15th in overall plays per game.
Overall, I expect the Falcons to hover around the same area. I had them 17th in pass attempts this season because, while they clearly want to make Bijan Robinson the focal point of their offense, the defense may force them into some pass-first game scripts.
With that in mind, concentration will be key for players like Drake London and Kyle Pitts to hit their lofty ceilings. A 25% target share — which is about the average of his first two seasons — for Drake London would have him just nearing, but not cracking, 150 targets. I personally believe London could handle a far greater percentage of the pie than that but I won’t project it that way when working with median outcomes. Further down the line, Kyle Pitts needs to come close to 20% and Bijan Robinson well north of 10%.
If anyone else emerges in Atlanta as a considerable target earner, we start looking at a squeeze with this projected volume. Luckily, I don’t view any of the secondary receivers, tight ends or running backs as that type of player. Darnell Mooney is a nice receiver, but in a best-case scenario for this offense, he’s more of a 16% target share player. It’s just worth considering the risks if the concentration begins to spread out in the target pecking order.
We aren’t going to suddenly see the Falcons push to be one of the most voluminous offenses in the NFL, but simply getting to the middle ground in the passing game is a big development. We’re more so looking for the coaching staff to be a bit more optimal with deployment and concepts, which is harder to define in projections.
Ken Dorsey’s impact in Cleveland is important
The Browns have been trying to become a more Deshaun Watson-centric offense ever since they made the ill-advised move to sign the quarterback to a fully guaranteed deal. Kevin Stefanski is a great offensive coach but in order to meet Watson where he is as a player and fit into his style of quarterbacking, the play-caller has had to make certain concessions and alterations to his approach. That’s why I think the hiring of Ken Dorsey is so critical.
In my view, the Joe Flacco run with the Browns was the purest distillation of what Stefanski’s offense looks like in its base form. Flacco was much more efficient on play-action throws (105.5 passer rating) than on non-play-action throws (83.4). The same was true for his under-center throws (113.5) vs. shotgun throws (80.8). Flacco, naturally, attempted just nine RPO passes in his five regular season starts.
Under-center play-action shots from heavy formations were the basis of the Stefanski/Flacco offense in 2023 but that’s not where Watson is most comfortable and Dorsey’s offenses in Buffalo majored in the exact opposite areas.
In 2022, during Dorsey’s lone full season as the Bills’ play-caller, Allen attempted 474 passes out of shotgun to 99 under center. He posted a 115.7 passer rating on RPO passes. The Bills’ play-action rate was in the middle of the pack and Allen was still top-10 in passer rating on non-play-action passes, per PFF, among quarterbacks to take 50% of their team’s dropbacks. The Bills dropback spread concepts have been much deeper and more diverse than almost any team in the league in recent seasons.
The Browns shot up from 20th in 2021 to sixth and first in plays per game in the last two years. Expect them to only double down on pace with Dorsey in the mix. The Browns ranked 17th in run play percentage last year, falling outside of the top 10 for the first time in years despite having one of the best defenses in the league. Dorsey’s offenses in Buffalo were always pass-heavy and that will likely be how Cleveland plays it with Nick Chubb unlikely to be active for the start of 2024.
I don’t know how much this will matter from bottom-line results or a fantasy perspective because it remains a mystery as to whether the quarterback can ever be an above-average starter again. This is also a crowded pass-catcher corps that is deep at receiver even after Amari Cooper and has a strong tight end in David Njoku. However, if this offense is going to work and sleepers beyond those big two are to emerge, the offense will need to lean into more Watson-friendly concepts and be pass-first. Hiring Dorsey signals we’re heading in that direction.
