A weekly (hopefully) article highlighting interesting (subjective) fantasy trends, topics and opinions.
This week's topic: Undervalued Players in Good Offenses
Some of the most sound advice you will ever hear in fantasy is: invest in good offenses. This sentiment, though vague, has rung true throughout the history of fantasy football. The better an offense is > the more points they will score > the more fantasy points their players will score. It's a simple equation. The constant in this equation is almost always an elite Quarterback. This year in particular we are seeing skill position players from 3 offenses lead by elite Quarterbacks failing to be drafted within the first 3-4 rounds in fantasy. These players, offenses and situations are what we are going to be focusing on today.
THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
Back to back Super Bowl champions, best QB in football and... only two skill position players being drafted in the first 6 rounds??? (Source: Fantasy Pros). Lets start with what we know: the Chiefs, by their standards, had a down year last year and still finished 6th in passing yards and 8th in passing TD's. Patrick Mahomes finished with 27 passing TDs, the lowest mark of his career for a season in which he started every game (Source: Pro Football Reference). There were clear issues in the WR room, mainly finding a reliable option outside of Kelce and someone who could take the top off of a defense consistently. This season it looks like they will have Rashee Rice for the whole season, appear to have a deep threat that teams will need to account for in Xavier Worthy and have finally ended the Kadarius Toney experiment. Taking all of that into consideration, it feels like this offense is primed to return to the form that we all expect of them.
The key point I want to focus on here is the presence of a deep ball threat. What I'm about to say may be shocking but the key to this Kansas City Chiefs offense last season was Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Let me prove it. MVS had 6 games, including the playoffs, where he averaged more than 15 Y/R. In these games the Chiefs scored 27.1 PPG. In the 15 games where MVS failed to make an explosive play the Chiefs averaged 18.1 PPG. Not sold? Allow me to continue. In those same games where MVS averaged 15 Y/R, Travis Kelce averaged 93.4 YPG and scored 5 TDs. The rest of the season Kelce averaged 62 YPG with 3 TDs. MVS made the Chiefs offense move and the numbers back it.
This season with Xavier Worthy looking like he may give the Chiefs a much more consistent version of what MVS provided to them last season, there is reason to believe that this offense may reach elite levels again even if Xavier Worthy turns out to not be Tyreek Hill 2.0. In football, like all other sports, its a game of space. In baseball the league implemented the shift which took away space from hitters and dropped batting averages, in basketball teams spread the floor more which results in more points and higher 3pt percentages and finally in football the more guys you have covering the deep part of the field creates more space underneath. My biggest takeaway here is that Travis Kelce should easily be TE1 in ADP and he is a steal at the 3/4 turn.
THE BUFFALO BILLS
6th in PPG last season with the consensus QB1 in fantasy running the offense, so why are there no Bills skill position players being drafted in the first 3 rounds? I don't believe anyone is seriously fading the Bills this season as a team or an offensive unit, yet there seems to be some hesitancy around drafting Bills players at the higher end of the draft. While we aren't sure who of the receivers will end up leading that unit, this Bills offense has two volume workhorses that are available at significant discounts this season. James Cook is being drafted with a 36.15 ADP and Dalton Kincaid at 76.47. While James Cook's ADP is a little closer to where I believe his true value is, allow me to peddle you some premium Dalton Kincaid propaganda.
I LOVE Dalton Kincaid this year. I'm not sure I've ever felt this way about a player in the entire time that I've been playing fantasy football. With Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis' departures from the team this creates a MASSIVE 241 target vacuum, Which once again, may be the biggest unknown target void I've ever seen. The leading target getter returning in this offense: Dalton Kincaid. Last year Kincaid totaled 91 targets over 16 games, however he only started 11 games. In the games where Kincaid started he averaged 6.6 targets/game, with 7 of those games receiving less than 60% of the offensive snaps. 6.6 targets/game projects to 112 targets over the course of a 17 game season, without any of the additional targets added from the void. Where this gets interesting is the aforementioned target void. I cannot tell you exactly how those targets will get spread out, I do not have those powers. However, I do have a calculator on my phone. I see 4 mouths, other than Kincaid and James Cook, to feed in Buffalo: Khalil Shakir, Dawson Knox, Keon Coleman and Curtis Samuel. 240 divided by 5 is 48, meaning that split equally each receiver could see 48 more targets than last year.
Obviously, the split wont be even. Players like Keon Coleman and Curtis Samuel who had no targets in this offense should take a bigger portion of those void targets. On the other hand, players like Shakir and Knox already had a role and will likely not see as much of a share. Kincaid is clearly the most talented TE on the roster and should be Allen's most trusted pass catcher returning to the offense this season. That fact coupled with the historic trend of TEs breaking out after their rookie seasons feels like the context is set up for Kincaid to have a breakout season. I believe it is completely reasonable to think that Dalton Kincaid will receive all of his equal share of the 48 void targets. This would put him at an estimated 160 targets for the year. Which would be good for the most targets to a TE in NFL history. Am I saying that this is going to happen? No, not exactly. I AM saying that this is a real outcome that must be considered. In NFL history, 19 TEs that have received over 135 targets and only ONE has finished with under 1,000 receiving yards, Evan Engram last year with 963 yards (Source: Stat Muse). Dalton Kincaid is being drafted around the 6th round and behind players like Trey McBride, Mark Andrews and Sam LaPorta who all have seen nearly no changes from their situations from last year outside of McBride. I think it is reasonable to make the case that Kincaid finishes ahead of all of them this season. Draft Dalton Kincaid.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
This one is more of an opinion than anything with solid statistical backing but bear with me. Justin Herbert is REALLY good at football, the play calling has historically been very bad in LA and there are a lot of open targets in the offense. No Chargers players are being drafted in the first 80 picks of the draft. Vegas has the Chargers at around 8 wins this season (Source: Vegas Insider), putting them near the middle of the pack in the league. I think there is a legitimate argument to be made that with better coaching, the top end talent that exists on the roster and a healthy Justin Herbert that the Chargers could be a playoff team. We all know Greg Roman, the new Charger's OC, can scheme up one of the best run games in football and we know that Jim Harbaugh just won a national championship at Michigan with an elite rushing attack. I think that people in the fantasy community are seeing this and fading the Chargers in fantasy because of a perceived lack of upside to the passing game. I am not so sure about this assumption. I believe that good coaches make schemes around their best players, the best coaches are the ones that are consistently successful at doing so. I think that this coaching staff will create the best situation that Herbert will have played for in his career thus far.
A good running game is not inherently indicative of a bad passing attack. I'm going to reference Peyton Manning's time with the Colts a lot here. The best Colts teams during the Manning era were teams lead by a balanced offense with solid rushing attacks lead by Edgerrin James and Joseph Addai. It can also be said that elite QBs more often make receivers look elite than the other way around (One more Peyton ex. 09' Austin Collie). Play action can be one of the best fundamental ways to scheme players open, create clean pockets and simplify reads for QBs. We are not about to see Justin Herbert running the Lamar Jackson era Ravens offensive scheme. We are about to see what Justin Herbert can do without Brandon Staley calling a spread formation with 4 curl routes on every 3rd and long situation. While I don't think that anyone on the Chargers will ascend to fantasy superstar status this season, I think a lot of this offense are well worth your mid-later round picks. McConkey should have a solid floor if you need a stable WR, Gus Edwards is the best RB on this roster and is once again a candidate for double digit TDs and my favorite pick from the Chargers this year is Josh Palmer. He should be a recipient a lion's share of the available targets, has the most rapport with Herbert, and should see a majority of the downfield targets as his ADOT last year was a career best 11.4. Going much later in drafts, Palmer is a one of the rare sleeper archetypes where he seems to be an obvious candidate for an increased role in an offense run by an elite QB and nobody seems to care. The upside is there for all of these guys with little to no risk, go get yourself some shares of the Chargers offense.
Ian Gridley
Fantasy Football Analyst
8/29/24
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