RADIO
The 2018 NFL season is slowly approaching. Organized team activities are happening. Free agents have mostly decided where they'll play. Fantasy drafts are even underway in some parts of the fantasy world. Even if you haven't drafted for a league yet, you've already been up to your ears in mocks, right? RIGHT? It isn't just me???
All of this means that you have questions and you want to know the answers to them. Me too! So I took to my own brain and one of my Twitter groupchats to see what kinds of things people wanted to know about the 2018 season. From the Packers running back situation to the depth of this year's crop of quarterbacks, I explore everything about the upcoming NFL season.
Okay, that's a lie. I didn't have time for everything, but I am exploring five things about the upcoming season. If you have questions that aren't answered here, feel free to get at me over on Twitter: @juscarts.
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The Answer Lies Within Yourself
How will the Minnesota offense -- factoring in a new quarterback and Dalvin Cook's return from injury -- perform this year?
The Vikings offense produced the following finishes last season in PPR: QB14, RB17, WR9, WR19, and TE8. Those are good numbers, but the addition of Kirk Cousins and the return of Dalvin Cook have people wondering what the ceiling is on the Vikings. Could they be the best fantasy offense? Should you invest heavily in them?
My answer right is that I'm cautiously optimistic about the quarterback, running back, and tight end positions finishing in the top 10 for the Vikings this year, but I have a little concern about how the two main receivers stack up. Let's investigate!
Kirk Cousins has been the starter for all 16 games for the past three years. Over that stretch, here are the wide receiver finishes in PPR for his top three receivers:
| 2017 | Jamison Crowder | WR33 |
| 2017 | Ryan Grant | WR53 |
| 2017 | Josh Doctson | WR56 |
| 2016 | Pierre Garcon | WR22 |
| 2016 | Jamison Crowder | WR31 |
| 2016 | DeSean Jackson | WR37 |
| 2015 | Pierre Garcon | WR31 |
| 2015 | Jamison Crowder | WR53 |
| 2015 | DeSean Jackson | WR67 |
Here's the problem: Cousins has shown so far in his career that he's a quarterback who likes to spread the ball around. The Vikings have two receivers in Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs who finished 2017 as top 20 wide receivers, but they also have a decent group behind those guys, with a former first-round pick in Laquon Treadwell and a player who has flashed promise (but not really, uhh, fulfilled that promise) in Kendall Wright. Those names aren't world beaters, but they're good enough players that Cousins track record worries me. I'm expecting one of them to finish somewhere between WR50 and WR60, which isn't even a stretch since Wright finished just outside the top 50 last year. That'll take opportunities away from Diggs and Thielen, and I'm hesitant at this point to even guess which one I'd rather own this year. RotoBaller's Kyle Richardson mentioned in a piece earlier this month that he isn't high on Diggs right now, so I'm not alone in this!
Now, Cousins does like his tight ends, and that should benefit Kyle Rudolph this year. Remember that Rudolph dealt with some injuries last season and had three games where he finished with just one reception and he failed to hit the 10 yard mark in all three of those games. A healthy Rudolph with Kirk Cousins throwing him the ball is something I love from a fantasy perspective.
Oh yeah, Dalvin Cook. With Jerick McKinnon gone and Latavius Murray starting to hit the point where his effectiveness fades, a healthy Cook will have full control of that backfield. Here's Cook's gamelog from last season:
Factoring in Cook missing a little less than half of that fourth game, those are impressive numbers. Even against the Steelers when he rushed for a season-low 64 yards and turned his two receptions into absolutely nothing, Cook still averaged over five yards per carry. He'll be very, very good this season as long as he isn't still suffering any lingering issues from his torn ACL. There's always risk with a player coming back from an injury, but I'm willing to take that risk on a player as talented as Cook.
Who gets the backfield job in Green Bay?
If I could successfully answer this one right now, I'd be placing a phone call to whoever hires late night television and psychics, but let's dive into the options in Green Bay and the chatter around the team and see if we can arrive at some kind of idea of what'll happen.
There are three names in play here: Aaron Jones, Jamaal Williams, and Ty Montgomery. It was Montgomery's job to lose coming into the 2017 season, but he lost it after dealing with wrist and rib injuries over the course of the season. In 2017, Montgomery finished with 273 yards on 71 carries and caught 23 passes for 173 yards. He had four total touchdowns and saw his per carry average drop by two yards. His ineffectiveness is part of why he's no longer the favorite for the starting job.
Jones finished 2017 with 448 yards and four touchdowns. Williams finished with 556 yards and four touchdowns, as well as a pair of receiving touchdowns. With Jones more effective on the ground and Williams more effective in the receiving game, I'd expect that to be how their 2018 playing time breaks down, with Jones earning early-down work and Williams working in the passing game. But the lurking Montgomery, who flashed enough potential and skill back in 2016 to make him a big threat to both players if he's healthy, is there and represents the biggest mystery in this backfield. I'm steering clear from the whole thing unless one of them falls far below his ADP come draft day.
Is the quarterback pool as deep as it seems?
This feels like one of the best years in recent memory to wait on a quarterback. Here are some guys ranked outside the top 12 in RotoBaller's rankings right now: Jared Goff, Phillip Rivers, Marcus Mariota, Matt Ryan, Jameis Winston, Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Alex Smith, Derek Carr, Case Keenum, Tyrod Taylor, Andy Dalton, and Blake Bortles. Some of those names aren't sexy, but I think it's a very viable strategy to wait, grab two of those guys, and play the matchups. You never need a top quarterback to win in fantasy if you build up the rest of your roster, but this list of names has me more convinced than ever to wait.
(Exception: dynasty leagues, because there's a good amount of names on that list whose long-term impact feels...shaky at best. But of the players listed, only Tyrod Taylor is in danger of losing his job this season.)
I'm not going to go into which of these quarterbacks to take (sorry, @jackfrank_jjf) right now because this article might grow into even more of an unwieldy mess than it already will be, but there's going to be plenty of time between now and your draft to check out RotoBaller's coverage of various quarterbacks. I'll leave it at this: there's going to be a lot of strong quarterback performances this season in the NFL.
Are any of the remaining free agents going to sign somewhere they'll have an impact?
Maybe! Here's a quick list of some of the big names still sitting out there in free agency and some of my thoughts on what their 2018 looks like:
Dez Bryant: Bryant will find a team closer to the season, right? But even if he does, Bryant has a multi-year decline behind him that suggests he isn't going to be a huge fantasy option in his new destination. In 2017, Bryant played 16 games for the first time since 2014. In that 2014 season, he finished as the WR4 in PPR, the third year in a row with a top 10 fantasy finish for Bryant. In 2017, he finished as the WR24 and was noticeably less effective. If he finds a team, Bryant will be worth a roster spot in fantasy leagues, but it would shocking to see him find a situation where he'd be more than a WR3 or WR4 in fantasy. Expect a finish outside the top 30 at his position.
Jeremy Maclin: Maclin has finished outside the top 50 wide receivers in back to back seasons. I've seen almost no rumors about him and can't foresee a situation where you'd want to draft Maclin. Maybe he comes in as an injury replacement closer to the season, but he'd likely just be depth at that point.
Eric Decker: See "Maclin, Jeremy."
Antonio Gates: The glory days of Antonio Gates have passed. He's probably either coming back to the Chargers to be a one-year replacement for Hunter Henry (in which case Gates probably ends up somewhere around 15th in my tight end rankings) or he retires.
DeMarco Murray: Murray's value is situational. If he goes somewhere where he'll see the field consistently, he still has the skills to put up decent fantasy numbers. After passing on a visit to the Saints, it appears he may be waiting for a training camp injury to sign somewhere, which would make things interesting. Stay in "wait and see" mode with Murray.
Travis Kelce should be the first tight end drafted, right?
Yes! Duh! Stop falling for the Rob Gronkowski trick!
There are two ways we can approach this question and it can be argued that the answer is good for Kelce in both situations. The first -- and firmer in terms of injuries and past performance -- is to ask how Kelce's recent track record stacks up against other tight ends. Since you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone arguing for a name other than Kelce and Gronkowski as the first tight end off the board, let's look at how they've recently performed:
Kelce has back-to-back finishes as the top tight end in PPR. Ignoring a rookie year in which Kelce played in just one game, he's never finished worse than TE8 in PPR. EIGHT. Kelce has been a top 10 tight end in all four of his full seasons. He's had more targets each year. He'll be the safety valve for second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Rob Gronkowski finished as the TE2 last season despite playing in just 13 games. He has three finishes as the number one tight end in PPR, but the last time he played 16 games was his monster 2011 season. Here's a list of injuries from just the last two seasons: hamstring, pulmonary contusion, back, groin, thigh contusion. I've said before that I hate dismissing a talented player as injury prone, but tight end is a position where physicality comes into play so much that Gronkowski's injury history has to be a factor on draft night. Kelce is the safer option, but not just in the way that we use that phrase to dismiss guys as high floor and low ceiling; instead, Kelce is both a safe pick and a high, high ceiling pick.
The other question that comes into play: is Travis Kelce actually a more talented player than Gronk at this point?
Uhh, well...maybe! Gronkowski has the kind of game-changing, top-end ability that Kelce might be missing, but Kelce has a little more speed than Gronkowski and had less drops last season.
More 2018 Fantasy Football & ADP Analysis
