David Johnson to Texans: Fantasy Impact

March 17, 2020

Running back David Johnson was traded from the Arizona Cardinals to the Houston Texans at the onset of the NFL 2020 preseason. Justin Carter evaluates the move from a fantasy football perspective to determine if Johnson is a fantasy asset at RB still and how it affects the rest of the Texans, including Deshaun Watson.

Well, NFL free agency has started, and if you thought a global pandemic was going to stop Houston Texans coach Bill O'Brien from doing something that the entire football world thought was bad, you were wrong.

Just about an hour into free agency, word broke that Houston was trading for running back David Johnson, which seemed...bad, but not, like, too too bad. That was followed by reports that Houston was taking on all of Johnson's contract, which led me to think this was going to be some kind of salary dump by Arizona, with Houston getting a second round pick in exchange for taking on the contract.

They got that second. But they also gave Arizona a huge prize: star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. And while we could debate why this trade happened all day, let's instead go a different direction: looking at film and stats to figure out what this trade means for the Houston Texans. (Note: Randall Cobb signing analysis is included at the end.)

What To Expect From David Johnson

There are a couple of things to consider on the Houston side. First, there's the obvious question of what David Johnson can do in Houston, but beyond that there's also the more pressing question of how Houston can replace DeAndre Hopkins.

Let's tackle the Johnson question first.

So, when David Johnson is at his best, he's a very good running back. In 2016, Johnson rushed for 1239 yards and had 879 receiving yards, scoring a combined 20 touchdowns. He was a monster on the football field, someone who could run the ball between the tackles and break free from defenders, who could turn outside and make plays out on the margins, and could also be a terrifying receiver. Johnson was unstoppable. He looked like he'd be the next big thing in the NFL, a top running back who'd be at this level for a long time.

But his 2017 season was lost to a wrist injury, and when Johnson returned in 2018, something felt different.

That year, he still had 940 rushing yards and 446 receiving yards, but he dropped below four yards per carry, saw his total touchdowns cut in half, and while his productivity was mostly fine, his efficiency took a severe drop:

Those numbers represent his rank among running backs and...yikes.

Johnson struggled to gain yardage, couldn't break off big plays, couldn't really create yards or evade tackles. The sheer amount of opportunities he had led to him having a fine season from a numbers perspective, but beneath the surface, signs of what happened in 2019 were starting to brew.

So, what did happen in 2019? Well...

Maybe you thought Johnson's downturn in 2018 was due to Arizona sporting an utterly terrible offense. I know that I did, which was why I drafted him highly still in a lot of leagues. With Kliff Kingsbury as the head coach and Kyler Murray at quarterback, Johnson was bound to bounce back in a big way.

Instead, he looked slow, missed some time with ankle and back issues, and got benched for Kenyan Drake.

Johnson's efficiency numbers didn't really recover. His big run rate increased. He evaded fewer tackles. His true yards per carry stayed about the same. Johnson is clearly in decline.

But Carlos Hyde was pretty clearly in decline and Bill O'Brien still rode him to a 1000 yard season. Even if we acknowledge that this David Johnson is nowhere near 2016 David Johnson, the way Houston's offense operates should mean Johnson has a solid year. Hyde was 12th among backs in carries last year, but just 65th in targets; it's not hard to see Johnson being 12th in carries and then significantly higher than Hyde was in targets, even though O'Brien has a long history of not using his running backs in the passing game enough. He might have to do it this year, which is good for Johnson.

Hyde was just 112th at his position in fantasy points per opportunity, but got enough opportunities to finish as the PPR RB26. Johnson outperforms that, because he's going to get the ball enough to outperform that. Aside from a worst case scenario where he just doesn't hold off Duke Johnson for the lead job, David Johnson should be finishing as a fantasy RB2 if he stays healthy.

And who knows -- maybe he'll heal up this offseason and look like an approximation of his old self, in which case Johnson could be on the lower end of the RB1 conversation next year. There's a lot of volatility here, and as long as Johnson doesn't get too much of an ADP boost from name recognition, you should be able to find value by selecting him this season.

Of course, the Hopkins trade has ramifications all across this Texans club. There's probably too many things going on here to turn to the film on all of them, so let's just go through a basic run down of the questions facing the Texans right now.

Deshaun Watson loses his most important weapon

It's early, but I'd guess that with DeAndre Hopkins, Watson would have entered the 2020 fantasy season as the QB3 by ADP, behind Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes.

I have a few more questions now about what Watson will look like, but it's also really hard to answer those questions, because Deshaun Watson has never played an NFL game without Hopkins, so we don't know exactly what this new world is going to look like.

One good guess, though, is that this can't be a positive for Watson. No one Houston could replace Hopkins with would be a DeAndre Hopkins level wide receiver.

Last year, Texans quarterbacks -- A.J. McCarron did throw 37 passes -- had a 105 quarterback rating when targeting Hopkins, better than Watson's 98 quarterback rating overall. And some of Watson's other numbers are a little alarming. His red zone completion percentage ranked 28th, his accuracy rating was 15th, and his clean pocket completion percentage was 15th. There should be some concerns about Watson completing fewer passes and struggling to get the ball into the end zone.

But he's also a dynamic player who makes things happen on the ground and Hopkins will be replaced by someone; we aren't just going to see Deandre Carter become Houston's top receiver or something. So the drop off in Watson's numbers shouldn't be too bad. Maybe you draft Russell Wilson over him, but you'd still take Watson over an aging Aaron Rodgers, right? Maybe Kyler Murray slides in front of him by draft night, but I think there's a little more risk in Murray, even with the addition of Hopkins in Arizona.

Overall, I don't see this being a huge issue for Watson, but it does knock him down draft boards slightly and introduces a lowered production floor.

Is Kenny Stills the lead receiver now?

Hopkins is gone. Will Fuller might be gone; he's going to cost Houston $10m if they keep him and nothing if they cut him, and he's got such a long injury history that I'd be surprised if the team spends money to extend him, so depending on how the offseason goes, we'll either see no Fuller, or Fuller playing out the last year of his deal and probably remaining the No. 2 guy in the passing game.

That leaves Houston with Kenny Stills as their top receiver, though I'd expect they spend a second-round pick on someone. The problem with that? This is a very good receiver class, which means the top five or six guys will likely be gone by the time Houston picks.

One of the things about Stills last year was that he was much more of a factor when he could operate as a third receiver behind Hopkins and Fuller. Per RotoViz, here are Stills' splits with Fuller in and not in the lineup:

This, I think, is a problem: Stills was significantly less effective when he took on the role of the No. 2 guy, as Houston wasn't able to use him as a mismatch against third corners. What happens when he's going against a team's top guy?

As the No. 1 option for the Texans, Stills would have value, but if Hopkins is a top-three fantasy option at wide receiver, Stills is maybe...a high-end WR2 if he's the top guy in Houston? I just can't see Stills having the kind of target market share that Hopkins had, who was second in the NFL in target share last year.

Houston will need other options to step up. I don't have an entire section on Will Fuller here since Fuller would likely have the same role he had before, but the slot guy could get used more, whoever that may be. I don't think Keke Coutee gets out of O'Brien's dog house, so expect some other move for this position.

Carlos Hyde and Lamar Miller are gone, right?

Yeah, both of those guys are gone. Miller -- who missed all of last year after tearing his ACL -- could be done with the NFL, while Hyde should be able to find a role somewhere after a 1000-yard season. That somewhere won't be Houston. Bill O'Brien doesn't care about running back depth beyond his top-two guys.

What role will Duke Johnson play?

Last year, Houston rolled with just two running backs, with the team's other backs exclusively playing special teams (minus Taiwan Jones randomly showing up in a playoff game to make the most important play of the season for Houston.)

Now, they have David Johnson and Duke Johnson instead of Carlos Hyde and Duke Johnson. As mentioned above, a healthy David Johnson can do it all as a runner and pass-catcher, so where does that leave Duke Johnson?

Duke was already used poorly last year, as head coach Bill O'Brien doesn't design an offense that targets backs much, and now Duke isn't even the main pass-catching back in town. Common sense here says that Duke's fantasy value is at rock bottom now, and he wouldn't be much more than a change-of-pace back unless David ends up struggling. So, how you're valuing Duke Johnson seems to be tied to what you think of David Johnson's ability to bounce back.

There is the chance that Duke moves permanently to the slot, which wouldn't be a terrible idea, but I won't think BOB is going to be thinking outside of the box enough to make that happen.

Edit: Houston signed Randall Cobb after I wrote this whole thing

Okay, well, let's see what this means. Cobb had 828 yards and three touchdowns last year. Houston's going to stick him in the slot and he should produce solid numbers this year as an underneath option for Deshaun Watson.

There are still some moving parts in Houston and slot receiver has been a revolving door lately, but Cobb should give Houston what they hoped Keke Coutee could give them, minus the fact that Cobb won't be as involved in the kinds of gadget plays that Coutee might have been able to.

Cobb will be solid. He might cause Duke Johnson to get fewer slot chances, and he might cut slightly into David Johnson's targets, but not enough to make me worry too much.

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