How Sean McVay Keeps Screwing With Fantasy Teams

Justin's analysis of the 2020 Los Angeles Rams for fantasy football purposes. Head coach Sean McVay changes gameplans and usage for his RBs constantly, leading to frustration for fantasy GMs.

Remember the halcyon days of 2018, when the Los Angeles Rams offense was just so easy to predict? Jared Goff was a QB1. Todd Gurley II was an RB1. Robert Woods and Brandin Cooks were consistent WR2 starts for fantasy managers, while Cooper Kupp played just eight games, but was also a consistent WR2 start when he was on the field. Plus, you knew to ignore the team's tight end position.

Not so much in 2020. Woods and Kupp are still every-week starters, but the rest of the team is full of inconsistency right now.

Let's look into some of the usage trends for the Rams and see how head coach Sean McVay is messing with your fantasy teams.

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Jared Goff's Confusing Year

Per Pro Football Reference, Goff is the QB13 right now, which is exactly where he finished in 2019. But how he's gotten to QB13 has been a weird ride:

Not listed is a Week 3 rushing touchdown.

So, Goff has thrown the ball about the same amount in each game, but his adjusted yards per attempt has varied pretty widely, and he's had games of zero, one, two, and three touchdowns. Those scores are the biggest variable. In Week 2, he tossed two touchdowns from inside the five. Since then, the scores have all been of the longer variety, with yardage of 28, 25, 16, and 55. That his only Week 4 touchdown was a 55-yarder to Cooper Kupp in which about 40 of those yards were after the catch is concerning.

Goff is tied with Drew Brees for fewest intended air yards per attempts at 5.8, but he doesn't have the age-related reasons that Brees does. Goff was at 7.8 last year and at 8.8 in 2018 when he was a fantasy QB1. He's been less effective as he's thrown the ball shorter distances, which makes complete sense. And if that trend continues and is coupled by Goff not getting red zone touchdown passes, he's a streaming option at best moving forward.

What's Up With These Running Backs?

Over the last few years, the Rams backfield has been easy to figure out. Sure, there was that short stretch where C.J. Anderson was extremely good, but otherwise it's just been a backfield where Todd Gurley was the bell cow and you ignored everyone else. That worked, because Gurley was one of the league's best rushers.

But he's in Atlanta now, leaving the Rams with three running backs all trying to carve out roles: Malcolm Brown, Darrell Henderson Jr., and Cam Akers.

Akers has missed the last two games with a rib injury, but in the first two games with all three players available, the snap breakdowns were:

Week 1: Brown (60%), Akers (33%), Henderson (7%)
Week 2: Brown (54%), Henderson (38%), Akers (4%)

And then once Akers was out:

Week 3: Brown (49%), Henderson (49%)
Week 4: Brown (61%), Henderson (39%)

The big thing here is that while Brown has led the backs in snaps each week, he was trending down in terms of snap rate until a 12 percent jump this past week. It looked like Henderson was trending towards taking over lead back duties while Akers was out, but in the end, it really seems we know nothing here in terms of who to trust when it comes to workload. And while that's not McVay's fault -- the downgrade from elite running back to "three non-elite running backs" is tough to manage -- it does seem that how he's managing this backfield leaves fantasy managers unable to rely on it at all, which does suck for fantasy managers.

The Lack Of A Consistent WR3

While Brandin Cooks was in Los Angeles, we got so used to being able to start three Rams receivers in fantasy. Their heavy use of 11 personnel and light use of substitutions made for some pretty easy lineup decisions.

This year, the Rams are in 11 personnel 73 percent of the time, the same percentage as last year. But in 2018, that number was a league-high 89 percent of total plays.

So, it's no surprise that the No. 3 role here isn't consistently fantasy relevant.

It would help, though, if we knew who the third guy was.

Rookie Van Jefferson as targeted eight times in the first two games and played 45 and 38 percent of the snaps in those games. But just as it looked like Jefferson was sliding into that role, his snaps plummeted, as he's been on the field for just 11 total snaps the past two weeks and doesn't have a catch.

Josh Reynolds has had a weird ride too, with his snap rates looking like this: 51, 61, 90, and 53 percent. His nine targets in the last two games suggest that he's taking on a larger role now, but that role's only really been fantasy relevant once, which was the four-catch, 60-yard performance in the game where he played 90 percent of the snaps. If he can't get to that level of playing time, he won't be much of a fantasy option.

Tyler Higbee ?????

Higbee had three touchdowns in Week 2, but mostly he's been consistently getting not-many targets. He's gotten between 21 and 54 yards in each game and pretty clearly seems to not be the elite option that some thought he'd be.

Makes sense, right? McVay's offense supported a top tight end for a short time at the end of 2019 when Brandin Cooks was hurt and no other time, so it's actually pretty consistent for McVay's time as a coach that Higbee is mostly just putting up decent numbers and has only had one really "good" game.

Still, you have to think of Higbee as a low-end TE1 option with upside, even if consistency is going to be a week-to-week issue going forward.

Gerald Everett is also lurking here. An increase in 12 personnel has Everett's snap rates increasing, including to 58 percent last game. He has just four catches, though, and really is more of a roadblock to Higbee or Josh Reynolds than he is a standalone option.

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