Fantasy Football Player Notes

You can try to make the argument that McCaffrey shouldn't go No. 1 overall this year, but you'd lose the argument. Outside of saying, "running backs don't repeat as the top option," there's nothing that should suggest McCaffrey won't. He's not just a running back. He's a wide receiver. He scored 182.5 half-PPR points through the air alone, which would've been the No. 20 wide receiver in fantasy last year, ahead of Stefon Diggs. Even if McCaffrey simply stopped playing football in Week 12, he would've finished as the No. 1 running back by a massive 22.1 PPR points. The new offense and improved quarterback play shouldn't hurt at all.

It really stinks that we may not get to see Moore play with a top-tier quarterback during his early years. He's an extremely good football player who's been stuck in a bad situation. He made the most of bad targets last year, finishing as the WR18 and delivering WR2 or better performances 60.0 percent of the time, which ranked eighth among wide receivers. Now another obstacle to cross. He'll have a new quarterback and a new head coach in 2020. The coach (Matt Rhule) also decided they needed to bring in Robby Anderson, a receiver who previously played under him, which could mean the targets get spread out a bit. The good news is that Bridgewater attempted a deep ball on just 7.1 percent of his pass attempts, which was the second-lowest rate in the NFL, and not an area where Moore operates. The talent is there for Moore to make a jump into WR1 status, but the situation doesn't seem ideal with virtually no offseason. He's best suited as a WR2 on fantasy teams, as top-24 should be his absolute floor.

Switching teams as a wide receiver this offseason seems... less than ideal. It does help, however, when there's a new quarterback on that team, as well as a coach you've played for in the past. Matt Rhule was the coach while Anderson was at Temple back in 2015. The issue is that Bridgewater's strengths don't really align with Anderson's. Bridgewater threw the ball 20-plus yards just 7.1 percent of the time last year, which ranked second lowest in the league. Anderson's skill set just doesn't align with Bridgewater's strengths as a passer, though they may try to force the issue after spending $20 million over two years on Anderson. Not having an offseason to build rapport makes me a bit more concerned, especially knowing we've seen Anderson's effort level best described as "inconsistent" on the field. It's tough to say he'll be a better fantasy option than he was in New York, only now his asking price is much lower. Being taken outside the top 50 wide receivers is a discount worth taking in best-ball leagues, but in redraft, it's tough to say he'll be a consistent contributor. He's the third option, at best.

It's going to be tough for the Panthers to have much success this year, as they have a new head coach, new play-caller, new quarterback, and an offensive line that's been shifted around, all while having very little offseason practice time. The defense is in a position to allow a ton of points, which does add appeal to Bridgewater. We should see him rack up the pass attempts, and it doesn't hurt to know that his 6.2 intended air yards per target was the lowest in the league, which should mean a lot of short completions to D.J. Moore and Christian McCaffrey. The issue is that Bridgewater offers no mobility after his reconstructive knee surgery. That means he'll have to be more efficient than other pocket passers available later in the draft, guys like Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff. Again, with no offseason, that's going to be incredibly hard to do. Save Bridgewater for 2QB leagues where he's a great target as a No. 2 quarterback with no chance to lose the starting job.

There are a lot of analysts making excuses for Samuel's poor production last year, stating that his quarterback play was atrocious. While I don't disagree, there are plenty of wide receivers who've had bad quarterback play but managed to be useful. Samuel's 0.96 yards per route run in 2019 ranked dead last among the 157 wide receivers with at least 100 targets over the last five years. Heck, his teammate D.J. Moore was able to finish as the WR18. Based on the targets Samuel received and where they took place, he should have finished as the WR16. Look, I'm not saying Samuel is as bad as he was in 2019, but for him to become a reliable fantasy player, he'd have to overcome the fact that he's now the fourth-best target in the offense, behind McCaffrey, Moore, and Anderson. The Panthers also tried shopping Samuel this offseason, but ultimately held onto him. He's someone to look at during bye weeks when the Panthers are double-digit underdogs. Outside of that, you're just looking for an injury to him to become anything more than a WR5-type option.

With Greg Olsen out of town, Thomas walks into the starting role. What does that mean under new offensive coordinator Joe Brady? That's tough to say, but there's suddenly a lot of mouths to feed in this offense. Christian McCaffrey is Thomas' biggest issue, as there's been just one team over the last four years who've had their top running back and top tight end combine for more than 198 targets. Keep in mind that's the max. It's rare for teams to have that duo combine for more than 180 targets. So, when you see that McCaffrey saw 141 targets last year, that's a big issue for someone like Thomas. You aren't going to take targets away from McCaffrey to feed him. During Teddy Bridgewater's stint as the starter for the Saints last year, Jared Cook finished with 7, 21, 41, and 37 yards, though he did score twice. Those yardage totals are not what we look for out of streamers, and keep in mind there's more competition for targets in Carolina than there was in New Orleans. Thomas is someone you may want to stream from time to time, but I don't see a breakout season with McCaffrey on the field.

Slye struggled a bit with his accuracy in his rookie year, missing four extra-point attempts and hitting just 78.1% of his field-goal tries. He'll likely see a fair amount of attempts this year with Teddy Bridgewater guiding a decent but less than explosive offense, but he'll need to start converting more of his chances to make him worth drafting in standard-sized leagues.