Offseason Stealing Signals, AFC West
Offseason Stealing Signals, AFC West
Broncos RBs, Chiefs' passing game, and tons of rookie targets
I wrote a long introduction to the value I see in this series as its own post, and a bit more intro stuff in Part 1 on the AFC South. As I detailed, in order to maximize the value add and time committed to writing this all up, my focus here will be on how I’m playing the different teams.
One key resource I’ll link to for each team is my March TPRR writeups, which cover the whole pass-catching group from last year. I’ll reference stuff from there from time to time, but not repeat huge concepts.
Another piece you’ll see me link to a couple of times today is the “Perfect Storm” candidates piece from May. I did the same in the NFC South writeup with Atlanta, and two of the other big, team-based trends I highlighted there are in today’s division, the AFC West.
You can always catch my projections discussions with Michael Leone for each of these divisions over at Establish the Edge.
Denver Broncos
Key Stat: Broncos — 153 RB targets in 2023 (led NFL)
The perception around the Broncos seems to be that with a veteran QB like Russell Wilson gone, they’ll have to take a step back a little bit as a rookie in Bo Nix assimilates. Late last year in Stealing Signals, I was emphasizing how the Broncos were hiding Wilson, running the ball at a high rate even in passing situations, and having him throw underneath when he did throw. They led the NFL in RB targets despite finishing 28th in pass attempts, and Wilson’s 7.8 yards of average throw depth was a career low, and more than a full yard lower than anything he’s posted since 2014. As I wrote about in the “Perfect Storm” piece, Nix is a perfect fit for this underneath element of the Sean Payton offense, and my position is quite the opposite of what I wrote in the first sentence here — I think the offense has a shot to really open up and be more functional with Nix in a way it couldn’t ever with Wilson. The offense obviously wasn’t great last year, but despite a rookie taking over, the QB should be such a better stylistic fit as to make that idea that it will take some sort of step back pretty inaccurate, unless Nix just totally busts.
This makes the Denver backfield a clear target at all draft depths. The market has been really misunderstanding the Javonte Williams bet, such that some poorly sourced rumors about him being cut dropped his best ball price to ridiculous lows. Those who were out on him last year coming off a multi-ligament knee injury are double counting that he wasn’t explosive last year, when the team has been bullish on him. All the latest reports are extremely bullish, which supports this idea I’ve referenced in the data that even when he wasn’t 100% last year, Payton gave him 264 touches, while the other two RBs were both barely in triple digits, combining for 210. Williams won’t be the clear lead in this backfield, because Payton does use a committee, but while he typically has a passing-down back and also often a late-game bruiser (who usually doesn’t catch many balls), there’s usually one back who does a little of everything that should be thought of as the lead. This goes back to the Pierre Thomas days, and then after Thomas, Mark Ingram’s usage shifted from that late-game bruiser role to the do-everything guy; Ingram’s rush attempt-to-reception ratio shifted majorly in his fourth and especially fifth seasons, and he suddenly started catching about 50 balls a year, after 53 total the first four seasons. If you truly study the game by game stuff, and not just the full-season numbers because injuries happened, this type of backfield structure was very clear in Payton’s New Orleans years, at least until Alvin Kamara shook things up a little bit and started to do even more as that do-everything guy. But even at his peak under Payton, Kamara sat at low snap shares for an elite RB; in his 2020 legendary season where he scored 6 touchdowns in Week 16, he didn’t play more than 78% of the snaps in any game, and only crested 70% five times. Javonte wasn’t even in that range last year, but other than a game he left early and the one he returned to in Weeks 4 and 6 (he missed Week 5), he played at least 39% of the snaps in every game, and the vast majority were in the 45%-70% range. Barring a surprise twist where he doesn’t make the team, he’s likely to — in my opinion — be a little more consistently on the plus side of 50% snap shares, in a backfield that could legitimately challenge for 200 RB targets. I also say, when looking at things from a Team HVT lens, that you can play committee backs when the pie is big enough. The pie should be plenty big enough here, and the price gives you rounds of leeway to bet on the profile. The best part? You’re basically freerolling the Year 2 efficiency rebound after the injury — he’s a strong bet on the usage alone, where he goes, but there’s enough in his pre-injury profile to believe there’s upside from there. He’s been one of my absolute favorite RB clicks all offseason.
I’m still taking a ton of the other Broncos’ backs, as well. I wrote some negative stuff about Jaleel McLaughlin’s usage in that Perfect Storm piece, but he could develop, particularly with the much-discussed pass-blocking stuff, and the efficiency is definitely there; I named him one of my five favorite players to watch on film with Christopher Harris last week. The upside for McLaughlin is he maintains the per-touch efficiency in an expanded role and has an Achane-lite profile. Despite concern over the role expanding, I’m getting exposure to that, because we have to recognize uncertainty, and I feel much more strongly about the position value with Denver RBs than my specific read on how it will manifest (I don’t want to be right on the macro trend and miss benefiting on the micro level when all are so cheap). I take even more of rookie Audric Estime, who was a last round pick when I wrote the Perfect Storm piece, but has gotten plenty of camp buzz. The concern is he’s the early-career Ingram mold — Khiry Robinson, Chris Ivory, Mike Bell are others whose Saints’ statistics reflect a similar role during the Payton tenure if you want to go digging — which would mean not enough pass-catching. And since this offense doesn’t really profile as a high-scoring one, Estime’s HVTs might actually be weak — he’d presumably benefit from a high rate of goal-line work in this role, but the Broncos might not have enough of that. And yet, he’s a bigger back, and Payton’s higher-workload backs always were, and McLaughlin is not that. The only other logical backup to Javonte from a size perspective would be Samaje Perine, and many expect him to be cut at the end of camp to allow intriguing rookie UDFA Blake Watson to make the team. Regardless of how the fourth and fifth spots shake out, you need exposure to Denver RBs. I more or less leave every best ball build with at least one DEN back, and I’m so confident in the team-level trend that I take two somewhat regularly, believing at those prices and with the snap share rotations, it’s not hard to see them both score in conjunction with one another.
To the note about market expectations, this was an offense where my TD projections were too high, and I had to scale things back to get in line with lookahead lines. I will say that despite that, I stand by what I wrote in the first bullet that I think the market is missing how Nix could actually open things up, and I think this is an offense where they could be meaningfully better than market. I don’t think Sean Payton is the best coach of all time, but I do think the defensive trends worked around to where Payton’s system plays up in the modern NFL — he already wanted to show some shot plays and test safeties, but then make high-percentage underneath stuff the bulk of the offense as they matriculate it down the field, and that’s what defenses sort of force these days. I’m usually out on most retread coaches, but Payton’s a retread that fits the modern NFL, and he went 8-9 last year with a bad roster, while hiding his QB (mostly through winning low-scoring games, but for a bad team, that they scored fewer than 14 points just once all year was a pretty strong accomplishment; they go into 2024 with the third-fewest points in lookahead lines in the entire league, and I expect them to be closer to league average, if still below). In addition to heavy exposure to the RBs, Nix is my highest-drafted QB in best ball so far, because of his very low ADP, strong probability to play the full season (relative to other options in that range, many of whom are very questionable to play all year), and scoring floor. To the scoring floor, Nix won’t be a high weekly scorer for single-QB redraft leagues, but offers some mobility — he had 376 non-sack rushes over five college seasons as a starter, about 75 per season — and I think will mostly help account for some TDs each week. Last year, Broncos RBs ran for just 5 TDs all year, but caught 4, which should regress toward more rushing TDs, but it’s indicative of a willingness to throw in close from Payton.
The receivers are trickier than the RBs. One of the big reasons I am so confident in the underneath passing is it’s a rookie QB. Payton will need to take some shots to keep safeties honest, but he wants to operate in the underneath spaces, and I’d suspect he’ll err on that side of things, which makes big downfield volume difficult. To that end, Courtland Sutton led the team with just 90 targets last year, the kind of volume that — while he’s a No. 1 — most No. 2s surpass. I’ve taken some shots in best ball, but he’s clearly outside the “WR Window” for me where the full-season massive upside just isn’t there, and that’s reflected by his ADP.
Beyond him, Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin are both intriguing late-round profile bets. Mims didn’t get enough work last year but was good in the opportunities he did get, and Payton was saying all the right things about wanting to get him more involved even before the team traded Jerry Jeudy. In fact, there was some commentary about how Mims was blocked by Jeudy almost right before the Jeudy trade, sort of tipping off that they were willing to move on from Jeudy to get Mims some more work. Then during the draft, Franklin fell to Day 3, and the Broncos traded up to grab him with the second pick of Round 4. Franklin played with Nix in college and was hyper-efficient with a strong age-adjusted profile. The concern is these two have similar skill sets, and might play off each other as field-stretchers, while the veterans Josh Reynolds and Tim Patrick compete for the third WR role. I’ve been playing Mims ahead of Franklin, as it appears he’s more likely to start than the Day 3 rookie, but Franklin arguably has more upside with the Nix connection and considering Mims’ rookie year. I expect a relatively lower amount of volume for all these guys collectively, but Mims and Franklin are my favorite ways to play it, with the hopes we get early information the first few weeks as to how they might develop. They have the profiles where any indications of consistent usage would make them strong waiver wire additions in leagues where they are available, even if the production hadn’t started yet.
Greg Dulcich has also made some buzz, and is still an intriguing late-round TE profile, but again we run into usage concerns. Adam Trautman has been with Payton since the Saints days, and is going to play blocking snaps, while the issue with Dulcich is just staying healthy. He’s more of a watch list guy early, but if he does get a lot of early-season routes, he could be a nice preemptive bench pickup as well. But we want TEs who consolidate routes, and that’s not really Payton’s M.O. — much like at RB, Payton likes to have a lot of different passing packages and rotate his downfield weapons a decent amount, too.
Signal: Broncos — should have massive RB expected points pie, big RB targets and receptions numbers; Javonte Williams — strong bet to be the lead “do-everything” RB in Payton’s system; Jaleel McLaughlin, Audric Estime — both solid late-round RB swings based on the value in the backfield and cheap prices; Marvin Mims, Troy Franklin — strong profile-based plays, but the situation isn’t great, so might be more watch list guys in shallower leagues
Noise: Broncos — 5 RB rushing TDs all season (does indicate the team likes to throw in close, but expect this to shift in 2024); Courtland Sutton — clear No. 1 receiver (might still only get No. 2-level target volume, with very limited upside for 120 or more, which most No. 1s have)
Kansas City Chiefs
Key Stat: Chiefs — have led NFL in PROE five straight years