Offseason Stealing Signals, NFC North
Offseason Stealing Signals, NFC North
The Signal and Noise for each NFC North team
Shooters gotta shoot, so let’s keep firing. Fair warning, you might want to skim or just skip past the Bears’ section, because I’m still just trying to work through stuff with them. I wrote a lot and left it all because I’ve gotten a lot of questions about them, and I know a lot of you like to know what stones I’m turning over. But it’s probably not easy to follow a lot of it, and it’s mostly just me still struggling with how to view them, because I’ve gotten feedback from several opinions I trust that seem to be more bullish on them as an offense.
I went over the receiving weapons on a team-by-team basis in my TPRR looks earlier this offseason, and those are still very relevant pieces that I myself circle back on quite often. I’ll reference some of that stuff in these pieces from time to time, but you can find more information there on receiving weapons.
And you can always catch my projections discussions with Michael Leone for each of these divisions over at Establish the Edge.
Chicago Bears
Key Stat: Justin Fields — 28% of dropbacks did not result in pass attempt (led NFL)
I discussed the Bears at length in my earlier-offseason piece, “Drafters aren’t adequately learning from 2022,” a similar topic to what Shawn Siegele and I hit on this week’s lengthy Stealing Bananas episode. As it relates to Chicago and the feedback I’ve gotten, the point I want to drive home is I’m bullish on Justin Fields — I do think this offense is going to improve, I think he’s going to get better as a processor, and I think the offensive line and receivers are going to help him get the ball out quicker. He’s played in basically the worst possible offenses for his particular skill set through two years, where he has all the physical tools — not just athleticism but incredible arm talent and understanding of how to throw away from defensive leverage with great accuracy and timing — but can get into trouble with holding the ball in the pocket too long, and his offenses have been terrible protecting him (speeding up the play) and with WRs that can’t consistently win, at least not quick since the main threats have been downfield weapons (which doesn’t give him easy places to go with the ball when the play gets sped up). Again, for Fields particular blend of “if this guy processes well enough, he has every other trait in spades, but that could legitimately be a dealbreaker,” the offenses he’s been in are going to push him toward outcomes near the bottom of his potential range. If you imagine him in an offense with a great offensive line and strong receiving weapons — take the Eagles as one example — I don’t think you say he would be exactly as good as Jalen Hurts, but it’s not hard to contemplate how that type of situation might cover some of Fields’ bigger issues and push him toward higher-end outcomes for what he’s capable of. But the idea in 2023 is the Bears’ situation has improved — not only is the offensive line is expected to be better, D.J. Moore addresses a major need with his ability to win in short areas of the field, and I specifically expect him to be the target on routes like quick slants off RPO looks, which should help him post a strong target share (I’ve got him at 25% in my base projections, which implies upside approaching 30%). Unfortunately, I still have concerns about the picks. Being bullish on those elements is not enough.
To justify big exposure in Bears’ players, you need two other key elements as well — first, called pass plays need to regress in a huge way, and the Bears were at a -13.8% PROE last year. I do expect that to regress massively, but it is the kind of figure that betrays a dependence on running in certain situations, whether that be short-yardage, drive starting, or even just RPOs, where the Bears ran the eighth-most such plays and had a slightly heavier run lean on those option plays than most offenses (I expect their RPO rate to rise, and this is minor, just a few pass attempts here and rush attempts there, but I’d love to believe their RPO rate was resulting in passes more frequently than average teams; it’s not). All I’m saying is this -13.8% PROE is not the end all, be all, and I thought Shawn made a great point on our recent pod that success passing needs to come first before these little things can all shift toward more passing volume, and maybe that does happen. The other key element you need, though, is probably my biggest concern. I wrote about this earlier this offseason, but Fields took a league-high 55 sacks and also had a league-high 70 scrambles, despite the 19th-most dropbacks of any QB. Those are the two outcomes on a called pass play where it does not become a pass attempt, and it’s the Key Stat above where 28% of Fields’ dropbacks weren’t pass attempts. I expect this to regress, too! Fields is going to turn more called pass plays into pass attempts for all the reasons we’ve said. I’d been projecting the combination of his scramble rate and called pass rate to drop to 21.5%, but to be honest while writing this I realized that is still pretty high relative to other top mobile QBs (Lamar Jackson’s highest career figure as a starter is 18.7%, Josh Allen was at 19% as a rookie but quickly dropped to lower levels, Jalen Hurts was at 20% in a small rookie sample but quickly dropped into the 15% range as well), so I moved Fields’ projection down to 19.5% on that. And this is a scenario where projections don’t really matter, because if the Bears are a breakout offense, we’re going to miss on a lot. My main point is that even when I’m trying to be very bullish relative to last year’s numbers — in each of the different key ways, from playcalling to Fields’ tendencies turning dropbacks into attempts (which his sack rate is a real issue), to projecting big passing efficiency which is also an assumption being made here where there is a range of outcomes and it’s usually not great practice to just bake in a big efficiency jump into an ADP — I still can’t come to a projection where I feel like there’s both a) a solid baseline, and b) meat left on the bone for a real ceiling, particularly for Moore. For Fields, if you’re projecting all these offensive improvements, his rushing production will combine well to make him a very strong QB option, and that’s something I’ve said where if you want to take Moore you probably just play that through Fields, because it’s a lot more likely he is the hit at QB than Moore is at WR (you could also stack them). But again, the key point for me is the way things go right in this situation still doesn’t make this offense look like a total smash with a huge upside, outside Fields potentially. I haven’t even hit on things like their play volume last year (very low) because their time to snap was very slow, and how the sacks and scrambles keep the play clock running, so you’re naturally trending toward a lower-volume offense in that way.
I suppose all of this is really a conversation about regression, and the important stuff isn’t in the details but how to play it. Regarding regression, this reminds me of the old A.J. Brown efficiency stuff I’ve referenced before, where I felt like his efficiency could stay high because it was created in multiple ways (deep aDOT plus uncommon YAC at that deep aDOT, i.e. efficiency both before and after the catch point). Similarly, the Bears threw the second fewest passes of any team since 1990 last year, and so obviously we’d expect them to have weird data, but it concerns me that they need to regress in about four different key ways, and in some cases they need to do so dramatically, because Moore and the offensive line are really the only key differences here. The coaching staff is the same, including the offensive coordinator. The other receiving targets are the same. The team let David Montgomery go but actually invested in a deeper RB room this year, suggesting to me they definitely still want to be able to hand the ball off. Ultimately, where I land is if you are in on DJM positively impacting the passing game, the way to play that is through Fields, who ran for 1,143 yards and 8 TD last year and despite that elite rushing production still didn’t hit the high end of QB scoring because he threw for just 2,242 and 17. One really notable element to Fields’ season was how he took off from Week 7 on, and as I wrote about in Stealing Signals, that correlated with the Bears starting to call designed runs for him. Through the first six weeks, Fields had just 21 designed runs (seven of which came in the Week 1 monsoon game against the 49ers); he had 12 alone in Week 7 in New England, and would average 7.6 per game from that game through the end of the season. Also starting at that New England game, his fantasy scoring exploded, and he posted a stretch of seven straight games from Week 7 through Week 15 that were all higher-scoring than all of his games from Week 1 through Week 6. The point there is simply to emphasize the degree to which Fields’ rushing impacts his scoring, and how if the designed runs are still there, that’s impacting pass volume negatively, but if they aren’t, you need even more passing improvement to offset that lack of rushing production.
I keep writing about this — I’ve already written a full post on the Bears, what am I doing! — because I want to be in on Justin Fields and D.J. Moore. And I feel like I’m missing something, potentially. It’s not just these writeups — I probably had more notes on my Chicago team page than any other team, as well. As I’ve said before, these posts are my way of checking my own arguments, and this is one I’m still very much working through. One counterargument to my pessimism is even with a projection where I noted (to myself) I “regressed in a way I’m not sure is justified,” I’m still not quite to market expectation on the offense, in terms of projected points based on lookahead lines. Interestingly, I’m not sure I’m light if I look at their win total; the Bears have above average over/unders, and I guess I’m not sure I buy that element of the market despite it being a clear positive if it comes to fruition because some frantic shootouts would increase play volume and pass rate late in games. When I say I’m not sure I buy that, what I mean is while we need to respect the market, win totals would be just as reasonable an argument for looking at offensive optimism — the comparisons of how Moore to Chicago is like Diggs to Buffalo or Brown to Philadelphia (two vaguely similar data points that are nonetheless just two data points, not two hundred) both played out so favorably that those teams crushed their preseason win expectations. And while the Bears’ lookahead line point total is 14th-highest in the NFL, their season-long win total, bet some to the over, sits at 7.5, while the 8.5-win alternate line is -175 to the under, arguing for a sub-.500 team. In other words, if you’re in on D.J. Moore having a Diggs or A.J. Brown type of impact, I’d probably argue betting Chicago to win a wide open NFC North at +400 and those types of moves are better plays than taking Moore in fantasy.
Any way I slice it, even when I push Moore’s projection as far as I can, I wind up with a guy who can be a small win at ADP but I have serious concerns about volume and ceiling for a pass-catcher in this offense going in Round 5. Small hit scenarios aren’t worth that price tag in my mind; I want full-season big-hit potential at that opportunity cost. I’m also not convinced Fields is even a great bet at his cost, because it feels like assumptions of big growth in his passing numbers and this offense are already baked in. But his path to big scoring (and being a big hit) at QB is more straightforward, and I’ll take some Fields as a decent bet for this year’s breakout QB. As I said in my other piece, I think the best outcomes for the Bears with Moore are for him to impact Fields’ league-winning fantasy potential more than be a league-winning WR himself at his cost. Another way to think about markets is looking at the ADPs of the other guys, and in my opinion the fantasy market is clearly discounting Darnell Mooney, Cole Kmet, and Chase Claypool relative to their individual receiving profiles, and I think rightfully so, because it’s a commentary on these offensive volume issues. In formats where stacking is important, I can see Fields stacks with Moore, but I’ll be underweight those scenarios in favor of shots on the discounted other receiving weapons with downfield profiles. Mooney is a reasonable double-digit WR bet as a cheaper play on passing optimism in the offense, Kmet certainly showed weekly upside with two big weeks late last year, and could post a solid TE line if he can string games like that together, and Claypool is practically free for a guy who used to have a mid-round WR price tag and certainly still has arguments for upside. Moore will almost certainly have the easiest path to targets, but the gap between him and these guys does not in my opinion match the opportunity cost at their relative ADPs, when weighing the offensive volume ranges. And to be clear, I’m not playing the Bears’ passing offense much at all; Mooney, Kmet, and Claypool are all guys I’ve taken some of but not a lot; again, the path seems to be through Fields, if anywhere, and if any of the cheap options hit it might just mean a low-volume spread target tree, which isn’t real upside for anyone other than, again, potentially Fields.
Early in camp, it sounds like Kahlil Herbert and D’Onta Foreman are splitting first-team reps, with rookie Roschon Johnson nursing a minor injury. All three have double-digit round ADPs, and the team has called this a committee. My main perspective here is that while all are solid bets, Herbert and Foreman have an ADP gap that is difficult to square. Both have been efficient runners in recent years, and while Herbert is the incumbent, the team’s moves this offseason pretty clearly indicate they didn’t let David Montgomery walk because they were highly confident Herbert could be the guy; rather, they have vocally said he’ll be part of a committee, and they added to that committee with intriguing options both in free agency and the draft. The fantasy community thus is giving Herbert a sort of incumbent deference (his Underdog ADP is 118, while Johnson’s is 151 and Foreman’s is 161) that I’m not sure is justified, even as I do agree he should go first in this group just based on knowing the offense and being successful in it last year. Regardless, Fields’ presence is going to positively impact the rushing efficiency of all these guys, while the receiving work will likely be limited. Travis Homer may also negatively impact the receiving work, as he was signed over from the Seahawks where he was always an efficient receiver on small samples and he plays special teams (which projects to be his primary role, but should keep him active on game day). Johnson’s path does seem to be through passing downs, and he’s been cited as a good pass blocker, while both Herbert and Foreman have done very little as receivers in their careers to date. The path to upside here is through efficient rushing, though, and while projected workloads there are difficult to dole out, there is obvious upside for each of the big three. Johnson’s profile is difficult to parse given he played behind Bijan Robinson at Texas, but he has workhorse size at 225 and solid athleticism at that weight. With limited competition given there’s no clear lead back here, he could simply work his way into more touches as the season develops, following that rookie trend of increased production later on in the year.
Signal: Justin Fields — easiest way to play passing game improvement optimism, given his rushing production provides a strong floor and his passing yardage bar is reasonably low; Bears pass-catchers — ADPs of everyone but D.J. Moore arguably suggests market pessimism in pass volume, but Moore’s is pricy by comparison
Noise: Bears — pass volume (should regress, but legitimate concerns on multiple fronts about how much so, though some markets are optimistic, and it’s a major question for the whole offense); Bears RBs — doling out rush work is difficult, keeping ADPs down, but there is clear workload upside for each of the big three, and the rushing efficiency should be boosted due to Fields’ presence, making it very worthwhile to take some stabs here
Detroit Lions
Key Stat: Lions — 139 HVT (third most in NFL; had fifth most at 131 in 2021)
The Lions made waves in their backfield this offseason, letting Jamaal Williams walk and trading away D’Andre Swift after signing David Montgomery to a healthy deal (in the current RB landscape) and then shocking the world a bit by drafting Jahmyr Gibbs at 12th overall (they were seemingly prepared to take him at No. 6, before Bijan Robinson, and were sweating him making it to 12, as this video from their war room shows, which just emphasizes how much they like the player). That turnover is very interesting for a backfield that produced the third most High-Value Touches of any offense last year (behind only the Chargers and Buccaneers, who both had huge pass volume and tons of checkdowns). Detroit led the NFL in RB green zone touches by 14 over the next highest team (San Francisco), while in 2021 they finished fifth in total HVT but did so more through receiving volume, which is just to say there’s upside on both sides of the HVT ledger, and this is an offense that is extremely exciting from that perspective.
Gibbs presumably takes over the Swift role, and Swift posted TPRRs of 24.8%, 23.8%, and 26.7% in his three years with Detroit, averaging 87 targets and 66 catches per 17 games. Given the draft capital invested in Gibbs — and the excitement the team showed to get him — you have to believe they are going to design touches for him. And the thing about Gibbs is he was an elite receiving prospect, a guy who not only earned volume in the same abnormally-high-for-a-RB way that Swift did (Gibbs’ collegiate TPRR across two offenses was 25.1% on a large 491-route sample), he was also crazy efficient (9.9 YPT and 2.47 YPRR across that same sample). Gibbs was very good with Alabama last year in these efficiency metrics, and somehow even better earlier in his career while at Georgia Tech, before transferring and immediately carving out a role on one of the deepest rosters in college football. A little light to be thought of as a workhorse, Gibbs’ deficiencies are minimized by his landing spot, and I can’t get away from thinking through him as a RB with an incredibly high reception floor, something that drives top-10 RB finishes almost as much as anything. My baseline projection for him wound up allocating 81 targets his way, for 61 receptions, which is maybe aggressive on a baseline but to be clear is not a ceiling. To me, this is similar to Alvin Kamara landing with a Saints’ team that similarly racked up HVTs prior to his arrival, and Kamara started his career with four straight 80-catch seasons. To get there, Gibbs would essentially need to average 5 catches per game, a lofty total that nonetheless feels reachable when again considering draft capital, fit, team need (with Montgomery taking the bulk of the lower-value touches), and Gibbs’ skill set. I mean that’s literally why they drafted him, to get him 5 catches a game, is it not? I’m almost scared of how sure I am of that. And if that’s the case, the rest of it is an easy bet — he profiles as an efficient player, there are paths to green zone work even as Montgomery feels like the lead there (Monty hasn’t been great in that area in his career), and the lack of a huge workload can in some ways be a blessing when it’s heavily tailored toward HVTs so it’s maximizing his fantasy scoring potential per touch (or per hit, because obviously the higher-volume RBs taking the most hits are also exposed to the most unfortunate injuries).
I’ve never been a fan of Montgomery as a player who makes guys miss but doesn’t tend to generate a lot of yards after that — he was surprisingly inefficient in the Fields offense last year (4.0 YPC) that Herbert (5.7) crushed it in — but even I have to admit he’s a very viable play at his cost. I do have concerns about projecting him to just take the Jamaal Williams carries inside the 10-yard line (45, which was 16 more than any other player and led to Williams’ 17 rush TDs) given Montgomery has converted just 22 of 86 career green zone rushes for touchdowns, a poor rate. That said, Montgomery has always been a pretty solid receiving back, and the HVT upside in the offense obviously benefits him, while he has more stability to his role probably than Gibbs given his size advantage and the likelihood Monty will have more low-value touches to give him something of a weekly rushing yardage floor. There’s also obvious contingent value if Gibbs misses time, where Monty’s receiving could really rise. I’ve seen arguments that Monty is being disrespected relative to Gibbs’ ADP, and I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of Monty’s displayed (lack of) efficiency and Gibbs’ own efficiency/prospect profile/draft capital mix, but I still land in a bucket where this offensive environment is good enough to make Montgomery worth picking as a high-floor option with some real HVT upside, as long as the opportunity cost isn’t too drastic (he goes in a range where WR is often the preferred move, so I personally haven’t pulled the trigger on Monty a ton).