Thinking dynamically about yesterday's big news items

Breece, Rhamondre, Dalvin, Zeke, and the Miami backfield all impacted

A lot to get to today. First of all, I’d meant to do the first private livestream for Signals Gold subs this evening, but I waited until today to try to get that YouTube event set up, and apparently they have a rule where you have to wait 24 hours to go live with your first stream on a new channel. There’s literally a countdown clock.

I have Ship Chasing live drafts both Wednesday and Thursday night this week — join us on YouTube if you want to watch along! — so this is a real bummer, in that I’m not sure what night I’ll next be able to fit this in. Friday is a possibility — I’m sort of doubting the turnout from you guys would be high on a Friday night, but maybe we’ll just fire it up and see who shows.

For those of you sending the longer, league-specific questions in the comments, I’ve done my best to get to them, but I’m unfortunately not going to be able to in every case purely as a matter of time. That’s a huge part of the intent of this new element I’ll be adding where I do these livestreams and answer those types of questions, and can talk strategy with a lot of you at once, ask clarifying questions, etc.

I have also done one-on-one sessions with a couple Signals readers to talk through draft strategy so far, and that’s a bit pricier than the Signals Gold premium, so those are sort of your options to get more direct time with me helping on your individual league. As always, I really wish I could take the time to talk through each and every one of your leagues with you guys, but that’s simply not practical.

Those of you who have signed up for Signals Gold or intend to, I’ll keep you posted on the timing of the first stream, but I’d say Friday night is a high probability. The more I think about it, the more I want to make sure to offer something before drafts this weekend, and that’s our best option.

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Yesterday, I wrote an intro to a Preseason Stealing Signals post for today, that was all about how we react to news generally. I’m going to keep that for that post coming later, but I’m going to specifically react to the big news from yesterday here, first.

It would have been wrong to send a post today without a reaction to the run-outs for Breece Hall and Rhamondre Stevenson, so that’s what we’ll do here. The first and simplest response is that obviously having accomplished veteran backs in their backfields is not an ideal set-up in terms of their overall touch projections and those things. The simplest way to put that is without the additions, they had easier paths to huge workloads.

But context is always key, and my intro to the Preseason Signals piece will talk a bit about how things evolve in-season. We have a lot of football ahead of us! Players will ultimately show what they are capable of in the real games, not just here in the preseason, and usage will be dictated as a result. I cite 2022 Josh Jacobs in that other write-up, because a forgotten part of his breakout season was how his role really ramped up in-season, with Weeks 1 and 2 being some of his least reflective usage of the season. It could be said he earned his breakout workload in-season, not before Week 1, and that going back to stuff like his Hall of Fame game usage suggests the Raiders didn’t even know their plan in August. In other words, everybody is trying to figure out what signings mean, and what these teams are planning, and those are questions that quite literally may not have an answer. Letting things play out and optionality is probably the actual goal for these teams. They’ll tell you, “It’s a good problem to have.”

In the cases of Hall and Stevenson, I didn’t make huge changes to the rankings, because as I’ve written about, my RB rankings focus heavily on ceiling potential, because I believe that’s how you should think through that position. And for both of them, a big part of the equation always was that they have put up some really strong talent-based production so far, and they profile as three-down backs with the size and receiving ability to be fantasy monsters should they find themselves in opportune circumstances. That part about circumstances does change a bit, and I do think you need to be more cautious of price, and balancing ADP into rankings is always difficult, especially when it’s a moving target, especially at the RB position.

But don’t get it twisted — projecting RB volume has always been overvalued by the market, and yet it’s evolved enough in recent years that the immediate reactions that are shifting these guys several rounds are missing the boat. In 2023, Jahmyr Gibbs goes way before David Montgomery despite the latter projecting for more touches, because of Gibbs’ profile and the way his role could evolve. I think the Lions’ prices are a solid proxy for what the Jets’ should be, because both situations are really nice for potential RB scoring (a key point for Hall has always been that Aaron Rodgers is a real asset at QB, with the way he diagnoses both pre- and post-snap to get into advantageous run plays for his RBs, and also to get the ball checked down to them on time and with space to run in the passing game, which has shown up over the years in the scoring of his various RBs, and so it’s a similarly valuable fantasy backfield as the Detroit one).

Additionally, as far as my rankings response, I’d considered these moves as possibilities. There’s a lot of talk about the Bill Belichick committees today, and it’s absolutely the case that Ezekiel Elliott could vulture some short-yardage stuff which would be a pain, but it’s also the case that these veteran adds coming halfway through August is relevant! These teams were content waiting out these RBs, giving them the option to sign for more elsewhere, which traditionally has been an indication they are OK with the options they have in-house.

I always go back to the example of Christian McCaffrey’s breakout Year 2 where the Panthers let Jonathan Stewart walk but then after the NFL draft, in May, they brought in C.J. Anderson. Many in the fantasy community simply projected Anderson into Stewart’s role from the season prior, despite the fact that the timing of the moves was a subtle but very important indication that the team was ready for full-workload CMC, and Anderson was simply a low-cost depth add because they did need another reliable RB on hand. By waiting two months into the offseason, they’d indicated that part was very much not a priority.

Make no mistake: If Elliott or Dalvin Cook would have gotten better deals elsewhere, they wouldn’t have signed where they did. In the case of Cook, the size of his deal is absolutely relevant, as he got “up to” $8.6 million on a one-year deal with potentially in the range of $6 million guaranteed (I haven’t seen the full details yet). That’s a really good deal for him! But there are also reports Rodgers wanted to bring in his long-time divisional rival, and the Jets have shown a willingness to acquiesce to Rodgers all offseason with moves like Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb.

And again, every situation requires context! We’ve never seen a RB market like this offseason’s, and we definitely don’t have a great sample on RB contracts being this sizeable — relative to the other free agent contracts signed that year — and being signed in the middle of August. But for this situation, my question on that would be — if the contract was so telling about the Jets’ desire to bring in Cook, and it was obviously a really nice get for Cook in this depressed RB market… why did it take him this long to sign? And then as I Brian Windhorst “What’s going on in Utah?” this, we literally have reporting from Dianna Russini about two weeks ago that said, “I’m not sure if Dalvin Cook and the Jets are on the same page on his role,” as a reason for the hold-up with his signing.

You get into these situations, and it’s easy to see things the way you want to see them. And I definitely have drafted a ton of Breece Hall, so I didn’t want to write a snap piece yesterday just blindly defending him. But I mean, the interpretation of this, including the size of the contract, just seems to fit in a more pro-Hall way than I think is being discussed. What fits is: Cook was waiting out the Dolphins to match! The reporting on Miami’s side after the deal got done was also that they just didn’t get into this range in terms of their contract offer. But the implication is he wanted to be in Miami, and maybe that’s because it’s his hometown, but it also seems pretty likely that the two teams were talking to him about very different roles, and that played a significant role in his waiting until now. Ultimately, you’d expect the player to take the money, especially if we’re talking about offers with multiple millions between them, and good for Cook on that. But a lot of the stuff I saw out of New York after the signing was unequivocal about Cook being brought in to spell Hall, and that Hall would still be the guy when fully healthy.

“This is still Breece Hall’s team. He’s the Jets bellcow the moment he’s back. Cook isn’t stealing touches from him — he’s spelling and helping him. This also isn’t an indictment on Hall’s health, I’m told. He’s still on schedule.”

Now we can’t just take that with a grain of salt, either, just because it’s positive about a player we like. But Cook also isn’t healthy, is reportedly not going to join the team for about a week longer, has had a shoulder issue that has been recurring and could frankly easily crop up in-season, etc. I do expect him to impact Hall, particularly in terms of how his signing means they can bring Hall along more slowly. But I also wasn’t really playing Hall to be a huge Week 1 asset! It was nice to have that in the range, and Hall’s longer-term outlook is shakier if he’s not fully healthy, and all of those things are true. Cook was still pretty good last year, as people have pointed out. But honestly, I’m not buying that will definitely carry over. He’s still a 28-year-old RB. That’s certainly not too old to be productive, but we talked about Melvin Gordon on the terms of how he was still good in 2021 last offseason, and then he was so bad in 2022 the Broncos cut him even though Javonte Williams got hurt (man, when I think back to the 2022 season, I always forget how the Williams upside thesis was there if he stayed healthy).