2017 top-10 NFL Draft pick Patrick Mahomes has become a favorite
of late-round quarterback drafters this offseason but he might
not pay dividends, at least early in the year. It’s not
that we shouldn’t have faith in Mahomes’ physical
ability, but the Chiefs simply face a horrifying early season
schedule, with games at the Chargers, at the Steelers, home against
the 49ers, at the Broncos and home against Jacksonville in their
first five contests. It simply doesn’t get much worse than
that. Streaming Mahomes early in the season is probably not a
great idea but savvy owners might be able to acquire Mahomes and
other members of the Kansas City passing game on the cheap if
they start slow against this tough schedule
One nice thing about Mahomes is that, unlike many other young
quarterbacks, Mahomes would need almost a cataclysmic failure
to be sat down. The only other quarterback of consequence on the
roster is journeyman Chad Henne. Those drafting in best ball formats
can feel safe that, as long as he’s healthy, Mahomes will
be behind center for the Chiefs this season.
Mahomes doesn’t have top-end speed but he has enough to
produce similar rushing totals to Alex Smith. He also possesses
one of the most impressive arms in the entire league and has already
shown it on the field in the limited playing time he’s been
given. There aren’t many offenses in the league that possess
the type of playmaking weapons that Mahomes has at his disposal
(Hill, Watkins, Kelce) so the upside is there for Mahomes to be
a big time producer this season but we just might have to wait
awhile before it materializes into the box scores.
A pre-season injury to Spencer Ware gave Hunt, a third-round
pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the opportunity to make a name for
himself. He did just that, leading many fantasy owners to a championship
on his way to leading the NFL in rushing. What’s perhaps most
impressive is that Hunt did it while running behind one of the
worst-graded run blocking units in the league. But while there
were certainly plenty of reasons to be excited about the 2017
NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, there were also some concerns
that we should take notice of heading into the 2018 season.
Hunt’s week-to-week performance dipped, particularly mid-season
when he failed to score a single touchdown from Weeks 4 through
13. This fantasy scoring drought coincided with the Chiefs as
a whole struggling on the field. Hunt struggled to produce in
games where Kansas City fell behind on the scoreboard and that
could be a serious problem this season given that the Chiefs are
not expected to be quite as good as they were in 2017 when they
outperformed most expectations, particularly on offense. Despite
the long scoreless streak, Hunt scored a total of 11 touchdowns
in the other seven games, finishing as the RB4 for the season.
That was actually a bit disappointing given the numerous huge
performances he had, but he was drafted as an RB2 or even RB3
in many leagues and he certainly returned huge profit on investment.
This season Hunt will be off the board in the first or early-second
round in most leagues, which means you’re paying for RB1
production. He certainly has the potential to return that value
but it would be difficult for him to improve on his nearly five
yards per carry and 53 receptions that he gave fantasy owners
in 2017. Still, even if he doesn’t give fantasy owners the
type of per-touch efficiency that he did as a rookie, Hunt is
one of the few true three-down, bellcow running backs in the league.
His floor is as a mid-level RB2 as long as he stays healthy, which
should make him a relatively safe option near the top of drafts.
Spencer Ware is looking to return in 2018 after spending a full
calendar year recovering from a torn PCL and LCL. It is important
to note that this is not an ACL/MCL tear, but rather the more
devastating PCL/LCL tear. Ware did participate in minicamp earlier
this offseason, albeit on a limited basis, but the team believes
that he will be ready for training camp, and thus ready to start
the season. However, there is still a possibility that Ware does
not make the Chiefs roster. Kansas City could save $1.5 million
by cutting him and that is certainly an option if they see him
trending toward not being ready to play at full strength.
If Ware is cut, it would likely be Charcandrick West who slots
in again as the team’s primary backup to starter Kareem
Hunt, but West himself does not have much fantasy value unless
Ware doesn’t make the team and Hunt gets injured. There
is also a possibility that offseason acquisitions Damien Williams
or Kerwynn Williams beat out West for a roster spot, or end up
replacing Ware if he gets cut.
At 5’10” and 230 lbs with a 4.67 forty yard dash
time coming out of college, Ware is not much of an athletic specimen
but he has produced in this Kansas City offense in the past when
given the opportunity. Ware produced over 1,300 total yards in
2016 despite playing in just 14 games, and was a viable every
week fantasy starter on a 12-4 Chiefs team that ruled the AFC
West. Ware’s career 4.6 yards per carry don’t stick
out as being anything particularly great but his knowledge of
the offense should earn him the backup role in Kansas City if
he’s physically recovered from the knee injury that ended
his 2017 season before it ever began. Ware is still just 26 years
old and he’s taken fewer than 600 carries through his college
and professional career combined thus far, so there should still
be plenty of tread on the tires. Still, given Hunt’s tremendous
success as a rookie, don’t look for Ware to see more than
10 touches in many games this season, which really limits him
to essentially being a handcuff to Hunt and likely an undrafted
player in most leagues.
Tyreek Hill finished the season as the fourth-highest scoring
wide receiver in standard scoring fantasy football leagues in
2017, but he was also the least-targeted player who finished in
the top 15 at the position. Now that he’s being drafted
as a WR1 in fantasy, we really have to look at not just what he
did this past season, but also what he’s likely to do going
forward. Given the lack of targets he saw in an extremely efficient
Chiefs offense in 2017, Hill’s current ADP sort of sticks
out like a sore thumb at the wide receiver position.
Hill’s tremendous big play ability was a big part of why
Alex Smith saw such a huge uptick in both deep pass attempts as
well as efficiency. Utilizing tremendous speed and athleticism
that very few cornerbacks can match, Hill creates mismatches for
his teammates as teams are forced to shade coverage in his direction
to prevent the deep ball over the top. But when looking at his
numbers from a repeatability standpoint, Hill’s season looks
like an extreme outlier. Seven of his eight touchdown receptions
in 2017 came from 40+ yards. To put that into perspective, only
Antonio Brown and Brandin Cooks even had seven total receptions
- touchdown or not - of 40-plus yards in 2017. Yes, Hill is among
the most electric players in the entire league but even he is
due for some regression in that category.
What’s interesting is that Hill enjoyed an impressive 2017 season
with the notoriously weak-armed Alex Smith at quarterback. New
starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes is stylistically a much better
fit than Smith was for a receiver like Tyreek Hill, but it would
still be almost impossible for Mahomes to outperform what Smith
did this past season, given that Smith was among the most efficient
passers in the entire league and a legitimate MVP candidate. Hill
saw just 105 targets in 2017, a number which will almost certainly
not increase substantially in 2018. The Chiefs added Sammy Watkins
this offseason which could help shift some attention off of Hill,
but Watkins should see a lot more targets come his way than any
Chiefs wide receiver, aside from Hill, did in 2017.
With Watkins, target monster tight end Travis Kelce and quality
pass catching backs like Kareem Hunt and Spencer Ware in the offense,
there just aren’t a lot of additional targets to go around for
Hill. He could come close to repeating the tremendous per-target
efficiency he did in 2017 but not finish as a WR1 this season,
given the lack of targets he’s likely to see. It’s very rare for
a player to hover around 100 targets for the entire season and
still finish as a WR1. Hill bucked the trend last year, but banking
on him to do it again just doesn’t seem like a wise strategy when
there are so many other receivers being drafted near him who are
likely to see 40 or more targets than he will on the season.
Former No.4 overall NFL Draft pick Sammy Watkins is now joining
his third team his young career, which usually indicates that
the player is not living up to expectations. Watkins has failed
to reach 1,000 receiving yards in three of his first four NFL
seasons and he’s actually been below 600 yards in each of
his past two seasons. But at just 25 years old, Watkins is still
extremely young and has plenty of time to learn. In fact, he’s
only about 18 months older than Calvin Ridley, who was drafted
this offseason by the Falcons. Needless to say, there’s
still a lot of upside for Watkins and the Chiefs invested heavily
in him because they believe in his talent.
Watkins figures to take over much of the role vacated by Albert
Wilson who left for Miami this offseason. Wilson was targeted
just 62 times this past season, but Watkins is substantially more
talented and the Chiefs have put a ton of money into him for a
reason. At 6’1” versus Wilson’s 5’9”
height, Watkins is a larger physical presence on the field. There
have been times, where Watkins has made tremendous plays that
normal receivers simply cannot make, but the lack of consistency
has been difficult to deal with for both fantasy owners and the
two previous NFL franchises he’s been a part of in Los Angeles
and Buffalo.
While his stint in LA was short-lived, Watkins quietly led the
Rams in receiving touchdowns with eight this past season, scoring
a touchdown on more than one in every five passes he caught. That
type of pace is completely unsustainable but it does demonstrate
Watkins’ ability to make plays in the red zone, which will
be important given Tyreek Hill’s lack of history doing so.
For Watkins, it’s a new system in Kansas City with a young
quarterback who he has no rapport with. He’ll get an entire
offseason to prepare with Mahomes - something he didn’t
have the benefit of when he was traded to the Rams late in the
2017 preseason - but it’s still tough to believe that Watkins
is going to take the step forward into being an every week fantasy
option as long as Hill, Kelce and Hunt are healthy. Watkins fits
best ball formats in a major way but with fewer than 100 targets
likely to come his way, he’ll most likely be hit-or-miss
for most of the season and that could be frustrating to deal with
from a season-long standpoint.
TE Travis
Kelce (2017 TE Rank – No.2, 10.2
FPts/G)
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce sat out Week 17 of the 2017 season
but still managed to post career highs in both targets and receiving
touchdowns. That allowed him to finish as the highest-scoring
PPR tight end in fantasy football for the second straight season,
trailing only Rob Gronkowski in standard scoring formats.
There’s no question that Kelce is one of the biggest difference
makers that can be found in fantasy football. While the tight
end position doesn’t score as many points as other positions,
the gap between the elite tier of tight ends and the rest of the
pack looks like a giant chasm, and there’s a real case to
be made that Kelce should be the top tight end selected in fantasy
drafts. The top quarterbacks score substantially more points than
the top tight ends do but the difference between the top quarterbacks
and the mid-level quarterbacks is nowhere near what it is at the
tight end position. That’s why Kelce is being considered
by many experts to be a strong option in the third round of fantasy
drafts this season.
Not only is Kelce among the most durable options at the position,
he’s still in his physical prime and he’s coming off
of back-to-back monster seasons. While Zach Ertz and Rob Gronkowski
are both considered to be in the same tier as Kelce, those players
have some question mark's as Ertz hasn’t yet put together
a 1,000-yard season and Gronkowski has a long injury history.
That’s not to say that Kelce is completely without risk,
however. While he’ll be in the same offensive system, a
move from the tight end-friendly Alex Smith to a big-armed gunslinger
like Patrick Mahomes might not be as smooth of a transition as
fantasy owners want to believe. The old “tight ends are
the safety valve for young quarterbacks” cliche is mostly
a false narrative and Mahomes has great pass catching options
practically no matter where he looks in this offense. Still, Kelce
is the most seasoned playmaker in this offense and the Chiefs
will almost certainly look to continue to feed him the ball from
a schematic standpoint.
It will take time for Kelce to develop the type of familiarity
with Mahomes that he had with Smith but at a position that severely
lacks depth this season, Kelce looks like about as much of a can’t-miss
player as is possible at tight end. The projected point totals
don’t look as high as the elite running backs, wide receivers
or especially quarterbacks, but Kelce could give his owners a
gigantic point differential over the competition at the tight
end position. If you find yourself not liking the running backs
and receivers available to you in round three, don’t hesitate
to pull the trigger on Kelce. If nothing else, you’ll have
one fewer lineup decision headache each week.
