One of the difficulties in understanding how players will perform this early in the NFL season, and thus will help or hurt your fantasy football team, is the lack of usable year-to-year data.
We have five new head coaches with 16 new offensive coordinators this season, all of whom want to put their own personal stamp on their teams’ offenses.
Determining which players will thrive and which ones will become square pegs being jammed into round holes takes a few games.
Fortunately, the NFL is a copycat league, so though you might not know immediately which players will be fits, you can make a well-educated guess if you understand what the coaches and coordinators are going to do.
The perfect example was on display in Week 1, when tight end Logan Thomas led the Commanders in targets.
New offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy arrived with the old Chiefs playbook and imported the scheme into the Commanders’ game plan.
What did the Chiefs do in all the years Bieniemy was their coordinator? They threw the ball to Travis Kelce any chance they got.
Bieniemy’s playbook, at least until he starts to make adjustments that cater to his personnel, is going to routinely funnel targets to the tight end, which gives Thomas significant value to open the season.
While turning eight targets into four catches for 43 yards wasn’t eye-popping, he was targeted in the end zone and will be again in the future. You can also look at the target-share for Broncos running back Javonte Williams.
In his first game, he had 13 carries for 52 yards, but more importantly, he was targeted six times in the passing attack.
He didn’t rack up much in yardage for his five catches, but the important takeaway here is that a Sean Payton and Joe Lombardi offense features a pass-catching running back.
Alvin Kamara averaged 102 targets per year when Payton coached the Saints and Lombardi was the QBs coach.
Austin Ekeler averaged 111 targets per season when Lombardi was offensive coordinator of the Chargers.
Williams was expected to have a lighter-than-usual workload in his first game back since tearing his ACL, so if six targets is light, we don’t need to go heavy.
As you scan through the player pool, keep your focus on developing systems with new coaches and coordinators.
Chargers receivers should see more downfield work under Kellen Moore. Hayden Hurst should see more targets under Thomas Brown and Frank Reich in Carolina.
Hunter Henry should see an increase under Bill O’Brien in New England.
If you follow the coaching movement and understand the systems being implemented, discovering which players will be featured becomes a much easier task.
Howard Bender is the head of content at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on X @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 6-8 p.m. Go to Fantasy-Alarm.com for all your fantasy football advice.