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| Friday, July 19, 2024 |
| It's Seahawks Day! |
| Before diving into Fantasy analysis for each team, I'll present a brief overview containing their offensive ranks in my baseline team projections as well as any notable coaching or offensive line changes. |
| Projected Offensive Plays – (25th) |
| Projected Passing TDs – 23.8 (22nd) |
| Projected Rushing TDs – 19.1 (12th) |
| Notable coaching changes: |
| Hired Mike MacDonald as head coachHired Ryan Grubb as offensive coordinatorHired Aden Durde as defensive coordinator |
| Here's a two-minute clip of Mike MacDonald hype. This Seahawks coaching staff is very exciting. Grubb brings a lot of pre-snap motion and play action usage from his time as an offensive coordinator for both Washington and Fresno State, and he was creative and aggressive in attacking the intermediate and deep areas of the field with his collegiate passing attacks. |
| Notable offensive line changes |
| Signed guard Laken TomlinsonSigned tackle George FantDrafted guard Christian Haynes in Round 3Drafted a guard and tackle in Round 6 |
| With better health from the tackle spots, this offensive line could be really good. Haynes could contribute in Year 1, which is another path to more upside for this line. There are definitely question marks on this line, too, though. The projected starter at center was picked in Round 5 of last year's draft and only appeared in four games as a rookie. This feels like one of the most volatile O-lines to project, and it will be a key factor in how well Grubb and his QB are able to execute a deep passing attack. |
| Ryan Grubb is a perfect fit for Geno Smith |
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| Grubb's Washington Huskies passing games produced an average depth of target of 9.7 and 9.9 yards in two seasons. The Power-5 average was 8.8 yards in 2023, for reference. Across the 2019-21 seasons at Fresno State, Grubb's offense had an 8.8-yard average, so right in line with the league average. Fresno did post an aDOT of 9.5 yards in one of those seasons, so we've seen three Grubb offenses that put heavy emphasis on deep passing. |
| At Washington, Grubb's offense used three or more receivers 81% of the time. His rate at Fresno State was 69%. Grubb feels like the perfect person to pair with Geno, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba to design an aggressive vertical attacking scheme. |
| And Geno has been better than you probably realize! |
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| Good stuff from Hayden, you absolutely should be plugged into his work. |
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| I believe Geno still can sling it and can succeed if the offensive environment supports him. On paper, he is perfectly positioned with Grubb and this pass-catching group. If betting on a team to be "this year's Texans," Seattle checks a lot of boxes in comparison. I could see this coaching staff turning things around quickly. |
| Seattle's team-level stats were so weird in 2023 |
| The Seahawks were one of 2023's biggest disappointments. This roster has a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. But the defense could not get off the field, repeatedly losing on third downs. |
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| Pat does fantastic work. Here's the link to his pace article. |
| It was a weird year for the Seahawks. Seattle was the only team in the NFL to finish with fewer than 1,000 offensive plays. There were a number of reasons for that, not all of which were even negatives. For instance, Seattle created a lot of explosive plays. This offense could be really good. |
| But it just all added up to a very small play total, which is reflected in all counting stats, which is all that Fantasy football is. Total plays equal fewer rush attempts and yards, fewer targets and receptions, we're talking significant shrinkage. |
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| Metcalf dropped from 10th at WR in receptions in 2022 to 34th in 2023. I have Seattle projected to produce 75 more plays in 2024, and that's not even a league-average projection, it ranks 22nd overall among 2024 projections. Just returning to somewhat normal play volume will make a difference for these Seattle players in Fantasy. If a play volume increase coincides with increased efficiency with Grubb designing the offense, the Seahawks may be one of the biggest Fantasy goldmines this draft season. None of the pieces are expensive in drafts. |
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| Seattle is one of just seven offenses that I have projected to finish 2024 with a pass rate above 60%. The passing game pieces are what intrigue me the most from this offense. Geno, in particular, is someone I have been scooping repeatedly in superflex drafts. |
| At Washington, Grubb's situation-neutral pass rate was 60.3%. At Fresno, it was 62.3%. That's pretty nuts! The CFB average was 52.6% in 2023. Only eight of 69 Power-5 teams had a rate above 60%. |
| My projections have Seattle ranked eighth in passing yardage, I just realized. Wow! And that's with the Seahawks projected for 7.2 yards per pass attempt. Geno's three years as Seattle's QB have yielded averages of 7.4, 7.5, and 7.3 yards. This projection is powered entirely by volume. Providing a 60.5% pass rate to Grubb's offense feels fair! The NFL's pass rate is higher than CFB's, so if anything, rates might be expected to increase for a college coach transitioning to the pros. I'm projecting a decrease. |
| With Seattle projected for 4,658 passing yards, there's a lot to go around. That's good because I'm projecting all three receivers and tight end Noah Fant to play meaningful roles. Smith has targeted the tight end position on 21.5% of his throws over the past two seasons, just above the league average. I projected 20% of the targets to go to the tight end position, with 14% going to Fant. And still, he projects for 159 PPR points! Only nine tight ends topped that number in 2023. |
| This is a juicy offense. My projections are pretty conservative in terms of projecting the target shares relatively flat among the specific pieces of the offense. If you're convinced that one player might emerge with a larger-than-expected target share, my projections show that there's potential for league-winning receiving volume. |
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| My projected Seattle Seahawks target shares and Fantasy finishes: |
137.1 targets -- DK Metcalf -- WR13
121.8 targets -- Jaxon Smith-Njigba -- WR32
116.2 targets -- Tyler Lockett -- WR36
86.1 targets -- Noah Fant -- TE12 |
| Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn't live up to expectations as a rookie. Now what? |
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| I am projecting him to take a step forward in Year 2. Several data points suggest that Smith-Njigba was misused as a rookie and can be successful in attacking the deep and intermediate areas of the field. He really wasn't allowed to do that much in a 2023 slot role that left JSN mostly running horizontally along the line of scrimmage. His average depth of target was just 6.1 yards, both Fant and Colby Parkinson had higher rates. That's going to change under Grubb. Even with Jalen McMillan -- who profiles more as a slot-bound catch-and-run threat than JSN -- the lowest aDOT among his Washington WR trio was 9.8 yards. In Grubb's first year with the offense, all three receivers had an aDOT above 13 yards. |
| I think we're going to see a lot more downfield involvement for JSN, which I'm excited for. I just created a Twitter thread exploring the Fantasy relevance of the "X" receiver role and which players have performed more efficiently when taking snaps primarily from the outside and lined up on the hash where opposing corners can easily get hands on receivers in press coverage. JSN was one of the players whose data stood out. It was a relatively small sample size, but it backed what seemed apparent to me when watching Smith-Njigba ( I watched every JSN target as well as every route vs. press coverage). He's good at beating press coverage. He might lack the speed to create huge gains, but JSN looked plenty capable of consistently creating chunk plays from the perimeter against press coverage. |
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| Smith-Njigba reminds me a bit of Ja'Lynn Polk, but he has a bit more deception and magic to his game as both a route runner and sneaky good ball winner. Odunze was the clear WR1 in Grubb's offense, but Polk was productive. I have Lockett projected to take a step forward in Year 2, even with Lockett mostly maintaining his rates from 2023. If Lockett's effectiveness continues to dip, it could result in the target distribution sliding even further in Smith-Njigba's direction. |
| Does Zach Charbonnet earn more work in Year 2? |
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| I think we are going to see a more balanced rushing attack from Ryan Grubb than the zone-heavy one Seattle used in 2023. |
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| An ideal fit for Charbonnet would be something like Joe Brady's in Buffalo or something similar to what Sean McVay and the Rams did with their run game in 2023. But, at this point, we have to accept Charbonnet's circumstances for what they are. The only reason to believe that he'll see a Fantasy-relevant role (without an injury) is the ambiguity created by a new coaching staff. But Kenneth Walker has been awesome. We were offered no indication of Charbonnet presenting a threat to cut into his volume in 2023. |
| Charbonnet filled in as Seattle's full-time back in three games as a rookie. Outside of those games, his highest share of the RB rush attempts was 52.9%. And that was in Week 14, Walker's first game back from injury. Outside of that, Charbonnet's highest rate was 38.5%. He saw fewer than one-third of the backfield rushes in 11 of 13 games shared with Walker. |
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| If there is a path to more playing time for Charbonnet, it's probably as a pass-blocker. Even though Walker improved his PFF pass-blocking grade from Year 1 to Year 2, he was still graded significantly worse (40.7) than Charbonnet (61.1). The rookie finished with a larger target share than his veteran teammate in less playing time, so it's certainly possible that Charbonnet plays even more on passing downs in 2024. |
| I've been drafting a ton of Charbonnet. I love him as a player -- he's capable of filling a Kyren Williams-type of role if not sharing a backfield. He can play all three downs. But it will likely require an injury for him to matter for Fantasy. I have him projected as the RB36. Walker projects as the RB24. If the Seahawks lean on the ground game more than I expect, maybe these two will be better Fantasy options than I'm expecting. They also could score lots of touchdowns if the offense exceeds expectations. I just would rather keep drafting the pass-game pieces. And Charbonnet fits my overall draft strategy well. I'm aggressively targeting the RB position in Rounds 8-12. He profiles similarly to Jaylen Warren, but with less volume and worse efficiency. There's a group of running backs who might play a Fantasy-relevant role and carry contingency upside if anything happens to their backfield mate -- Warren, Tyjae Spears, Charbonnet, MarShawn Lloyd, Ray Davis -- the cost for Charbs is significantly cheaper than Warren and Spears. I'm scooping as much of that group as I can. |
| I'll be back in your inbox every weekday with a new team preview during the month of July! Monday, we will be covering the Los Angeles Rams. If you have any feedback on the team-by-team previews or any questions about the upcoming teams, feel free to send them my way. |
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