The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Truth: Week Three
One of the things we as human beings tend to do an awful lot of in our lives is react to the things we see around us. Often times this is a good thing. For example, if a car just so happens to be driving down the same sidewalk you are walking on, you better get out of the way! That’s definitely a good reaction.
There is another side of the coin, though – that is the gross overreaction which is becoming more and more common into today’s world, thanks in part to social media. This isn’t just in life but also in the world of fantasy football. It isn’t uncommon for the smallest of things are blown way out of proportion. Other times what should be a minor blip on the radar gets way more attention than it deserves. There are also times when we ignore all of the warning signs and try to stay the course, not realizing we are heading for a cliff. Don’t worry though, because I’m here to help with these very things.
Each week I will examine a player or sometimes multiple players to see if their value is on par with what people are talking about. Often times this will be a player who “breaks out” the previous week and might be getting a lot of attention in trade talks or on the waiver wire. Other times it might be a player who received a lot of hype during the off-season who isn’t living up to expectations. Regardless of what it is, I’ll be doing my best to steer you in the right direction and get you a step ahead of your leaguemates.
Keep in mind that no one is perfect. After all, I told you to ignore Justin Forsett after opening weekend last year. Hey, we all make mistakes, but I like to think I’ve had a pretty good track record over the years of doing this. Two years ago, I was one of the first to lay out why you needed to trade Trent Richardson for whatever you could get, much like the Browns had done a week or two before. At the time I was blasted by readers, but if you listened you sold before his value crashed. I was also dead on with Larry Donnell fading down the stretch, Allen Hurns being good enough to stay ahead of Marqise Lee on the depth chart, Antone Smith being little more than a rarely used homerun hitter, and countless other takes from the last few years. Moral of the story, I miss from time-to-time like everyone else, but I feel I get it right much more often. When I’m wrong, I’ll own that mistake.
For me, one of the biggest surprises of the young NFL season has been the Atlanta Falcons going 3-0 with wins over what was supposed to be the best three teams in the NFC East. When you consider the Falcons only had six wins last year and four the season before, it is quite the turn around. They could in theory get more wins in 2015 than 2014 and 2013 combined! A lot of this is due to the Matt Ryan to Julio Jones connection running non-stop, but there have been some other stars on the offense as well as a seemingly improved defense. Two strong supports on offense have been Devonta Freeman and Leonard Hankerson. Will they keep their current roles or will they slide back on the depth chart?
Devonta Freeman, RB ATL
Week 3 stats: 30 carries for 141 yards (4.7 YPC) and THREE touchdowns. Five receptions on five targets for 52 yards.
2015 stats: 52 carries for 184 yards (3.54 YPC) and four touchdowns. 12 receptions on 17 targets for 115 yards.
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Going back to about 18 months ago, I wasn’t a supporter of Freeman. When he was drafted by the Falcons I still wasn’t a fan of his. I felt he was little more than a backup level running back with nothing special about his game. He could do everything fine, but he wasn’t really good at anything. I figured he would just backup Steven Jackson in 2014 and the Falcons would either draft or sign a real starting running back in 2015. I seemed to be dead on with that prediction when Tevin Coleman was drafted and started the first two games of the season even though he missed most of training camp. Then Coleman got hurt and Freeman went crazy against the Cowboys. Is this going to be the start of a trend or just a blip on the radar?
The Good: No matter how you look at it, the Falcons new offense is going to flow through Julio Jones. After all, when you have the league’s best receiver you should focus on him, right? However, that does mean a few good things. For starters, the defense is forced to focus in on the passing game, often leaving pretty soft fronts for the running game to exploit. The other good thing to come out of the new offense is the Falcons are actually running the ball more this year than last. This could simply be a factor of actually leading games instead of always being behind, but the Falcons are on pace for about 475 rushes this year as a team. That’s just over 100 more carries than last season. More opportunity is always a good thing for any fantasy player.
Another plus for Freeman and his chances of producing is his role. Even when Coleman was healthy, Freeman was still involved. In week one, Coleman had 20 carries to Freeman’s 10, but Freeman saw all of the passing down work. In week two, prior to Coleman getting hurt, the breakdown was about the same. So while Coleman was getting 60-70 percent of the rushes, Freeman was still involved and was the only running back in the passing game. This makes him the better option in PPR leagues even if the usage goes back to what it was pre-injury.
The Bad: Coleman is a rookie who missed almost all of the off-season and training camp activities with injury. Yet, the coaching staff still saw enough in Coleman in extremely limited action to name him the week 1 starter and give him the bulk of the carries when both backs were healthy. This means there was clearly something the coaching staff really liked about Coleman or didn’t like about Freeman. One great game isn’t going to change that, even if he did win an awful lot of people money this last weekend in daily leagues. NFL coaches really, really don’t care about that.
My other major concern for Freeman is outside of this past Sunday, he hasn’t been any good. In fact, over the first two weeks he was averaging 1.95 yards per carry. Last season’s 3.82 yards per carry is definitely better, but still not good by NFL standards. He just isn’t an explosive rusher. In fact, he only has two carries in his career over 20 yards, a 24-yarder and a 31-yard rush, both of which were last season.
It is quite possible Freeman just blew up against what might be a bad rush defense for the Cowboys. Yes, they did hold the Eagles to practically nothing, but they also allowed a washed up Rashad Jennings to average four yards per carry against them while Atlanta and Washington held Jennings to 2.2 yards per carry – that puts the Cowboys defense at one good week against the run so far. It is too early to know for sure, but it is something to put in the back of our minds.
The Ugly Truth: The Freeman who played against the Cowboys on Sunday wasn’t the same Devonta Freeman we have seen in past games and last year. He actually showed power and agility at times, moving the pile and making defenders miss. However, it wasn’t quite as often as I would like to see from someone who is trying to steal the starting job away from Coleman. ProFootball Focus credits Freeman with four missed tackles, which puts him in the top 11 for running backs from this weekend. The issue is he also had double the attempts of half of that group. His missed tackles per carry rate was very average. His yards after contact average was very mediocre at only 2 yards per carry, good for 31st among running backs on Sunday. Two yards just so happens to be pretty close to his height, meaning he basically fell forward when he got hit. So while there were times when he showed promise, as a whole it wasn’t quite what we look for in a starter.
Freeman also isn’t going to see 30 carries every week. He also isn’t going to get touchdowns from two, three and seven yards out each week, either. I don’t think there was anything we saw from this weekend to change the minds of Atlanta’s coaches when it comes to the pecking order for their running backs. Once Coleman gets healthy, I would expect the timeshare to return to what it was during the first game and a half of the season. Coleman is the more talented rusher and has the homerun ability Freeman doesn’t bring to the table. With that said, staying on the field has been a bit of a struggle for Coleman and Freeman has shown he can be productive when given the opportunity.
Final Verdict: Freeman was productive, but it was mostly based on volume and getting goal line looks. I don’t think he showed enough to supplant Coleman as the starter just yet. With that said, I would expect Freeman to be a high end RB2 based on the opportunity for touches and scores anytime Coleman is out, especially in PPR leagues. Once Coleman is back, I would expect Freeman to take a back seat on early downs again, pushing him back to a Flex in PPR leagues and a bench player in non-PPR.
Leonard Hankerson, WR ATL
Week 3 stats: Three receptions on six targets for 45 yards.
2015 stats: 11 receptions on 21 targets for 138 yards and one touchdown.
Before I get started on Hankerson, give me a moment to make it my feelings about the Atlanta passing game perfectly clear. Everyone knows Julio Jones is the focal point and they can’t stop him. With the new game plan in Atlanta, none of that will change no matter who else is lining up opposite from him. He leads the league in receptions, targets, yards, first downs and is second in touchdowns. In other words, he’s pretty good.
Now, with that out of the way let’s talk a bit about Hankerson. Heading into the season the expectation was for Roddy White to be the secondary target in the passing game with rookie Justin Hardy potentially filling the third receiver role vacated by Harry Douglas. Once summer started, we started to hear the occasional blip about Hankerson standing out. That isn’t exactly the first time we have heard any of this about Hankerson, but it seemed to be sticking this time. The season so far seems to only confirm that praise. Will he keep his role?
The Good: Hankerson’s first few years in the league were marred by inconsistency and injury. However, he was spending a lot of time learning Kyle Shanahan’s system, which seems to be paying dividends in Atlanta this year. So far he seems to be a clear second in the pecking order. In fact, he has more than double the targets of any other receiver or tight end on the roster. His knowledge of the system is definitely helping him to be in the right place at the right time so far this season.
It wasn’t that long ago when Hankerson was an early third round pick in the NFL draft and a fixture in the second round of fantasy rookie drafts even though he was considered a very raw prospect. Even with a 6’2” and 210 pound frame, Hankerson possesses the speed to run the 40 yard dash in the 4.3s. He has the physical tools you can’t teach. The question has always been the finer points of playing the position. Perhaps he has figured it out. Having someone like Roddy White around to help mentor him definitely can’t hurt his chances.
The Bad: While Hankerson seems to be locked into his role through the first three weeks of the season from a production standpoint, it hasn’t been pretty. In fact, according to profootballfocus.com, Hankerson is rated dead last out of 106 qualifying receivers. A large reason for this is he is credited with an NFL leading five drops so far this season – that’s roughly 25 percent of his targets! He has also been flagged twice for offensive pass inference.
The other major concern for Hankerson’s production is what kind of ceiling does he really have? While he does have more than double the number of targets of any other receiver or tight end, that’s still less than half of Julio’s. While one would think Julio needs to come back to earth just a little bit, it might be unrealistic to expect Hankerson to see more than about eight targets a week. With his current catch rate, we are talking about a lot of four reception games for Hankerson. Unless he is finding the end zone, that isn’t going to be enough to satisfy fantasy owners.
The Ugly Truth: Hankerson has definitely been given the opportunity to be Julio’s wingman through the first three weeks. It isn’t clear if White is still limited by the injuries he has been struggling with or if the coaching staff has really moved Hankerson ahead of him. It is hard to believe White could have fallen so far so quickly. Yes, he did have some struggles in 2014, but he was still a productive part of the offense. My heart wants to believe White isn’t fully healthy and will return to at least his 2014 form, but given the sudden cliff we have seen other greats like Reggie Wayne and Andre Johnson fall off , it could be the end of the road for him.
My best guess is White will improve from where he has been (after all, there isn’t anywhere to go but up) and start to cut into Hankerson’s production. Hankerson hasn’t been nearly efficient enough with his targets to keep his current role. When you’re dropping one out of every four passes thrown your way it isn’t going to endear you to your coaches or your quarterback, no matter how well you know the system. Long term, I don’t think Hankerson is the answer opposite from Julio. He just happens to be an average talent in the right place at the right time.
Final Verdict: Hankerson has been the clear number two receiver so far this season, but I don’t think it will last. He’s been inefficient and already has a low ceiling with how heavily the Kyle Shanahan system focuses on the primary receiver. If you own Hankerson, I would be trying to move him for a middle or late round pick, because in a few more weeks he could start popping up on waiver wires once again.
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- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Three - April 28, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Two - April 26, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round One - April 25, 2021
