Anthony Hitchens is Your Linebacker Breakout of 2018

We’re entering the time of year where rookies are beginning to dominate the dynasty discourse, and the grizzled veterans of the league begin to fall through the fantasy cracks.

But what if I told you that there was a linebacker who was young enough to be a strong IDP dynasty asset that was getting lost in the shuffle with all those ancient tackle machines?

This off-season, the Kansas City Chiefs went out and signed soon-to-be 26-year old inside linebacker Anthony Hitchens to a whopping $45 million, five-year contract that rivals the likes of top-tier positional studs Luke Kuechly and Bobby Wagner. Perhaps it seems concerning that Hitchens has never even crossed that magical 100-tackle threshold in his four-year career to date and finished outside the top-50 linebackers in balanced fantasy scoring last year.

Despite these seeming lacks in his statistical profile, Hitchens should blossom into an elite linebacker in 2018. Here’s why.

Bad Boys

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Hitchens was selected in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys, after posting solid but non-dazzling numbers at the Combine that year.

Per Mock Draftable, Hitchens’ 4.74 forty-yard dash ranked in the 40th percentile of Combine off-ball linebackers since 2000, his 9-foot-8 broad jump was in the 50th percentile, and his 7.15 three-cone time was in the 45th percentile. None of that leaps off the page as potentially fantasy-worthy nor real-life big-time payday caliber.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt with his slightly better pro day numbers, however, we can see that Hitchens actually had very good athleticism coming out of Iowa in the context of his size. Weighing in at 240 pounds, “Hitch” posted 74th percentile marks or higher in Speed Score (weight-adjusted forty time), Agility Score (weight-adjusted three-cone and shuttle), and Force Score (weight-adjusted vertical and broad jumps). All of that combines for an 86th percentile Composite Positional Score by my metric analysis.

Hitchens was a great prospect who didn’t get his due in the pre-draft process, and he still remains underrated today.

Give a look to some of his highlights from this past season (and, trust me, I did try to find college highlights; there are few videos if any): there is no lack of speed apparent in Hitchens’ ability to break up screens and run plays, no issues in coverage due to his 6-foot-0 height, and certainly no problems with his tenacity to play to the whistle and accurate angles of pursuit.

You tell me that’s a player who deserved to go in the fourth round of the NFL Draft and I’ll tell you I have a timeshare in Bel-Air to sell you.

Hitch

The big issue with Hitchens as a dynasty asset, however, is his lackluster production all the way through his rookie contract.

Consider this: by NPLB scoring, Hitchens only became an LB3 by fantasy points per game in 2017, his best season to date. For a player whose production profile mainly relies on the tackle totals, Hitchens just hasn’t provided enough oomph to make it worth our while to pick him yet.

The table below shows Hitchens’ fantasy finishes by NPLB points per game among linebackers through his career, as well as his tackles per game.

Year	Age	Rank	PPG	TKL	AST
2014	22	90th	7.23	4.13	1.13
2015	23	105th	6.00	2.44	1.69
2016	24	87th	6.57	2.44	2.44
2017	25	36th	11.00	4.58	2.42

As Hitch’s tackles go, so does he in fantasy terms. So why hasn’t he been able to get more of them?

The biggest reason is simply a lack of snaps. In his first few years in the league, Hitchens was stuck as essentially a two-down player behind Sean Lee, Rolando McClain, and Bruce Carter. He never got out of the shadow of these players until this year, when he finally played more than 60 percent of the team’s defensive snaps when he was available.

The chart below shows his annual percentage of team snaps played to help illustrate this.

If you’re not on the field, it turns out it’s pretty difficult to earn tackles. If tackles are the one thing earning you fantasy production, you need to be on the field to get fantasy points. Simple math remains simple, my friends.

That low snap count is actually one of the things that make Hitchens super appealing from a breakout standpoint, though. Hitchens posted just 121.0 NPLB fantasy points this year, but on a per-snap basis that was a ridiculous 0.222 rate of points; for comparison, Bobby Wagner churned out 0.232 in this scoring system.

Elite athleticism for his size, strong tape since entering the league, and ridiculous production when on the field makes Hitchens a screaming value even if he remained on the Cowboys.

Wild, Wild AFC West

Now, however, Hitch is headed to the open prairies of Kansas (City), as he joins Reggie Ragland in the interior of a rebuilt Chiefs’ linebacking corps. And that makes the outlook even sunnier for this former cowpoke.

Former Chiefs inside linebacker Derrick Johnson – released this off-season – was certainly a legendary talent that will be difficult to replace, but his prototype of a 3-4 defense’s MIKE linebacker is exactly what the Chiefs were looking for when they signed Hitchens. Johnson blended immense tackling ability and play-diagnosis skills with the range and awareness needed to maintain strong coverage (in fact, he graded out as Pro Football Focus’s seventh-best coverage linebacker in 2017, his age-35 season). The Chiefs no doubt think Hitchens has the ability to replicate that work.

Over his past five full seasons, Johnson averaged a whopping 1,005 snaps per seasons – 92.9 percent of the Chiefs’ defensive snaps in those years. If there are concerns that Hitchens will split time too much with Ragland, have no fear: the JACK role, or primary blitzing inside linebacker in the KC defense, has averaged just 545 snaps per year. It’s unlikely that Ragland – who came in 99th among 165 qualifying linebackers in PFF coverage grades in 2017 – will be given the workload or specific passing-down snaps that Johnson saw.

Hitchens, on the other hand, came in a solid 48th this year in coverage grades, tying for the second-fewest receptions per coverage snap and second-fewest yards allowed per coverage snap among 4-3 outside linebackers on PFF.

While we shouldn’t expect Hitchens to repeat his ridiculous 0.222 points per snap efficiency if he plays 1,000 snaps, it seems reasonable to imagine that the .185 mark is well within his grasp again (career 0.187). At 1,000 snaps, Hitchens’ 185.0 fantasy points would have solidly placed him as fantasy’s LB15 in 2017 by NPLB scoring. Hitchens’ solid median makes him a top-tier linebacker in an average season. His upside could be well beyond that if his coverage skills continue to develop and he adds some big plays to his resumé in Kansas City.

For a linebacker with certainly elite playing time and potentially elite upside, going around LB37 on MyFantasyLeague.com isn’t too steep a price for you to buy in at all. Get him now before it’s too late.

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