2020 NFL Projections: Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers
Welcome back! We covered the lower half of the NFC West in part one and now it is time for the top half. Let us start with the most consistent team in the division this last decade.
Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks did their thing again in 2019… And, by their thing, I mean underutilizing one of the best quarterbacks in the league. This is where we will begin. Russell Wilson has been paid like one of the best. He has performed up to that standard on the opportunities he has had. The Seahawks gave him receiving weapons…
Sadly, still, I do not have him projected for the kind of volume he deserves but still an increase from the previous two seasons in the Brian Schottenheimer system. Wilson should be as efficient as ever with the potential for his fifth season in the last six years with 30 or more TD passes. Wilson has posted a TD rate of lower than 6% just twice. The first time he ran for a career-high six TDs to compensate in his third season as a pro. The second was a season spent battling knee and ankle injuries in 2016. The rushing work again will be down though. Wilson has just one season with more than 75 rushing attempts since 2015 but he does have 7 TDs in that span. Even on limited work, the rushing he does do helps to elevate his floor.
The running game will be shared to an extent with the addition of Carlos Hyde to the team. Hyde ran for over 1,000 yards in 2019 for the Houston Texans but unless Chris Carson is lost to injury for a significant period of time and Rashaad Penny is unable to bounce back from his torn ACL – which there is concern about though as he did require a cleanup surgery following the initial surgery – Hyde is likely just depth as the season progresses. We will get more into Carson a bit later.
Both of the top receivers are in line for great seasons. Assuming health, Seattle does not have a huge receiving tree. Guys will steal some work here and there but in large, the volume will be to the two players who garnered 100 targets last season. Let us take a closer look at their potential value this year.
Using DLF ADP and consensus 2020 expert consensus rankings, we can get an idea of the type of value they could return.
Note: From the angle of a competitive team in 2020, view the tags as such. (Buy – Return value expected, Hold – Close to equal value expected, Sell – Loss in value expected)
We can see above that both, Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf are expected to finish in a similar range at the position in 2020 – Lockett in the mid-fourth round range overall and Metcalf in the early fourth. One can be bought much later in both single-quarterback and super-flex leagues and the other is expected to return a similar value. If you are a competing team this year in your dynasty league, Lockett is the one to shoot for at ADP. My projections have them both posting great seasons but Lockett having the edge based on volume.
The Seattle tight end position has become reliable for fantasy production but injuries have been a common theme among the players at the position. When one can establish themself though, they produce. The Seahawks brought in veteran TE Greg Olsen on a one-year, $7 million deal this off-season and he will factor in. They also have two quality options that were on the team last season in Will Dissly and Jacob Hollister. Dissly will be returning from his second season-ending injury in as many years and Hollister was on IR prior to moving from New England to Seattle in 2019. Seattle signed Hollister to a one-year, $3.26 million deal.
Chris Carson
Carson seems to be steadily undervalued despite consistently producing at a high level when healthy. Health has been an issue and so have fumbles but when he is available, he produces. When he fumbles, they still continuously give him touches. Carson saw 1.1 more receptions per game more in 2019 than the previous year on 1.4 more targets per game. That may not seem like a lot but consider that 47 targets (Carson) were the fourth most on the team in 2019. Even when Rashaad Penny had success, Carson did not go away…
Penny’s touches and TDs – 39 rush attempts, caught 5/7 targets, 3 TDs
Carson’s touches and TDs – 46 rush attempts, caught 7/9 targets, 1 TD
Game In Which Penny Did Not Score:
(Double-digit percentage of snaps played, four games)
Penny’s touches – 24 rush attempts, caught 2/3 targets, 0 TDs
Carson’s touches – 78 rush attempts, caught 9/13 targets, 4 TDs
Carson is going to be an unrestricted free agent in 2021 and there is a good chance the Seahawks allow him to walk away. They could run him until the wheels fall off regardless of the addition of Hyde. Hyde will catch a few passes but if you have concerns about Carsons pass-catching ability, Hyde would have a similar concern. He has only exceeded Carson’s 47 targets in 2019 and 33 targets in any year in his career, once.
To take it a little further, Hyde has only exceeded 16 targets in two of his six pro seasons. Neither Travis Homer nor 2020 fourth-round rookie, DeeJay Dallas caught a significant number of passes in college. In fact, Carson is the only RB on the roster who caught more than a pass a game in college. Homer caught 11/13 targets last season but did not play an offensive snap until Week 14. This is why I have the leader in RB targets for Seattle as Carson fairly easily again.
Below, you can see that Carson is projected to return great value for a competitive team in 2020 – similar to a lot of the Seahawks. My projections have Carson inside the top ten this year while consensus has him outside the top 15.
San Francisco 49ers
Finally, we get to the team that represented the NFC in the Super Bowl last season. The San Francisco 49ers were not what we would call an explosive offense last season but they were effective at what they do. They had three running backs total more than 140 touches and four running backs score touchdowns on both the ground and through the air. Five backs in total scored through the air. Jimmy Garoppolo threw the ball over 20 yards just 36 times (29th) but completed a league-high 55.6% of those throws and had the fifth most touchdown passes (27) in large part to his 77 red zone throws (seventh). George Kittle was, well, George Kittle. Can we expect more of the same in 2020?
Garoppolo will have a pretty talented group of receiving options again but for the most part, they are short to mid-range options based on skillset. This should mean a higher completion rate similar to last season. Rookie Brandon Aiyuk will fit right into this scheme as some say he is a better talent potentially than Deebo Samuel with a very similar skillset. If you were hoping for Jimmy G to sling it downfield more often this year, you will likely be disappointed but he will be a quality starter with slim potential for a low-end QB1 finish.
The running game will be spread out over three or four backs in all likelihood. The lead should go to Raheem Mostert after his performance last season but they did not give up on Coleman either. There is also the combine legend, Jerick McKinnon to think about. Kyle Shanahan wanted McKinnon and he should be healthy heading into the 2020 season. None of these backs profile like a true bell-cow so look for RB2 production a best over the course of the season. You can see that both, Mostert and Coleman are projected to return value in 2020 when using the DLF ADP and consensus ranks. Mckinnon is not…
We talked above briefly about the style of receiver in San Francisco – athletic players who can line up wide as well as in the slot and potentially in the backfield. Player who possess run-after-the-catch ability. There are a lot of them here. Deebo Samuel should lead the team in targets if he is able to return fully healthy from his Jones fracture by the beginning of the season. There is potential for Aiyuk to lead the team in usage if Samuel were to be delayed and missed significant time. We saw how well Samuel adapted so it is logical to think someone that is similar could transition well also. Aiyuk’s ADP peaked the month after the draft and then took a dip despite the injury to Samuel. It has not slipped back below the top 100 and is likely a natural correction to rookie fever.
George Kittle
By now we know what Kittle is in the league: he is arguably the best all-around tight end and one of the best fantasy options at the position. Just how impressive has he been, though?
Kittle is one of just 13 tight ends to have a season with 80 or more targets, 1,000 or more yards receiving, a 64% or better catch rate, and 8.0 or more yards per target. Kittle is one of just five to do it multiple times and the only tight end to reach these numbers multiple times by their age-26 season.
Here is the list of tight ends since 1994 (first year in the database) to have a season by age 26 w/ …
>=80 tgt
>=64% catch rate
>=1000 yards
>=8.0 y/tJason Witten 2007
Jimmy Graham 2011
Rob Gronkowski 2011
George Kittle 2018
George Kittle 2019End list…
There's more🔽 pic.twitter.com/RDklGAX0Tv
— David Willsey (@willson8tor) July 24, 2020
There is very little not to like about this player and he absolutely has the ability to eventually equal Jason Witten and Travis Kelce (regardless of age) as the only players to reach the above numbers more than twice (four each).
Kittle’s situation has not changed drastically and he is as likely to create an explosive play as any of the receivers are. He is consistently one of the best after the catch and never has to come off the field. He has no real competition from anyone else at the position. Yeah, 2020 looks very nice for Kittle.
The one thing to be concerned with is his touchdown scoring – or lack thereof – but he potentially has the highest floor because he does not get as much volume as Zach Ertz, is not in the high-powered KC offense like Kelce, and does not have the TD dependency of Mark Andrews. He just produces at an elite level.
Thank you for reading part two of 16 projection articles. Stay tuned for more and follow me on Twitter (@willson8tor).
