2020 NFL Projections: New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons
In this series, we will be covering each team’s projections for the upcoming 2020 season. We will look at each position and briefly break them down then dive deeper into one situation that’s a bit more interesting to look at. Follow along as we go through all 32 teams, two at a time.
READ: Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams | Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers
I hope you enjoy this series and find it helpful and informative. Here we go!
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints had one of the most narrow usage trees in the league in 2019 with the only reliable, every-week fantasy asset being Michael Thomas. Alvin Kamara and Drew Brees were both great when healthy but both had injuries that cost them time and Kamara was a victim of some serious TD regression until the end of the season. If you owned Kamara’s handcuff or were able to snag Teddy Bridgewater, the impact of their injuries was far lessened though.
Jared Cook started the season slowly but finished it as one of the top performers at the position with nine touchdowns in ten games. In total, there were two to three usable assets on the Saints outside of the quarterback position.
Can we expect something similar in 2020 though? Yes… We kind of can. They did not add many pieces that will compete for touches outside of Emmanuel Sanders. Sanders will see his targets but at best, Sanders will be the third-best fantasy option of the skill position players. We should see a very centralized usage tree again in 2020.
Brees has played some of his absolute best football in the last few years and that is saying something for the future Hall of Famer. He has four consecutive seasons of a completion percentage of 70% or more after just two of them in the previous 14 seasons as a starter. Is it all Michael Thomas? No… But it does not hurt to have the two best hands in the game catching your passes, a highly efficient running back, very athletic tight end veteran, and one of the best coaches in the game.
Brees will be elite again and in dynasty leagues, provide massive value for a win-now team based on his 2020 consensus projections in comparison to his DLF ADP and rankings. If you saw Part One and Two of the series, these will look familiar.
You can see that there is a decent amount of value to be had based on the Saints in 2020.
Kamara returned to his highly efficient self we had come to know from his rookie and sophomore seasons but not before 12 games with just two touchdowns and two missed games due to a high ankle sprain. He finished with four touchdowns in the final two games and also scored once in the playoff game against Minnesota. I have Kamara projected for a return to what we had become used to seeing and expecting for our fantasy teams but a slight drop in receiving usage with the addition of another receiver who can be utilized in short areas of the passing game.
Latavius Murray will provide some weekly flex value but his primary value will be serving as Kamara’s handcuff and a locked-in starter if Kamara were to get injured again. Murray had two very strong games when Kamara missed time in 2019 finishing as the RB1 in PPR and standard over the two weeks. His production was not Kamara-level efficient but he got a ton of volume and scored four times.
Thomas, as I am sure you already know, broke the all-time receptions record in a season. He has back-to-back years with a catch rate of more than 80%, more than 100 receptions in three straight seasons, and three seasons with nine touchdowns. Even if Thomas loses out on a decent amount of targets, which I have him down more than 30 from last season but still more than his first two seasons, he will produce elite-level fantasy weeks with a high level of consistency and is the WR1.
Sanders is projected for nearly 60 receptions and 820 yards with about 4.5 TDs – slightly above the consensus projections for him. He will be a solid WR3 option with WR2 upside in 2020. The Saints signed the veteran to a two-year, 24 million dollar contract. He will play a fairly significant role in the offense. One they have tried to fill with a few guys in recent years.
Without injury, it is likely there will not be enough volume for any other wide receivers to provide relevant fantasy value for your teams.
Cook should control the vast majority of the TE usage again. Looking for the type of efficiency we saw last season in his last ten games is not the way to go. That was likely due in large to the lack of other reliable pass-catching options. Thomas and a banged-up Kamara still left enough volume for Cook to eat. The addition of Sanders and a fully healthy Kamara could limit Cook’s potential upside considerably – as well as the addition of rookie, Adam Trautman who was selected in the third round of this year’s draft.
Taysom Hill, QB
Hill is a wild card in the Saints’ offense as we saw throughout the season in 2019 and especially in the playoffs. Hill scored seven TDs on just 46 total touches (one every 6.57 touches) in the regular season and averaged 12.5 yards per rush attempt and 12.5 yards per reception with a score through the air in the playoff game. It was on just six touches so not exactly a reliable sample size overall but what if Hill is the beneficiary of the Kamara TD regression and what if it is something that continues into 2020?
The key for Hill has been and will be efficiency. There were three games in which he averaged more than ten yards per attempt and three games in which he averaged more than 20 yards per reception. Hill had a touch in all 16 games but never than six touches including the playoff game. Volume is not his friend. Even Kamara did not see efficiency like Hill with seasons of one TD every 15.46 and 15.27 touches to start his career. That is highly efficient and the drop in the third season for Kamara was to one TD every 42 touches.
My 2020 projections have this balancing out to one every 23 touches with Hill’s efficiency dropping to a TD once every 10.59 touches – still extremely efficient but a definite drop from last season. Then you add in the occasional passing work because he is, after all, a quarterback by position. Hill threw just one pass in the first half of the season and five in the second half. He had a three-game stretch in which he did not receive a target but it correlates with the injury to Brees and the Saints needing to keep their second-string QB healthy, in theory.
With an ADP of 240 overall, Hill will cost you almost nothing so if his usage does not increase or his efficiency falls off, you will not lose a lot of value. If the usage does increase and he sees similar efficiency though, Hill could provide some usable weeks at a flex spot in a super flex league. Best ball is likely the optimal format to take a shot on Hill because you do not have to guess when it is going to come but there is a path to more if Sean Payton can continue to use the versatile weapon in unique ways.
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons have a few more questions to answer than the Saints. We know who the main pieces will be but to the extent, they are used will be the question. Going strictly off last season, there is a new running back and tight end in the building.
Last season, Austin Hooper – now with the Cleveland Browns – finished as the TE6 on the season in PPR despite missing games due to injury. Devonta Freeman was mainly just a factor in PPR formats. He averaged the lowest yard per attempt of his career and the second-lowest yard per reception. Freeman did score four times through the air but just six touchdowns in total for a back who touched the ball 243 times is not impressive. Gurley has been in the exact opposite situation for years with the Los Angeles Rams and Sean McVay. Julio Jones was Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley built up steam on the hype train. What are we looking for in 2020 though?
Matt Ryan has been a relatively reliable fantasy asset but that does not mean there have not been peaks and valleys in his year-to-year production. This is why Ryan seems to go underappreciated much of the time. The Falcons quarterback has seven straight seasons of over 4,000 passing yards and 20 or more TDs while only dipping below 7.3 yards per attempt once and never under 10.3 yards per completion.
Strangely, he seems to go up and down in touchdown passes every year but in the last six seasons, it has been more drastic with fluctuations of 28 in 2014, 21 in 2015, 38 in 2016, 20 in 2017, 35 in 2018, and 26 in 2019. Even though this may not mean anything at all, it likely does not, but maybe it has something to do with the schedule. Either way, he is projected to keep the trend in 2020 with an increase of slightly over four TDs 4,600+ yards passing, 7.3 yards per attempt, and 10.8 yards per completion.
The running game should funnel through Gurley as well as the bulk of the RB targets from Ryan. Gurley is projected for slightly more work than Freeman received last season but nearly 12 touchdowns combined in 2020. Gurley may have some injury concern but as we saw towards the end of last season when he was the RB10 (weeks 10-17 in PPR).
We already talked about Ryan as a potential value and the projections and ADP would agree for a win-now team. Gurley is projected to return value in SF and be even value in 1QB leagues as the consensus RB16. Above, he is projected more along the lines of the RB12 with nearly 20 more PPR points.
The wide receivers are both a bit surprising. They are one of the best duos in the league and Calvin Ridley, as we mentioned above, only built speed for the hype train. They are both projected to return value in 2020 – Ridley with very minimal in 1QB formats but a solid return in SF of 1.3 rounds in SF. Jones is projected for an equal return in SF but a greater return in 1QB of 1.6 rounds. I have Julio projected for a greater return with around 12-15 points more than consensus in PPR. Ridley is projected for a similar return though. Both will be big-time performers regardless in 2020. Next is the most questionable fantasy asset on the Falcons.
Hayden Hurst, TE
Many are expecting the new arrival in Atlanta to just slot in and repeat what Austin Hooper has done and specifically what he did last season.
Stats from Pro Football Reference.
Hooper played in just 13 games but saw 97 targets (119.4 targets, 16-game pace). He posted career highs in targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns. Hurst will step in now and in Baltimore, while a member of the Ravens, Hurst had fewer targets, receptions, yards than Hooper had in his second season.
Stats from Pro Football Reference.
Just to assume that Hurst will step in and produce similarly in his first year in a new scheme when it took Hooper four years to really break out just because Hurst played behind Mark Andrews or because he has a better athletic profile is risky. I have Hurst projected outside the top-12 when compared to consensus which has him around TE9/10. If you remember the chart above, Hurst is projected to lose value relative to ADP and my projections have him even lower with a bigger loss in value.
Matt Ryan does love tight ends tough so we will see…
Thank you for reading part three of 16 projection articles. Stay tuned for more and follow me on Twitter (@willson8tor).
