NFL Coaching Changes & Fantasy Impact, Why Not Andy? - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/4

And talk about how next week's going to be an absolute, what were her words, I believe. Massacre. A massacre next week around the league with all the cuts. You've got the cap situation doing something that is different than the normal expectation in the last several decades of the NFL because of the revenue from this last season. So you're going to have a lot of cap casualty cuts coming up, just like you saw with Kyle Rudolph. All right. Any other news that we need to get into?

Free agency preview predictions next week. No? No? No? Well, I mean, I was just going to add on to David Johnson. We highlighted that. Did we talk about him in the truth? I don't know. We've talked about him just how, yeah, he only played 12 games, but he was actually, he was competent for fantasy. He was on a pace for over 900 rushing yards, eight touchdowns, and 44 receptions. Is Deshaun Watson going to be his quarterback?

that remains to be seen. Yeah, that's going to change the single season outlook of David. Yes. And the head coach that brought him in that traded DeAndre Hopkins for him is no longer there as well. Right. So there was a decision to be made. David Johnson could have hit the open market, could have tried to find a guaranteed deal doing something there. But this is his chance to stay a starter. Yeah. I don't think he would have found out of the way. Yeah. So that's, that is helpful. All those touches that Duke Johnson was taken away. They were more than zero. I believe.

What, David Johnson played 13 games last year? Missed a couple. 12. 12? Yeah. Missed with a concussion and another injury. Okay, let's, uh, you want to move, move on? Let's do it. Let's do it. Coaching Carousel. Another year in the books. Another year where I'm not offered a head coaching position, not even an offensive coordinator position for a professional team. It's kind of ridiculous, but, you know, here we are. How many years have to go by until that happens? From here, I would say 16.

Okay. 16 more? 16 additional years. And then I will be offered a head coaching assistant to the quarterback coach. One can hope. Or water boy. Yeah. Well, look, I did play flag football. You did. You have some qualifications. At quarterback. Oh. I was a real coach on the field, as they said.

All right, last year 2020, there were five new head coaches, 12 new offensive coordinators. This year, 2021, there are seven new head coaches and 13 new offensive coordinators. If you look at last year's head coaching changes. Carolina, they had a new head coach, Matt Ruhl. He went 5 and 11 after Ron Rivera went 5 and 7 and 12 games the previous year. Murder.

Kevin Safansky, one of the new additions, one coach of the year, 11 and 5 after Freddie Kitchens was given the boot. Mike McCarthy, replacing Jason Garrett. Garrett was 8 and 8. McCarthy was 6 and 10. One of them had Dak Prescott for the whole year. Joe Judge replaced Pat Shermer, two-game increase in the win column, 6 and 10. I thought they played well. I thought Joe Judge did a good job, considering he lost Sequin early in the year. He lost Daniel Jones.

To where? Injury. Sort of. I know. And to himself. Yeah, that's what I thought you were saying. Pat Schumer was 4 and 12 the year before. And then Ron Rivera, 7 and 9 in Washington, replacing Jake Gruden and, you know, made the playoffs. Yeah, division winner Ron Rivera. Yeah. And so that's what happened last year. What were your takeaways from, I guess?

when we looked at these changes heading into the year. Like Kevin's the Fansky is the one that sticks out and you say, okay, you knew he was coming from the Dalvin Cook, Minnesota system. You knew running the football was going to be the new identity of the team. We questioned things about Baker Mayfield's productivity potential. But you had Nick Chubb and Karim Hunt as valuable fantasy options all year long. Any other takeaways from, you know, what you remember conjecturing about these guys last off season?

One of the takeaways that I have from this last offseason was that the, I know we're bringing up the head coaches, but the offensive coordinator changes where it was just an OC that came in to fill a void. And sometimes that's because of a promotion. Sometimes that's because of a firing. But they pretty much all stayed the same last year. When it was just the OC changing, if they were bad, they stayed bad. If they were decent, they stayed decent. And, you know, I...

I'm going to keep that in mind as we look at this year's offensive coordinator changes, because especially this year, it seems like the vast majority of the teams that just had an OC change. We're like in-house. We're just going to try to keep the same system. We don't want to, you know, break what's working. And I expect next year to be.

The feathers won't be ruffled too much with the OC changes. Well, and I think one important thing to keep in mind is the coaching change is a piece of the offensive puzzle, but you want to see if these coaches with certain identities follow through with that identity in the NFL draft in free agency. For example, Kevin Stefansky, you saw their offensive line become a priority instantaneously when he became the head coach. And when they brought in.

you know, free agents, and they were the number one ranked offensive line last year. And it made a humongous difference. They went from 12th in rushing yards per game to third. So you want to see, you can have an identity someplace, but if you don't have the personnel in your new place, it's not going to work. Which is an excellent transition to talking about the Atlanta Falcons have brought in Arthur Smith. Arthur! Let's see if his plan works out. Arthur.

coming off of some very successful years in Tennessee, 12th in yards in 2019, second in 2020. And is this Derek Henry? Like, is Arthur Smith the product of Derek Henry? Or was the Derek Henry success partially to you're crediting Arthur Smith? Atlanta is certainly hoping that Arthur was the guy. But what's interesting for me is, will, which direction does Arthur go?

Does he try to find his Derek Henry? Like how aggressive will the Atlanta Falcons be trying to get the centerpiece of the offense? Because it should be a running back like it was in Tennessee. They don't have one on the roster right now. Yeah, play action works when it's not Edo Smith. It works a lot better. Yeah, works better. So that is one of the questions. Was he riding the coattails of Derek Henry coming into this situation? And I think you're right.

This is an identity. And will the team fulfill that need for a running back in the draft? Well, you're, I mean, there is not going to be a Derek Henry out there. You know, Derek Henry is an outlier of a player. Sure. The question is, you know, did you can argue that Arthur Blank, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur Smith here.

tailored an offense to what he had in Derek Henry. Ryan Tannehill, right? We were talking about his efficiency, how good he was. And you can credit some of that to Arthur Smith. Arthur Smith was a long time with the Tennessee Titans, started, I think, on the defensive side of the ball. It was just about everywhere. Titans kind of bounced around. And he's still young. He's 38 years old. So.

Whether or not, I've seen some people believe that he is a coach that tailors his system to the players he has. And that's what you want. That's what the press conference insinuated. But it's yet to be seen. And I have a really hard, difficult time crediting him with the success that Derek Henry brought to the Tennessee Titans.

Well, and with Atlanta specifically, you have an offense that you wonder how much is left in the tank for Matt Ryan and Julio specifically. We love Calvin Ridley. Matt Ryan's been productive, but it's been a, you know, part and parcel with being a very, very high pass attempt team, fourth in the league last year, fifth in passing yards, fourth and pace of play, 27th in rushing yards. So rushing was not part of their identity because their personnel didn't suit it necessarily, and the team.

You know, they were going to go with what worked. So that's something that we're going to watch. And they got Dave Ragon now as the offensive coordinator, Dirk Cutter, is out. I'm very excited, though, for all the play action that Matt Ryan will be running. You look, if you're on Twitter. He's great at that. Yes. And if you're on Twitter at all and joining in sports Twitter and seeing the debates, I mean, the data on play action is, it's very strong. Like, why are these teams not running play action more?

So I'm excited that Matt Ryan will be able to do that. Who's going to will Julio Jones just take over that A.J. Brown type of role in the offense. I mean, Julio is already great, but maybe we get a few more actual like bomb touchdowns for our man. Julio touchdown Jones. Yeah, when the pitch video that they send out for play action, it's all Tennessee Titan highlights. Right. That's the truth. I do think they're going to need to.

significantly upgrade they're running back in the draft. That's obviously a key for them, and they're going to look to do that. But I look at Arthur Smith, his, you know, two years kind of running the offense in Tennessee and Ragon coming from Chicago, and I view them as lambs to the slaughter over the next two years. Really? I do. And I know I'm more alone on that.

People that I respect absolutely love Arthur Smith. I think he's going to be brilliant and changed things. I think he'll be gone in two years. I'd like that he has had tremendous success. I mean, maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was mostly Derek Henry that will find that out. But at least he has that on his resume. I mean, there's some guys that got a head coaching position where you look at the resume and go, what? Yeah. Why not Andy? Yeah, exactly. And I don't want to, I don't want to connect these two at

I don't want to connect them at all. But you're going to do it. You're doing it right now. No, no, no. I'm disconnecting them, but showing an example, an example over on the other shelf, totally disconnected from this shelf. Different shelf. Yes, which is Adam Gase had some great success on his resume because of Peyton Manning. So that's the scare. It's like, was it, was it really? Was it you? Arthur Smith? Probably not.

All right, before we move on to the next team, where we are going to raise the testosterone levels of this show tremendously. That's good news. That is good news for handy. It's good news on this show. One of the thing today's sponsor, simply safe. If you have 30 minutes, you never have to worry about a break in.

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by the new head coach Dan Campbell, Guns Mahoney. There's going to be some biting involved. Knee caps. Yeah, Dan Campbell's replacing Matt Patricia in Detroit, Anthony Lynn, former head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, replacing Darrell Bevel. Your silence is deafening. My silence is trying to find the storyline to lead with with Dan Campbell coming into.

this position on a team that seems committed to rebuilding. Matthew Stafford is not their quarterback anymore. We haven't been able to say that in a really long time. Anthony Lynn is no longer a head coach. He's an offensive coordinator. He's going to be a piece of a new identity here in Detroit. And I guess I'm asking you, what is the true identity of this new team, this true alpha Dan Campbell taking over?