Fantasy Football 2018 - NFL Coaching Changes + Free Agency Wishing Well

I can't imagine you go sign with the Cleveland Browns and not because of the shambles that the franchise is in, but they have the number one and number four pick overall in the NFL draft. You think they're not going to take a quarterback. So I'm not. Do you like him more for like the Jets or the bills or something like that? As a stopgap quarterback, I'm just saying if I'm AJ McCarron, I'm not going somewhere where I know I'm going to be immediately replaced. Planted, yeah.

So money talks, baby. Of course. And maybe that's his only option. Maybe that's the only contract he receives. But I would expect if multiple teams are interested that McCarran will end up somewhere else. The Seahawks do not plan to re-sign free agent Eddie Lacey. What? Yeah. This is crazy. Disappointed, Jason. No, I mean, you know, I'm disappointed overall. It is worth notating, you know, in your own brain. A couple years ago.

Eddie Lacey was as hot a first round dynasty pick as possible. He was coming off back to back. Oh, we're reflecting then? Is that what we're doing? Yeah, I mean, my, you know... And now, now what, Jason? You know, you draft Eddie Lacey and Dynasty. He's a great rookie. His sophomore season, just as good. You're talking double-digit touchdowns. He's 24 years old. A cursory tale. And then it's over. Eddie Lacey's career...

Fantasy-wise is gone. He won't ever be relevant again. And this happens with running backs in a way that it does not happen with wide receivers barring injury. All right. The Eagles plan to pick up Nelson Aguilar's fifth year option. This just makes sense, right? Yeah, good for him. Heading out the door. We'll probably see Jeffrey Aguilar, Matt Collins. Yeah, return of the Mac. For sure. Nice. Return of the Mac.

All right. The last piece of news here. Update on Andy's article, The Case for Camara, not out. It is currently not out, and I expect that it will be out soon before the season. I have seen... September 1st is my current... I have seen the rough draft. Ooh. And by rough draft... Can you pass that along? Rough draft, I mean that there has been...

One of those word webs created. Yeah. And it's just a big cloud in the middle says Camara. And then there's like an arrow that points. It says touchdowns. That's where we all around. That's where the article is. Look, when it comes out, it's going to be great. I mean, you remember that. I can't wait. Remember that predictions article? Yeah, September is going to be a great month. Oh. Coaching Carousel. Man, what goes up must come down. Oh, Mike. There's a, there's a thing we built. Something about that drop I really just loved.

There's a musical reference in there that I'm sure you two don't know, but that's all right. Probably the case. I still enjoyed it very much. All right. Let's look back. Let's look back a little bit at the coaching changes that took place last year in their result. Brief reflection, and then we'll move to what took place this last off season. I thought a couple things were pretty interesting. One, I looked back at...

you know, Brooks put these six coaches that took over last year, Sean McVeigh, Doug Maron, Sean McDermott, Anthony Lynn, Vance Joseph, Kyle Shanahan. That's head coaches. Head coaches. Head coaches. All but one improved on the previous coaches season. And some buy a lot, obviously. Sean McVeigh, Doug Maron, playoff teams after 3 and 13 and 4 and 12 years with Gus Bradley and Jeff Fisher.

You did see improvement with Sean McDermott. Obviously, the bills made the playoffs replacing Rex Ryan and Anthony Lynn. And then you even had a big improvement for the charger, something we expected to see a bounce back after Mike McCoy and Kyle Shanahan. I believe you mean Jimmy Garoppolo. From 2 and 14 under Chip Kelly to 6 and 10. Now, Gary Kubiak was 9 and 7 last year, and Vance Joseph took over and went 5 and 11. And so he was the...

what, the cheese that stood alone among that group. But I bring this up because coaching changes make a difference. In the NFL, the head coach position, obviously it makes a huge impact. You see long-term sustainable success from teams that can find a solution there. So that's what happened last year at the head coaching position and at the offensive coordinator position. Do you guys want to run back through these a little bit? Sure. I mean, we bring up the Kyle Shanahan, Steve Sarkees one all the time. So why don't.

Put some numbers to that. Yeah. So, so, you know, Kyle Shanahan left the great 2016 Atlanta offense. And it wasn't just Kyle Shanahan. They also lost their quarterback coach LaFleur. And all of a sudden they went from, you know, eighth and yards to 15th and yards. They went from.

You mean second in yards. Or yes. First in points, second of yards down to 15th in points, eighth in yards. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a, we all saw a regression coming because of kind of the outlier nature of 2016, but it was. They went self-imposed regression though. Yeah, exactly. By bringing in Syracuse. They did. And, and you see that with several offensive coordinators this past year. Now.

Sometimes like the Kyle Shanahan effect when he goes to San Francisco, the team gets better. This is what we're going to take a look at today is which changes that are being made do we expect to be positive and going to affect the offenses and the weapons of the fantasy output for the better and which teams do we think maybe did not get the right guy or are purposely. Sometimes what's...

It's the clearest picture to say, okay, they have replaced their coaching regime. Look at Arizona, for example. They have replaced an offensive-minded coach with a defensive-minded coach who comes in with a solid defense, and he goes out and hires a don't screw it up offensive coordinator versus. He hired a coordinator who couldn't even make it through last year. Jason will call him a middle of the past type of guy.

Middle of the past. And we're talking about Mike McCoy. Yeah. So, and we'll talk specifically about each one of these. But that's an example of where you can take a look and say this is not a team trying to, you know, have the number one offense. They're not trying. I mean, everyone's trying to do better every play. But they want to succeed with defensive-minded football. And we'll take a look, change by change to tell you which teams are going to improve. Yeah, you saw Nathaniel Hackett, monstrous improvement last year.

on the offensive side in Jacksonville. It's one part coach. It's one part personnel, one part organizational signings and things like that. Let's go ahead and let's just jump into the 2018 changes. By the way, last, I'm sorry, this year, there have only been nine out of 32 teams that did not have a change at at least the head coach, offensive coordinator, or defensive coordinator position.

Just nine of 32 teams. It's a tough life. It is. So you expect to bounce around, and some of these guys that we'll talk about like Greg Olson have bounced around a little bit. So I'm so curious to hear what you guys have to say about these changes and what you expect them to do to these offensive, you know, these fantasy pieces. So let's start in Arizona. Steve Wilkes is the new head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. Now, Bruce Arians.

For many years, innovative offensive mind willing to throw the ball down the field. No risket, no biscuit, he would say. Yeah, regardless of whether it was Carson Palmer or Drew Stanton. It didn't, well, were you going to add another name? I was going to put him Ryan Lindley. Yeah. So what does this mean? You bring in Steve Wilkes last year, the defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers. Great defensive coordinator by the numbers last year. Third against the pass in terms of, I'm sorry, against the rush.

against the run, I apologize, against the run, in terms of yards given up, but he's a defensive-minded coach, as you said. So you expect Arizona, their talent right now is on the defensive side of the ball. For a team for the franchise of the Cardinals, this was, I thought, a good hire. They don't have a quarterback on the roster. What you do have is a top-rated defense for the past few years. Keep that going.

with the defensive coach. That's why the hiring of Mike McCoy is so dissatisfying that they're going to have to, they're likely going to groom a rookie or maybe one of these older stopgap quarterbacks. But regardless of that, there will be a rookie that has to get groomed for Arizona. And Mike McCoy, he had success when he had a Hall of Fame quarterback. We've seen Hall of Fame quarterbacks make a lot of poor coaches look great.

He also had a pretty good year, one year as the head coach under with Philip Rivers, another possible Hall of Fame quarterback. And he has, he had in 2011, he had the number one rushing offense and 31st in passing. So I mean, he at least seems like he, he tries to use the weapons that he has available to him. But it doesn't inspire me to really like the Arizona offense.

Larry is still going to be undervalued, and David Johnson is David Johnson. But other than that... Well, that's what people want to know. David Johnson, are you going to see the same David Johnson workload-wise? Because Bruce Ariens was unabashed in his willingness to give the ball to David Johnson as much as possible. I think we will. I think we'll see that the same workload, but 16 rushing touchdowns. Can he come anywhere close to that? It wouldn't shock me to see...

eight rushing touchdowns. But David Johnson will still be safe because he's one of the best past catching running backs in the league. But it's, it's a very disappointing higher for me.

Yeah, I would agree with nearly all of that. I mean, you saw No Sean Moreno with McVe get a large workload once. And you do have – McCoy, yes, with McCoy. And so you do have a history of that. But you've got the Arizona Cardinals 2015. They were second in the league in points scored. 2016, that's the great David Johnson year. They were sixth in points scored this past season 25th. And that, you know, in the 20s, maybe the teens is kind of where –

where this offensive coordinator likes to live. That's, unless you've got Peyton Manning. So I do expect that there is going to be a little bit of hardship for David Johnson scoring as many touchdowns as he did in 2016.

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