Luckily for me, it's been a fairly active news week since I posted the first Offseason Thoughts of the year, so there's plenty to examine since the last installation, when the subjects spanned Kelvin Benjamin, Minnesota running backs, Washington running backs, Corey Coleman, Christine Michael, and Detroit's WR3 competition.
This week's article has less breadth, more density.
•There's been a steady flow of optimistic reports on Julius Thomas from Miami media, and I think it all adds up. Thomas is a great athlete – there were a handful of times where I mistook him for Demaryius while watching the Broncos a few years ago – and in Miami he's reunited with coach Adam Gase, who was his offensive coordinator in Denver at the time. Thomas scored 24 touchdowns in 27 games under Gase's watch.
I'm not going to blame Thomas too much for the fact that he had two down years on a trainwreck Jacksonville squad, but it should be noted that fragility will likely always be an issue for him. But the acquisition price should remain relatively low for at least the near future, so I'll have to see if I can get some MFL10 shares soon.
•Speaking of MFL10s, I'm currently in two – my first ones since the draft, I believe – and there are some interesting developments. I would imagine the first 20 picks will look mostly the same to any you saw pre-draft, but the rookie running backs are much more
Luckily for me, it's been a fairly active news week since I posted the first Offseason Thoughts of the year, so there's plenty to examine since the last installation, when the subjects spanned Kelvin Benjamin, Minnesota running backs, Washington running backs, Corey Coleman, Christine Michael, and Detroit's WR3 competition.
This week's article has less breadth, more density.
•There's been a steady flow of optimistic reports on Julius Thomas from Miami media, and I think it all adds up. Thomas is a great athlete – there were a handful of times where I mistook him for Demaryius while watching the Broncos a few years ago – and in Miami he's reunited with coach Adam Gase, who was his offensive coordinator in Denver at the time. Thomas scored 24 touchdowns in 27 games under Gase's watch.
I'm not going to blame Thomas too much for the fact that he had two down years on a trainwreck Jacksonville squad, but it should be noted that fragility will likely always be an issue for him. But the acquisition price should remain relatively low for at least the near future, so I'll have to see if I can get some MFL10 shares soon.
•Speaking of MFL10s, I'm currently in two – my first ones since the draft, I believe – and there are some interesting developments. I would imagine the first 20 picks will look mostly the same to any you saw pre-draft, but the rookie running backs are much more expensive. This is to be expected since opportunity matters more for running back production than talent, and it's difficult to invest in a player when you're not certain of the opportunity.
Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, and Joe Mixon are all generally third-round picks now, while Dalvin Cook and Samaje Perine seemed to have settled in the fifth-to-seventh round range. That's an enormous profit for those who acquired Perine pre-draft – he was going in the late teens – and everyone who picked McCaffrey and Mixon likely profited by at least a round or two, as well. Fournette mostly looks like a break-even, while those who drafted Cook in the spring probably got him a round or two too early.
Otherwise, the most interesting development for me might be the decline in Sammy Watkins' stock. It's just one draft, granted, but he fell to pick 4.11 in one of them, going later than the likes of Alshon Jeffery, Davante Adams, Keenan Allen, Donte Moncrief, and Michael Crabtree. I understand the injury fears with Watkins, but is he really more risky in that regard than Jeffery, Allen, or Crabtree?
Furthermore, I think people are starting to underestimate his talent. In terms of talent, I wouldn't hesitate to rank Watkins in the top five at receiver. His durability issues and playing situation weigh down his fantasy value, of course, but most of the receivers going ahead of him are quite simply nowhere near as good. I have a handful of shares of Watkins in the second and third rounds from before the draft, and I imagine I'll keep loading up on shares in the MFL10s to come.
• The biggest news in the last week was almost certainly the surprising release of Jeremy Maclin. Although Maclin has had injury issues in the NFL, it's an odd move considering he's just 29 years old and the Chiefs otherwise lack wide receiver talent.
Unless I had a loaded group of receivers, I would definitely pursue Maclin if I were a contending NFL team. He's only one year removed from catching 87 passes for 1,088 yards and eight touchdowns in 15 games – a downright impressive figure for a wideout dealing with Alex Smith – and he's not old enough to project significant physical decline for another year or two. Assuming there's no physical condition in play, I'm inclined to think the Chiefs just botched this one. Although he rarely gets credit for it, Maclin was one of the best wide receiver prospects of the last 10 years, and there just isn't any questioning his skill set.
LeSean McCoy notably lobbied for Maclin to sign with Buffalo, but as of this article Maclin appears to have a price tag the Bills are unwilling to pay. The same appears true with the Ravens, who Maclin visited Wednesday. Considering only personnel, I think teams like the Cowboys, Panthers, Cardinals, and Seahawks would all do well to add Maclin.
•Maclin's exit from Kansas City leaves Tyreek Hill as the team's clear No. 1 wide receiver, which understandably has people excited. It's not often that a rookie receiver totals 12 touchdowns – nine from scrimmage – while playing off the bench for nearly all of the year. Throw in the fact that he's one of the very fastest players in the league, and you've got everything you need for major hype.
Believe it or not, I'm rather skeptical of Hill. The increase in targets of course stabilizes his value and gives him a considerable ceiling as well, but the entailed price increase probably makes it the same sum to me.
There is concern to be found in the fact that Hill averaged just 9.7 yards per catch last year, averaging 7.1 yards per target. I have no doubt that's largely Smith's fault, but there's no reason to think this improves in 2017. Indeed, with no Maclin around Hill will likely have less room to work with. But if Hill's per-target numbers don't improve, his receiving production basically hits a dead end. That means for him to provide the value people expect, he'll once again need to score multiple special teams touchdowns while running for a yardage figure roughly one half as big as his receiving yardage.
The odds of those two things happening two years in a row are not good. The odds of Smith becoming a functional passer are even worse. Hill is a blur who clearly knows how to run with the football, but if he doesn't become less dependent on short passes, his career could go the way of Cordarrelle Patterson.
I'm pessimistic about the chances of such a transformation occurring. Hill has never been productive as a receiver. He was bad enough at it that he mostly played running back at Oklahoma State in 2014, and in 2015 he finished his season at West Alabama with just 27 receptions for 444 yards and three touchdowns. He was the second-best receiver on that small school team, behind non-prospect Daryl Collins.
As brilliant as Hill's highlights were last year, I can't get too excited about a guy who's never produced as a receiver playing in an Alex Smith offense. I think there's a real chance he finishes the year averaging under 6.5 yards per target.
Given his odd combination of intoxicating film and problematic statistics, I would imagine Hill will be in considerably higher demand in casual leagues than in so-called 'expert' ones.
