2025 Fantasy Football Impact: New Coaches

I was once of the opinion that fantasy managers placed too much focus on coaches, and too little on the actual players. But over the last handful of years, evidence has mounted to the point that it’s now an indisputable fact that play callers are massively influential to a player’s success in fantasy football.

All of the non-mobile QBs to greatly exceed ADP or approach league winner status over the past four years have played in a McShanahan system. So have 62% of the best WRs by Underdog advance rate over the same period.

By himself, Sean McVay has accounted for 10% of league-winning RBs and WRs since 2017. Since Ben Johnson became an OC, he has produced 12% of FLEX-eligible league winners by himself. The entire McShanahan coaching tree and Johnson have combined to produce a whopping 53% of such league-winners over the past three seasons.

But before we can forecast this trend to continue, we’ll need to understand how and why.

Play action and the use of motion and shifts are well-known efficiency hacks. If an offense can execute them, it leads to good real-life and fantasy football results. Notice how most of the NFL’s least-efficient offenses in 2024 (Patriots, Jaguars, Titans, Giants, Browns) reside in the bottom-left corner of the graphic below. Most of the better offenses (Bills, Lions, Commanders, etc.) utilized either play action or motion/shift at relatively higher rates.

Zooming in on how all this affects fantasy production, it’s easy to observe that pass catchers are significantly more efficient on both per-target and per-route bases on motion/shift and play action.

We can even confirm that this isn’t a coincidence by comparing actual fantasy points to expected fantasy points (XFP) per target. WRs and TEs are better against expectation when motion/shift or play action is utilized, meaning target depth and field location aren’t hidden drivers of the splits below.

But there is another hidden thing happening here that’s arguably more important than either play action or motion/shift, at least as we conceive of them for fantasy football. Notice the massive discrepancy between how much play action boosts per-route efficiency (40-60%) and per-target efficiency (just 9-14%). How is this possible?

When play action is utilized, fewer receivers are running routes on average, juicing per-route efficiency for those fortunate enough to be on the field to benefit. In 2024, 49.9% of dropbacks with 2 or fewer WRs on the field featured play action. In 3+ WR sets, the play action rate fell to just 17.6%.

Playing in 2 (or fewer) WR sets has multiple simultaneous benefits. Fewer WRs being on the field to compete for targets boosts all per-route efficiency stats for those who remain, as it’s easier to earn targets against TEs, RBs, and FBs (especially if they’re blocking!). This also makes it more likely the offense will use play action, boosting efficiency even on a per-target basis (above).

We often discuss the advantages of having 12 personnel to help out TEs in fantasy by getting them on the field more. But we don’t as frequently think about the fact that whichever two WRs remain on the field for these plays will see a 32% boost to their fantasy scoring. If a play caller likes to play a lot of 12 personnel, that’s a massive plus in fantasy football for any of their WRs who are locked into a role in 2WR sets.

And tying these points together, as Max Toscano puts it, “you can present heavy personnel and condensed formations without minimizing pass-catching personnel too much.” In other words, you can make the opposing defense have to fear both the run and the pass from these looks, assuming you have a TE who can operate well as both a pass-catcher and a blocker. Kyle Shanahan used George Kittle and the 49ers’ several other positional-hybrid players to take this idea to its extreme and force several mismatches at once, as Max explained in this evergreen piece. (Go check out his Substack, Remember The Tight Ends.)

In last year’s version of this article, Scott Barrett remarked that he still wasn’t entirely sure why “McShanahan” offenses have been so uniquely efficient and potent for fantasy football. I know I haven’t solved NFL offenses while sitting at my desk here, but I do think Max brings us a step closer to effectively explaining their successes as a generalized group.

Nearly all of these offenses use some combination of play action, motion, and heavy/condensed formations at particularly high rates. Ben Johnson (the most consistently impressive play caller from outside this coaching tree) does the same. Not all of these components are present in every McShanahan offense, and there are variations — Shanahan and Mike McDaniel favor using fullbacks, while Sean McVay loves 11 personnel but still uses especially condensed formations — but this is what the “McShanahan” distinction means under the hood when I tell you to target fantasy football players in these offenses. These ingredients breed mismatches and per-play efficiency.

This lets us go beyond simply evaluating pass rate tendencies, rushing schemes, and positional trends for each new play-caller (though we’ll do plenty of that below, as well). All of these puzzle pieces — motion, play action, heavy personnel, and cheatcode hybrid TEs — can help us paint the efficiency picture for each new play caller’s offense. That sounds like a massive fantasy football edge to me.

General Trends and Fantasy Notes On Returning Playcallers

• Just to minimize any confusion at the start, I’d consider the 49ers, Rams, Packers, Vikings, Dolphins, Texans, Jaguars, Bengals, Falcons, and Seahawks offenses to have “McShanahan” tree playcallers entering 2025.

• You’ve heard of an RB By Committee, but a WR By Committee can be just as frustrating for fantasy football. Over his last four seasons as Packers HC, Matt LaFleur has never allowed any WR aside from Davante Adams (in 2021) to run a route on more than 77.1% of the team’s dropbacks. For comparison, 40 WRs exceeded this mark in 2024, and only 3 WRs who played less often than this in their active games were able to average more than 14.0 FPG (Puka Nacua, Nico Collins, and Mike Evans). Over the same period, no non-Adams Packers wideout has cracked a 20% target share in any season. Receiver talent no doubt plays some part here, but on the other hand, LaFleur hasn’t allowed Jayden Reed (a player as efficient as Malik Nabers) to run above a 70% route share in either of his seasons so far. I’m interested in betting on the talented Reed to overcome this at a discount compared to last year, but the rest of this receiving corps appears to offer little upside despite how well-schemed the offense is.

• Jordan Love is instead likely the best way to attack this team; across five starts before his 2024 groin injury, he averaged 22.2 FPG (~QB5) on 35.8 pass attempts per game (~QB4). Over the full season, the Packers ranked as the 3rd run-heaviest offense by PROE (mostly due to games started by Malik Willis and a very injured Love in the second half of the year), but they ranked as the 14th-most, 20th-most, and 5th-most pass-heavy over LaFleur’s previous three seasons. Love is priced as if this team will remain absurdly run-heavy, but the context of the offense’s aggressiveness pre-injury and the Packers’ tougher 2025 schedule have made me confident betting that the pass volume will bounce back.

• Bills OC Joe Brady is arguably even worse than LaFleur in terms of limiting his WRs’ playing time. In 2023, he reduced Stefon Diggs’ route participation from 91.3% (most in the NFL) before he took over as play-caller to 83.2% (~20th) in the weeks after. In 2024, no Bills WR reached better than 71% route participation. And in all of Brady’s play calling stints since 2021 (with the Panthers from 2021 Weeks 1-12, the Bills from 2023 Weeks 11-18, and the Bills in 2024), no WR has sniffed 15.0 FPG (despite coaching Stefon Diggs and D.J. Moore). Both receivers went on to perform better for fantasy on new teams. It’s difficult to see much of a ceiling case for any of Khalil Shakir, Josh Palmer, or Keon Coleman this season.

• Bills HC Sean McDermott has always made it a priority to stop the deep ball from opposing offenses. The Bills' defense has ranked top-5 in deployment rate of two-high safety looks over each of the past three seasons, and they’ve allowed the 4th-fewest passing YPG on throws traveling 15+ yards downfield over this timeframe (68.7). It may be worth fading deep ball-reliant receivers against the Bills in DFS.

• Browns HC Kevin Stefanski was initially well-regarded for his positive impact on the run game, but this trend seems to have had much more to do with Nick Chubb. Since 2021, the Browns have averaged 4.8 YPC (~6th-best) and 139.4 rushing YPG (~8th-best) with Chubb active, dropping to just 4.0 YPC (~29th) and 106.2 rushing YPG (~21st) without him.

• But with a modicum of arm talent at QB, Stefanski has proven skilled at supporting downfield production through the air. Jameis Winston averaged 315.3 passing YPG, 22.2 FPG, and 244.6 catchable air yards per game across six full appearances in 2024; these numbers would have ranked 1st, 5th, and 1st among last year’s qualifying passers. Similarly, Joe Flacco averaged 323.2 passing YPG, 22.0 FPG, and 223.0 catchable air yards per game across five contests in 2023, each of which would have ranked the same as Winston’s numbers. Flacco himself is present in this QB room for 2025, making Jerry Jeudy and especially Cedric Tillman enticing options in any games Flacco starts. Tillman led the Browns in first-read target share (25.7%), targets per game (9.8), and FPG (18.6) across four healthy games post-Amari Cooper trade in 2024. And perhaps there’s even some sleeper appeal here in dynasty and superflex formats for rookie QB Dillon Gabriel, who last year (per PFF) led all 106 qualifying NCAA passers in completion rate on throws 20+ yards downfield (57.5%).

• There’s an even better coaching tendency-related case for David Njoku. He averaged a hilarious 9.0 targets per game and 18.4 FPG with Flacco in 2023, marks that would have easily led all TEs over the past two years. But there’s even more intrigue here from the presence of new Browns OC Tommy Rees. In his first season as OC at Notre Dame, TEs Michael Mayer and Tommy Tremble combined for over a 25% target share, with no other player on the team cresting 19% despite the presence of other future NFL talent in Kyren Williams and Ben Skowronek. Over the next two seasons with Tremble gone, Mayer easily led the team with 23% and 32% target shares. Tremble and Mayer have since gone on to do little in the NFL despite those roles (and Mayer’s spot in NCAA history next to only Brock Bowers) earning them Day 2 draft capital. Though Stefanski remains the play caller, if Rees’s influence makes the Browns’ offense even more TE-centric, Njoku could challenge for top-3 status at the position.

• In Colts HC Shane Steichen’s first full season as an OC, Justin Herbert set rookie records for touchdowns (31) and passing YPG (289.1) while putting up the most rushing FPG (3.6) of his career. As Eagles OC over the next two seasons, Steichen helped Jalen Hurts average 23.6 FPG, ranking behind only Josh Allen and +1.7 more than Hurts would average over the following two seasons after Steichen left. Until the unprecedented travesty of inaccuracy that was Anthony Richardson’s 2024 season, Steichen had a case as one of the best QB gurus in the NFL. But from a schematic perspective, there were bright spots; the Colts averaged the 4th-highest play action rate on dropbacks, and Richardson’s YPA grew to an impressive 8.56 (a +44% boost) on these plays. Could Steichen revive the career of Richardson, or even Daniel Jones, whose career 2022 season saw him utilize play action on 34.9% of his dropbacks (5th-most), the most Jones has seen in the Fantasy Points Data era? I think it’s very possible. And at worst, we can feel confident that whichever QB starts for the Colts will see plenty of designed runs.

• Is Chargers OC Greg Roman a mobile QB whisperer who could unlock Justin Herbert’s rushing upside? Probably not — though he’s coached a lot of mobile QBs, they never seem to run any less often without him. But I do believe this offense’s play-action efficiency could be fully unlocked in 2025. Herbert was playing relatively injured over the first month of 2024, causing the Chargers to average an insanely run-heavy -8.3% PROE, hurting Herbert’s pocket mobility, and leading him to average just 7.73 ANY/A on play action (15th). But after he healed up out of the bye, the team averaged a +4.0% PROE (7th-highest) to go with 9.18 ANY/A on play action (~7th-best). I wouldn’t expect the team to be quite that pass-heavy after the additions of Omarion Hampton and Mekhi Becton on the offensive line, but those upgrades should also increase the effectiveness of their play-action game, boosting that 7th-ranked ANY/A even further. Herbert was the QB7 by FP/DB on play action (0.58) — or nearly as efficient as Jayden Daniels (0.61 FP/DB) on all dropbacks — an impressive feat, given that Daniels is my QB1 and Herbert goes as just the ~QB13.

• That’s also amazing for Ladd McConkey and the Chargers’ tight ends (perhaps Oronde Gadsden?) in particular; McConkey was +98% more efficient on these looks as a rookie, taking him from being as efficient as Romeo Doubs to more efficient than Puka Nacua. Play action turned Will Dissly from averaging the same FP/RR as Ray-Ray McCloud to being more efficient than A.J. Brown. For this reason, I’m not as concerned about the total play volume for the Chargers’ skill players — McConkey and Hampton are smashes as early as Rounds 2 and 3, and if any of the Chargers’ TEs consolidate the receiving role we’ve seen Mark Andrews, Dissly, or Stone Smartt occupy at different times, they will be a potent fantasy option. Keenan Allen’s addition to the team makes it less likely a cheap fantasy-viable TE option emerges here, but it doesn’t cause me much worry for McConkey, who was already one of the NFL’s best outside WRs as a rookie.

• Of all his McShanahan brethren, Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell has perhaps the best track record of boosting marginally talented QBs to fantasy relevance. His squads have ranked top-6 by PROE and top-5 by red zone pass rate in every season he’s been a head coach, with players like Joshua Dobbs (19.9 FPG across four full games) and Nick Mullens (17.9 FPG) posting QB1 production in this system. Sam Darnold went from averaging 0.43 fantasy points per dropback (~QB21) over his previous three seasons to 0.55 (~7th-best) with the Vikings when Christian Darrisaw was healthy, finishing as the fantasy QB9 and the 3rd-best ADP value among all positions. This makes J.J. McCarthy among the best bets one can make in the final round of a single-QB fantasy draft, especially with a bolstered offensive line.

• Though Sean Payton has explicitly stated he’s not looking to use a bell cow RB going forward, that doesn’t mean his backfield can’t provide fantasy value. His backfields have ranked top-6 in PPR fantasy points during 10 of his last 13 seasons, and his RBs have ranked top-5 in targets during every season over the past decade, except for 2024. (But even last year, if we slightly shift our criteria to “targets to players lined up in the backfield”, Marvin Mims’ usage brings the 2024 Broncos up to first in the NFL.) So although J.K. Dobbins will likely get work in the run game, it’s pretty easy to imagine R.J. Harvey — only the fourth RB Payton has ever drafted on Day 1 or 2 after Reggie Bush, Mark Ingram, and Alvin Kamara — approaching 100 targets as a rookie, just as Bush and Kamara did. That’s a compelling upside case in Round 5 or 6 of fantasy drafts.

• Additionally, all of Payton’s QBs since 2018 (including names like Trevor Siemian and Teddy Bridgewater) have averaged at least 17.0 FPG. Bo Nix played through a fractured back at the end of the season that stole away the nearly ~2.0 FPG he’d been compiling on designed rushing work.

• Speculation aside on whether Evan Engram will fill Sean Payton’s “joker” role as both have implied, something we know benefits TEs is the use of play action (splits at the top of the article). Payton and the Broncos utilized it on nearly 30% of their dropbacks in 2024 (10th-most). But until now, Engram has recently been excluded from this efficiency cheatcode, as former Jaguars HC Doug Pederson didn’t seem interested to utilize him in this way. This could come with a volume tradeoff — it would require a threatening run game as well as likely another TE to be on the field as an inline blocker — but I think there’s a chance we see Engram benefit from a well-schemed offense for the first time.

• Though I wouldn’t induct Titans HC Brian Callahan as an honorary member of the McShanahan tree based on the relative lack of motion and play action we saw from this offense in 2024, there’s a case to be made for him as a QB guru. He was Matthew Stafford’s QB coach when he averaged 7.01 ANY/A in 2017, his best full season in Detroit. He was OC when Joe Burrow amassed the 5th-most passing yards (13,635) through his first 50 games in NFL history. Jake Browning was the overall QB1 over the final 6 weeks of the 2023 season while averaging 21.3 FPG, ranking tied for 5th in FP/DB that season with Dak Prescott (0.54). Then, Callahan became Titans HC and was stuck with Will Levis — the worst sack-eating QB of the Fantasy Points Data era, with whom it may have been impossible for anyone to run a functional offense. Case in point: the Titans ranked 7th in passing YPG (244.0) across six games in which Mason Rudolph threw at least 25 times, compared to dead last in their games with Levis. Calvin Ridley averaged 76.8 receiving YPG (~WR8) and 15.3 XFP/G (~WR14) inside this split. If I’m right that Callahan has the secret sauce for QB development when applied to any signal-caller better than Levis, both Ridley and Tony Pollard (who averaged 19.7 FPG in wins last year) could be massive wins at ADP, should No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward’s career get off to a hot start.

• Though he doesn’t use many schematic cheat codes, Panthers HC Dave Canales is one of the most consistently successful coaches at turning around shaky QB play, having fixed the sack-taking problems of all of Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, and now Bryce Young. All of these QBs experienced massive efficiency increases with Canales, appearing to have saved their careers from the brink.

• But perhaps more notable for fantasy football in 2025, Canales has always used a single bellcow RB when he’s been a playcaller. Since 2021, only four RBs have averaged more XFP per team play than whoever Canales’ RB1 was. In 2023, Rachaad White ranked 4th among RBs in snap share (behind only Kyren Williams, Saquon Barkley, and Christian McCaffrey). He hasn’t ranked better than 26th during either of his other two seasons in the NFL. And then, only Kyren Williams and Jonathan Taylor handled a larger share of their team’s rush attempts than Chuba Hubbard last year. Only Williams, Bijan Robinson, and Alvin Kamara ran a route on a higher percentage of their team’s dropbacks, despite Hubbard ranking 3rd-worst among 59 qualifying RBs in both YPRR (0.56) and YPT (3.29). He probably isn’t quite league-winner material, but I’m much less worried about Hubbard losing work in the passing game than best ball ADP has been all summer, with him going as the RB17 after he finished as the RB9 by XFP/G (16.8).

• Most glaringly, Canales loves funneling volume to his X receiver, which he accomplishes by having them run a relatively high percentage of horizontally-breaking routes (a separation and efficiency cheat code). 40.2% of Mike Evans’ routes were horizontally-breaking in 2023, the 5th-most among the 24 qualifying WRs who ran 75% or more of their routes from out wide. In his games with the Panthers in 2024, 46.3% of Diontae Johnson’s routes were horizontal-breakers, the 2nd-most among a similar cohort. These two receivers combined to average 15.8 XFP/G (~WR11) over this span. Tetairoa McMillan could see low-end WR1 volume from the jump as this offense’s X.

• For the most part, Arthur Smith is a fantasy football terrorist with his run-heavy approach. No pass-catcher has ever hit 110 targets in a season with him as playcaller, and only A.J. Brown has ever exceeded 12.0 FPG. This does not make me particularly interested in drafting DK Metcalf at his ~WR24 ADP.

• But perhaps there’s some sleeper intrigue here for the Steelers’ newly-acquired Jonnu Smith, now that he’s fallen outside the top-20 TEs by ADP? It’s possible. Under Arthur in 2023, Jonnu ranked 4th-best among qualifying TEs by yards per reception (11.6), 3rd-best in YAC/R (7.42), and 15th in total receiving yards (582) despite ranking just 26th in route participation (57.9%) thanks to competing with a former top-10 pick in Kyle Pitts, with team brass and the media at Arthur’s throat about funneling opportunities to him and away from Jonnu. Jonnu averaged 15.7 FPG (~TE2) on just a 67.3% route share (~TE18) from Week 8 on in 2024. Arthur hasn’t previously gone as heavy as Mike McDaniel did on funneling designed targets to Smith in 2024, but maybe it gave him some ideas. Even if he’s splitting routes with Pat Freiermuth, perhaps Smith could again be productive enough to matter in best ball on limited playing time. The Steelers led the NFL in snap rate from 13 personnel (3 TEs on the field) last year.

• The most intriguing storyline around a returning playcaller from the McShanahan tree is that Falcons OC Zac Robinson seems very likely to shift Michael Penix and this offense to play more from under center. The rest of this coaching tree employs under-center dropbacks frequently to marry the run and the pass game, utilize play action, and force mismatches. (Jared Goff, Sam Darnold, C.J. Stroud, Brock Purdy, and Matthew Stafford all had the lowest dropback rates from the shotgun in 2024.) The gun has its advantages for mobile QBs like Jalen Hurts or those with elite tools to operate without an effective run game like Joe Burrow, but running the offense from under center is another way we’ve seen McShanahan playcallers maximize the effectiveness of QBs possessing merely average physical attributes. Fantasy Points prospecting guru Brett Whitefield notably compared Penix as a prospect to Goff and Stroud.

• Kirk Cousins played from the shotgun a lot in 2024 (90.5% of his dropbacks) because he couldn't move. This, in turn, meant his play-action pass rate (16.5%) was the lowest of any qualifying QB. This was the basis of Mina Kimes’ analysis below from early December 2024, correctly predicting the Falcons would turn to Penix in short order. This approach carried over to Penix’s limited action, but with a full offseason of preparation for his young QB, I’d expect Robinson to move this team into a heavier under-center/play-action style offense.

• If that happens, Bijan Robinson and Drake London could destroy fantasy football in 2025, and a player like Darnell Mooney could make a huge impact from the later rounds. Robinson averaged over 5.0 YPC when his QB was under center last year, Mooney averaged +49% more FP/RR on play action (ranking tied with Amon-Ra St. Brown by play action FP/RR), and play action was worth a +39% FP/RR boost to London over the first two seasons of his career. The Falcons could well roll out the same vanilla offense as last season, but their skill players have league-winning upside if they instead conform to the rest of this coaching tree.

New Playcallers

New England Patriots

Josh McDaniels replaces Alex Van Pelt

At a macro level, McDaniels’ recent offenses from 2021-2023 have all ranked near the middle of the pack in play-action dropback rate (13th, 24th, and 17th, respectively), while his pass rates over expectation have hovered somewhere between balanced and run-heavy (26th, 12th, and 20th, respectively). This hire screamed that the Patriots were seeking normal, average mediocrity in their offensive scheme after the clown show nightmares of the past handful of seasons, and that’s pretty much exactly what I’d expect McDaniels to provide.

That’s not intended to be scathing — given Mike Vrabel’s prowess as a cultural tone-setter and his history of coaxing overperformance out of the talent on his rosters, this could be a respectable team in 2025. I’m just not expecting a particularly high “fantasy ceiling” for the offense, in that it’s quite unlikely they will ever be an excessively creative or high-pass rate unit.

But there are a couple of important micro-tendencies of McDaniels’ that are worth mentioning. Former HC Jerod Mayo and former OC Alex Van Pelt intentionally did not include designed runs for Drake Maye in their game plan, resulting in him seeing just 7 all year (for context, players like Josh Allen and Jayden Daniels have been in the 60-75 designed runs per year range recently). With this offensive line upgraded and the team likely to be more competitive, there’s a great chance we’ll see Maye take off more under McDaniels; a 31-year-old Cam Newton averaged a career-high 9.8 rush attempts per game under him in 2020, after all. This would create a massive boost to Maye’s fantasy football output, as I covered in detail here and here. He’s my favorite late-round QB click.

We’ve also seen a somewhat consistent trend of McDaniel featuring his backfield heavily in the passing game. This was stronger in the days of Tom Brady and the receiving specialist RB being more popular across the NFL pre-2021, but even over the past three seasons, McDaniels has ranked 4th, 5th, and 10th in the NFL in backfield target share. Per Scott Barrett’s prospect breakdowns, Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson ranked 2nd-best among this rookie class in career yards per target (9.65) and is already a strong pass blocker, suggesting he could play a lot of third downs and soak up a ton of receiving volume in this system. It also doesn’t escape me that the team chose him over every available WR in early Round 2 — the thought process seeming to be that he was the best offensive weapon available.

Schematically, McDaniels has been a heavy adherent to a man/gap-focused run game, deploying them on anywhere from 42% to 69% of his team’s rush attempts over the past three seasons (the latter number would have easily led all teams in 2024). Henderson was one of the most efficient man/gap runners in the class, but Fantasy Points scouting guru Brett Whitefield believes his traits would transfer more cleanly to outside zone in the NFL. Ultimately, this concern is almost entirely overwritten for me by McDaniels’ reluctance to play Rhamondre Stevenson on 3rd down or at the goal line the last time he coached him. Henderson is an excellent upside play in the middle rounds.

New Orleans Saints

Kellen Moore replaces Klint Kubiak

We’ve seen Moore call many offenses with radically different personnel, but one constant is that his teams have consistently run a high volume of plays. Per Jared Smola, all 6 of Moore's NFL offenses have topped 65 plays per game — a mark that would have ranked 5th-best among offenses in 2024.

Of course, it’s harder to run a lot of plays if Round 2 rookie Tyler Shough can’t move the chains and keep the offense on the field. But if Shough is any good at all, the fantasy football ceilings of all Saints skill players may be better than they appear, as there seems to be a little signal here — top-10 teams by pace in 2024 contained 40% of the 20 best ADP values at all positions.

Another positive is that Moore has been ahead of the NFL’s curve in adopting pre-snap motion and shifts, a general efficiency hack discussed at the top of this article. Specifically, we’ve seen him supercharge the production of CeeDee Lamb and Keenan Allen by utilizing them as the pre-snap motion man.

Over his career, Chris Olave averages 2.73 YPRR on plays containing motion/shift (compared to 2.17 YPRR on all other dropbacks). Rashid Shaheed has not seen such a boost across his entire career (2.00 YPRR with motion/shift, 2.10 YPRR without), but that rose to 2.52 YPRR on plays with motion in 2024 under former OC Klint Kubiak.

Keep in mind that the Saints ranked dead last in motion/shift pre-2024, and Olave and Shaheed played just six full games each in a more motion-heavy offense last year. In a best-case scenario for this offense, we could see Moore unlock Olave and/or Shaheed’s true potential. Both are strong best ball values, but I’m less sure that either has the league-winning upside we covet in traditional redraft.

In the run game, Moore is likely to run significantly less outside zone than Kubiak, as he hasn’t deployed it on more than 26% of his run plays in any season since 2021 (spanning three teams and four relevant RBs). This scheme shift, along with Kubiak’s love for RB screens, is arguably what originally revived Alvin Kamara’s fantasy upside in 2024: he averaged 4.17 YPC overall or 4.50 YPC on outside zone last year, compared to just 3.87 YPC over the previous three seasons. He could pay off his ~RB15 ADP on volume alone, but I’m much less scared he’s going to bury you.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Josh Grizzard replaces Liam Coen

We don’t know much about Grizzard, as he has never called plays at any level of football before. Right away, this widens the range of outcomes for the entire offense — and it will be pretty difficult for Grizzard to top what Coen did here in 2024, averaging 6.2 yards per play (4th-best) and 7.13 ANY/A (7th-best).

Grizzard’s resume is frankly a little bizarre. Three separate Miami coaching regimes kept him on in various WR coach/offensive assistant roles, from the Adam Gase era to the Mike McDaniel era. He was the Buccaneers’ pass game coordinator in 2024, and the team’s website claims he was responsible for helping Coen to implement more motion/shift into the offense. That somewhat checks out — the Buccaneers’ 51.9% motion/shift rate in 2024 was easily their highest of the past four seasons — but it’s hard to know how that will translate into production when Grizzard is the one actually calling the plays.

But I do have a couple of takeaways. There’s been reporting that Grizzard would like to see the passing game be more vertical. That’s somewhat concerning to me for an offense that had the most effective screen game in the NFL last year, with three players (Chris Godwin, Bucky Irving, and Rachaad White) ranking top-12 in screen targets per game, with Godwin averaging 4.8 FPG on these plays alone. Meanwhile, nearly half of Irving’s targets (10 of 21) in his blistering five-game healthy post-bye stretch came on designed screens — he’d have averaged just 15.0 XFP/G over that span without them. I’d normally be excited to draft a Year 2 RB as talented as Irving in the late 2nd, but these usage-based concerns prevent me from going all in.

With Grizzard’s background mostly in the passing game, I also worry about the run game’s efficiency. Coen immediately took the team from averaging 3.44 YPC in 2023 (last) to 5.25 YPC (3rd-best) in 2024. Better personnel along the offensive line no doubt helped with that, but this year, star LT Tristan Wirfs will likely start the season on the PUP list after offseason knee surgery, which would mean he’d miss at least the first four games. (This wasn’t just a Bucky Irving thing, either; Rachaad White went from averaging 3.64 YPC to 4.26 under Coen.)

Perhaps Grizzard will become HC Todd Bowles’ third consecutive hit on an OC hire, but at cost, I find most of the Buccaneers to be rather risky. Rookie Emeka Egbuka has become by far my favorite value on this team at his ~WR50 ADP on managed redraft platforms. He’s drawn glowing praise from Grizzard, though interestingly, he had almost no vertical element to his game in college. Still, he’s well-positioned to make an impact early in the season during any time Godwin misses (after his second offseason ankle procedure) and carries little risk at his price.

Dallas Cowboys

Brian Schottenheimer replaces Mike McCarthy

If not for Klint Kubiak (whom we’ll discuss below), Schottenheimer would be my pick for the most slept-on hire of the offseason from a fantasy perspective. His experience as the Seahawks’ OC from 2018 to 2020 under Pete Carroll might conjure images of run-heaviness, but make no mistake: Schottenheimer was the final of three OCs that Carroll fired over “philosophical differences,” the timing of which always seemed to line up with coaches deciding Russell Wilson should perhaps throw the ball more. His offense ranked 4th-highest in pass rate over expectation (+6.3%) during his final season in Seattle, the second time he led Wilson to a top-5 fantasy finish.

That’s exciting for Dak Prescott, who has averaged 20.9 FPG (~QB7) over the last two seasons in which the Cowboys were above a +4.0% PROE (2021 and 2023). The team’s uninspiring backfield personnel (Javonte Williams, Miles Sanders, and Day 3 rookie Jaydon Blue) also incentivizes a pass-heavy approach.

Schottenheimer is also on record as a big believer in motion and shift, one of our key efficiency hacks. CeeDee Lamb has been +38% more efficient on these plays over the past two seasons, averaging nearly 3.00 yards per route run (~WR3). George Pickens similarly averages 2.61 motion YPRR over the past two seasons — a +37% boost — and the Steelers used motion less often than even the Cowboys in 2024. He may be the best value in the group, as his ADP has hardly changed from the past two seasons (~WR29), despite now being on an offense where he could conceivably run 100-200 more routes than he did last year.

Las Vegas Raiders

Chip Kelly replaces Luke Getsy/Scott Turner

The last time we saw Kelly in the NFL, his offenses led the league in situation-adjusted pace of play in 2016 (23.95 seconds per play), 2015 (22.21), 2014 (21.95), and 2013 (23.38). But there’s a good chance his approach will be different now; while he still played relatively up-tempo at UCLA from 2018-2023, he went into 2024 with Ohio State planning to run fewer plays, and did ultimately average a sluggish 29 seconds per play (ranking 119th). That creates some ambiguity around how fast the Raiders will play in 2025.

What I am confident about is that the Raiders will lean more run-heavy compared to 2024. Last year, they averaged the 3rd-most dropbacks per game while generating the 7th-most catchable targets of any team. Pete Carroll and Geno Smith’s Seahawks in 2022 and 2023 had the edge over the 2024 Raiders in catchable air yards per game (178.2 to 144.6), but the team drafting a generational RB prospect at 6th overall makes it unclear to me whether this will be a more fantasy-friendly passing attack than in 2024, accounting for both volume and efficiency.

That isn’t helped by Kelly’s incredibly run-heavy NFL track record, either; he never reached a 60% pass rate in any of his seasons as HC of the Eagles or 49ers, ranking bottom-12 in three of four seasons. For comparison, the Raiders had a 64.3% pass rate in 2024. I could go on for a long time on this point, but as a final stat, no Pete Carroll receiver has ever cleared 100 receptions. Brock Bowers needed 112 catches last year just to average 15.5 FPG, finishing as the TE2 behind George Kittle.

Of course, Bowers could still get better in Year 2, and maybe he’s just #different. I dove more heavily into the value and opportunity cost of early TEs in 2025 here.

All of this leads nicely into Ashton Jeanty, as Kelly’s RB1s have excellent track records. LeSean McCoy had easily his two highest-volume and most productive seasons under Kelly from 2013-14, averaging over 19.5 carries in each year with his career-high 2,146 total YFS coming in Kelly’s first season. Carlos Hyde wasn’t nearly as talented, but he still set his career-high in rushing YPG (76.0) in his only season under Kelly in 2016. And then, Kelly has coaxed over 100.0 YFS/G out of an assortment of RBs at UCLA and Oregon, of which only Zach Charbonnet ever went on to see anything approaching NFL bell cow usage, and even then as a backup.

If anything derails this analysis, it will be Pete Carroll's inability to improve a Raiders’ defense that last year ranked 16th by EPA per play, despite Maxx Crosby missing the final month of the season. With Crosby now healthy, I lean toward this unit holding it together enough that I’d rather be overweight on Jeanty than Bowers at their respective ADPs.

Seattle Seahawks

Klint Kubiak replaces Ryan Grubb

Kubiak’s Saints had 2 or fewer WRs on the field on 56.4% of their dropbacks last year (2nd-most). When they were in 12 personnel specifically, they threw a league-high 64.4% of the time.^[1] In contrast, former OC Ryan Grubb’s Seahawks ranked bottom-7 in each of those metrics, while Sean McVay’s Rams each ranked bottom-5.

That means Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp could be significantly more efficient in 2025. As we covered at the top of this article, having 2 WRs on the field is worth a +32% per-route efficiency boost on average compared to plays with 3 WRs on the field, due to reduced target competition. Smith-Njigba has run just 58 career routes with 2 or fewer WRs on the field. On them, he's averaged 0.62 FP/RR, which would have ranked 4th-best at the position and represents a +41% boost compared to his 2024 efficiency. Kupp has run even fewer routes from such sets since 2021, but averages an absurd 0.93 FP/RR on these plays.

The market has decided that Kupp (~WR42 on Yahoo!) is washed, but in a universe where he isn’t, he could be a massive ADP value. A likely lower-volume passing offense (Kubiak’s Saints averaged a -4.3% PROE even with the offense mostly healthy over the first six weeks of 2024) might negate these points if the Seahawks’ defense is passable, but this has caused me to give the receivers a second look. QB Sam Darnold’s fit as a passer who can take advantage of the downfield opportunities opened up by play action in this offense isn’t all that different from in Minnesota, where he just ranked 7th in passing YPG (254.1) and 9th in FPG (19.1).

But in truth, I’m about even with ADP on both Smith-Njigba and Kupp. Neither have been downfield threats in their recent NFL careers, and so much of the appeal in a Kubiak offense is the deep play-action game. Case in point: Rashid Shaheed ranked top-5 in FPG on deep play action with Derek Carr last year, alongside alphas like Ja’Marr Chase, Nico Collins, and two of Darnold’s receivers last season. So if this Kubiak-Darnold deep play-action marriage is going to work, I actually think the best receiver to bet on at cost is rookie Tory Horton, who has already been running with the first team and seems like a lock to beat out Marquez Valdes-Scantling for this field-stretcher role. I’d need deeper benches to fit Horton as a final-round sleeper, but I’d be very unsurprised if he were a priority waiver add at some point this season. He’s a name you absolutely must keep an eye on.

While on the topics of play action and 12 personnel, I should quickly mention that Saints TEs (so, a combination of Foster Moreau, Juwan Johnson, Taysom Hill, and Dallin Holker, in that order) scored the 6th-most receiving fantasy points on play action in 2025, ranking behind only the Ravens, Lions, Chiefs, Titans, and Cardinals (so, most of the teams with the NFL’s best TE play, and the Titans). After the release of Noah Fant, maybe Round 2 pick and Brett Whitefield’s rookie TE3 Elijah Arroyo could become fantasy-relevant faster than we’d expect.

If I’m cautiously interested in Kubiak’s passing game, I’m more convicted than I am on any other take in this article that Kubiak’s run game will provide fantasy drafters with a massive value win. In his two seasons as an OC, Kubiak’s bellcow RB1 role has been more valuable than that of any individual player aside from Christian McCaffrey.

How I see this playing out for Kenneth Walker is twofold. First, he’s a perfect fit for Kubiak’s outside zone-heavy run scheme; concepts on which Walker has averaged nearly a full yard per carry more than Zach Charbonnet over their careers, and which maximize the big plays on which Walker has made a living. Second, Kubiak loves featuring his RBs in the screen game; Alvin Kamara received a whopping 56% of the Saints’ screen targets last year, averaging 3.5 FPG on them alone.

If you don’t believe me, here’s the earliest instance from this offseason of Kubiak himself affirming that Walker will be an excellent scheme fit, and that he’s excited to get the ball in his hands via the passing game.

I offered my full-throated support for Walker as one of the best possible picks you can make in 2025 fantasy drafts in Anatomy of a League Winner, going as just the ~RB15 after coming off career-highs in XFP/G (16.8, 8th-best) and target share (12.7%, 5th-best).

Philadelphia Eagles

Kevin Patullo replaces Kellen Moore

I’ll be real: I don’t have any particularly strong takes here. New Eagles OC and playcaller Kevin Patullo has worked under HC Nick Sirianni for eight seasons. It would be a massive surprise if the Eagles’ offense looked significantly different, or if any of their skill players were in particularly different roles than we’ve seen over the past few years.

Per CoachSpeak Index’s Discord, Patullo has emphasized that the offense is “gonna be what our players do best — like it’s been — and then we expand upon it.” He’s also confirmed that this will still be a run-first attack, saying, “I think we’re still the Eagles offense…I think it starts with the run game up front, and we just build it from there.”

Per The Athletic, Patullo has been experimenting with more up-tempo periods in training camp, remarking, “Yeah, I think in general when you can push the tempo as an offense, now you put the defense in stress…So that’s something we want to continue to do and just kind of operate faster.”

I doubt the Eagles see much more total play volume — as we covered earlier, that was a specialty of outgoing former OC Kellen Moore, with the team ranking top-5 in plays per game last year due to their success in sustaining drives — but this willingness to play more up-tempo could operate as a safety net against any offensive regression. By seconds per play, the team was 6th-slowest in 2024; running faster could make up the difference for all of the Eagles’ players in the event that they don’t move the ball as effortlessly.

Houston Texans

Nick Caley replaces Bobby Slowik

The Texans went with a second consecutive OC who has previously worked with Sean McVay. Caley also spent time in New England as a tight ends coach in the twilight years of the Patriots’ dynasty. But he coached late-career Rob Gronkowski, was around for both Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith taking steps back in production and usage from their previous teams, and arrived in Los Angeles after Tyler Higbee’s career peaks in receiving YPG (2019) and targets per game (2022), so it’s hard to paint a picture of him as a positional guru who will elevate the production of Dalton Schultz in particular.

That said, I’d be cautiously optimistic about Caley bringing the McShanahan efficiency hacks with him to Houston, perhaps to an even greater extent than former OC Bobby Slowik. The Rams led the NFL in dropback motion/shift rate (74.6%) in 2024. When Caley became the Rams’ pass game coordinator last year, the team’s play-action dropback rate jumped from 21.2% (28th) to 33.3% (3rd). I couldn’t find any quotes on Caley’s intentions here, but based on these associations, there’s a solid chance the Texans improve on their 10th- and 16th-ranked rates of dropback motion and play action from 2024, respectively. That would be especially great news for Nico Collins, who ranked 2nd in the NFL with nearly 5.00 YPRR on play-action dropbacks in 2024, a stat that makes me want to draft him over Malik Nabers.

Ironically (given the murky state of this backfield), the aspect of Caley’s offense that should require the least guesswork is his rushing scheme. I wrote in-depth earlier this summer about Caley’s desire to be a “game-plan team” and that “if that meant we were going to run duo and gap schemes and run the ball 45 times a game to win the game, then that’s what we were going to do.” Caley was notably the architect of the Rams’ shift to a gap scheme as well.

This would be a dramatic departure from Slowik’s 25th-ranked man/gap rate in 2024, and given Joe Mixon’s injury as well as Nick Chubb receiving a less-than-glowing review from HC Demeco Ryans (a sentiment Texans beats have echoed), perhaps that leaves an opening for rookie Woody Marks, who was a significantly better man/gap rusher in college. A final-round dart on Marks continues to make a ton of sense, but I’d also leave a light on for Dameon Pierce, who recently returned to practice and had an out-of-nowhere fantasy RB2 campaign as a rookie the last time this team ran a primarily man/gap scheme.

New York Jets

Tanner Engstrand replaces Nathaniel Hackett/Todd Downing

Engstrand’s arrival in New York brings considerable uncertainty. He lists his former superiors Ben Johnson and Dan Campbell as his offensive influences, as well as Jim Harbaugh. That could mean he’ll run an exceptionally high rate of play action. Johnson and Campbell’s Lions and Harbaugh’s Chargers ranked 1st and 2nd in play-action dropback rate last year, respectively. Still, the Jets (8th) weren’t especially far behind, so it’s tough to be certain about a huge impact here.

Perhaps of greater note (observations borrowed from Jack Miller and Hayden Winks) is that Engstrand’s last stint as a play caller at a lower level wasn’t particularly successful, and that neither of the offensive minds he’d just worked with in Campbell and Johnson opted to hire him as OC in Detroit or Chicago.

While HC Aaron Glenn and Jets beat writers have frequently alluded to a backfield committee approach, I’ve wondered whether quotes like this one (“I don’t know if there are three backs in this league that has the potential like these three” — referring to Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, and Isaiah Davis) are simply driven by a desire to heap hyperbolic praise on his players. Engstrand himself has told Hall, “he’s going to do everything.” I’d project Allen to receive some touches on the ground while Hall dominates the receiving work, meaning that whether Hall becomes a big value at his ~RB18 ADP will rest on goal-line touches and the offense’s overall efficiency.

At the 3:30 mark of his July 28th presser, Allen let slip that “our scheme is based around wide zone.” (Credit goes to Jets beat Michael Nania for this find.) So that might eliminate another path Hall had to improve his fantasy outlook in 2025; he’s been a much more effective man/gap runner than zone runner over his career.

Overall, I left this exercise a bit less optimistic on Hall than I was in Anatomy of a League Winner. His ceiling is still immense given his receiving game resume, but I’ll have a hard time selecting him over players like Kenneth Walker or Omarion Hampton. He’s a clear target on platforms like ESPN, where his ADP approaches the 5th round and he can be selected well after the two RBs above and all of the Big 4 QBs/Big 3 TEs are off the board. I just wouldn’t be at all surprised if Hall finishes as either the overall RB3 or the RB30.

Detroit Lions

John Morton replaces Ben Johnson

It would be easy to say that this Lions’ offense is sure to take a step back without former OC Ben Johnson after Jared Goff posted career-highs in YPA (8.6) and touchdown rate (6.9%). And it probably will due to the laws of mathematical regression — for example, JJ Zachariason explains within his Late-Round Draft Guide that QBs who averaged above a 6% passing TD rate are far less likely to meet or exceed ADP expectation in the following season, as TD rate is a relatively unstable stat from year to year.

But if the Lions’ offense does go from averaging the most points per game of any team since the 2018 Chiefs to “merely” a ~top-5 unit, I don’t think we’ll be blaming new OC John Morton. That’s because I’d expect him to largely carry on this offense’s schematic identity under the direction of HC Dan Campbell, including the McShanahanian efficiency hacks that the team has adopted. For example, it was Campbell — not Johnson — who first added a heavy play-action element to the offense when he took over playcalling midway through his first season.

This suggests to me that Campbell has always set the tone for this team, that his handpicked former assistant in Morton will continue to take advantage of modern efficiency hacks, and that the offense will likely still be very strong (or, in a worst-case scenario, that Campbell himself could step in if things go south.) The more intriguing question is who will benefit.

Summertime buzz from both Campbell and Morton has relatively consistently centered around Jameson Williams, specifically around Morton’s desire to “isolate” him and expand his route tree. There’s some reason to think that could work — Williams’ charted average separation was good to great on a variety of vertical, in-breaking, and out-breaking routes in 2024. Williams himself described Morton’s approach as “allowing the receivers to be receivers…he knows how open we can get when we get those 1-on-1 coverages.” Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta have also been mentioned as candidates for such usage.

Is there any signal to this? It’s difficult to say. I believe that the Lions believe this, but they also believed it last offseason — this quote from Morton and this quote from Ben Johnson in 2024 (via Sports Illustrated) praise Williams in practically identical ways. He still ranked just 45th among all WRs in target share (17.6%), 39th in XFP/G (11.7), and 25th in FPG (14.1). That’s a tough click on platforms like Yahoo!, where he’s going as the WR25 — especially if we expect the offense’s efficiency to take even a minor step back.

TL;DR: I believe Amon-Ra St. Brown will again cleanly lead this team in targets. Perhaps some of his efficiency was a product of Ben Johnson’s reverence for the slot receiver — and that’s a fine reason to draft players like Brian Thomas Jr. and Nico Collins ahead of him, as I am — but I don’t want us to get carried away with quotes instead of on-field production.

Chicago Bears

Ben Johnson replaces Shane Waldron/Thomas Brown

One might take the prior blurb to mean that I believe Ben Johnson is overrated, and that it’s really been Dan Campbell pulling the strings all along. It’s possible Johnson fails as a head coach and as a leader, but he has a strong record as a play-caller of implementing our favorite efficiency hacks that we’d be foolish to ignore.

For example, Johnson’s Lions in 2024 easily led the NFL in dropback rate from under center (39.4%) and play-action dropback rate (38.6%). He’s explicitly stated (below) he’d like to transition Caleb Williams into running more of this style of offense, and within a one-year sample, we’ve actually seen under-center usage mitigate Williams’ sack-taking and inaccuracy issues. This is reason to be optimistic — perhaps that means Williams will drop back and scramble less in total, but at least, it should elevate the offense’s efficiency and the fantasy utility of its skill players.

Johnson’s tight ends have averaged a 19.7% target share across his three seasons as an OC, which was more than George Kittle averaged in 2024. That stat includes games from T.J. Hockenson and Sam LaPorta, who finished as the overall TE1 during his rookie season and led all TEs in FPG on play action (5.5) in 2024. Pre-NFL Draft, Scott Barrett compared Colston Loveland’s analytics profile to a “richer man’s Sam LaPorta.” Then, LaPorta’s former coach drafted Loveland at 10th overall, and the team’s incumbent veteran at the position opened training camp running with the 2nd team.

So yeah, Loveland is one of the best picks you can make right now. And that’s before we consider that perhaps he’ll be the one manning the coveted Ben Johnson slot role — at least some of the time.

Why do I say this? Sam LaPorta has run at least 100 routes from the slot over each of Johnson’s past two seasons. His offenses also deployed 12 personnel (2 TEs and 2WRs on the field) at a top-7 rate in each of those years. In those sets, the two most likely WRs to be on the field are D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze. Johnson clearly views Odunze as an outside X receiver, and Moore hasn’t run more than 25% of his routes from the slot over any of the past four seasons. There may be no direct Amon-Ra St. Brown analog on this team (a receiver who will always play slot in three-WR sets and stay on the field to play on the outside in two-WR sets), so the “St. Brown slot role” could be filled in aggregate by multiple players across different personnel groupings. This likely means Loveland in any 2-TE sets at minimum; he ran over 45% of his routes from the slot during each of his final two collegiate seasons.

To whatever extent it’s not Loveland benefiting from the Ben Johnson slot cheat code, it will probably be Luther Burden in 11-personnel groupings, at least by the end of the season. Conveniently, these are by far the two cheapest relevant Bears pass-catchers to draft.

Zooming out, Moore and Odunze are fine at cost if you want to bet on this offense being great and not get into the nitty-gritty details of slot deployment. I have concerns that Moore could lose most of his screen work to Burden — he averaged a league-high 2.4 screen targets per game in 2024, without which he’d have averaged just 9.5 FPG (~WR57) — but there’s still a decent shot he’s the most talented all-around receiver on the team. Odunze performed very poorly in several metrics indicative of Year 2 breakouts, but a high draft pick bouncing back after a disappointing rookie season in a clown show of an offense wouldn’t be unheard of. There are just other similarly or more enticing bets around Moore’s and Odunze’s costs, while Loveland and Burden offer wholly unique upside in their ADP ranges.

As a final note, D’Andre Swift averaged a career-low 7.1 rush attempts per game in his only season with Johnson as OC. The Lions’ coaching staff that season believed Swift lacked toughness, and Johnson moved from a man/gap-heavy run scheme to a more outside zone-heavy scheme the moment Swift was out of town. Swift averages a dreadful 3.18 YPC on these runs. I doubt he’s anything special, but if Johnson does want to continue running a lot of outside zone, perhaps that’s an opening for Roschon Johnson to be more involved than expected — he’s a guy whom Brett Whitefield comped to David Montgomery. I wrote more on this here.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Liam Coen replaces Press Taylor

If this Jaguars’ offense takes the step forward I’m expecting, Coen will be the consensus “most fantasy-friendly playcaller” in the NFL by the end of this year. I’m above ADP consensus on nearly every player on this offense, and I’ve already written extensively about why for most of them. So consider this blurb a collection of “greatest hits.”

Coen’s comments on Brian Thomas Jr. at the NFL Combine made up for my money the most bullish soundbite about any player of the entire offseason, saying that in addition to his usual outside vertical routes, he’d be moved around into the slot, used on screens, and have the offense run through him. Scott Barrett did the best job I’ve seen of explaining how incredible this would be for fantasy football here — in short, Thomas was the NFL’s most efficient player from the slot last year, and Coen has made fantasy football monsters out of Chris Godwin, Cooper Kupp, and even Wan’Dale Robinson (at Kentucky) with similar usage.

Thomas was also the best WR in the NFL at separating on fantasy-friendly slants last year, but he ran them somewhat rarely (just an 18th-percentile frequency). Contrast that to Chris Godwin (79th percentile) and Mike Evans (88th percentile), and it’s easy to build a case that Thomas will see significantly more “easy-button” targets than last year. Based on the above quote and a similar case one can make from Evans’ efficiency (8.92 YPRR!) on post routes, in a best-case scenario, Thomas could threaten to finish as the overall WR1 with a mishmash of Evans’ and Godwin’s usage.

But Thomas can’t take every slot snap. Coen ranked 8th in usage of 11 personnel (71.7%) with the Buccaneers last year, or 3rd (79.7%) through the first 7 weeks before Godwin was lost for the season. Rather than have two of Dyami Brown, Trenton Irwin, or Parker Washington on the field for most of the offense’s plays, the intention seems to be for Travis Hunter to be the primary slot receiver in 3WR sets.

I argued just about every possible angle of Hunter’s risk/reward here, but among my biggest takeaways from that article was that “If you counted only his routes from the slot, Chris Godwin would have had an effective 52% route participation rate in 2024 under Coen…on that effective 52% route share from the slot alone, Godwin averaged a 29% TPRR, 5.9 targets per game, and 12.0 Underdog FPG (or 14.3 PPR FPG) in 2024.” I genuinely believe that with Coen, Hunter could meet or exceed cost even on a part-time route share. If he’s good enough to demand a full-time route share (as I argue in the article linked above), he’ll likely be among the best WR picks you could make in the middle rounds.

Of course, this all partially rests on Trevor Lawrence supporting a high-octane passing game for the first time in his career. However, I don’t think this is entirely unreasonable to expect; remember, Coen is part of the McShanahan coaching tree, which has produced most of the high TD-rate seasons that have turned pocket passers into amazing late-round fantasy picks over the last several years. Before Coen, Mayfield’s career passer rating and ANY/A stood at 88.1 and 6.02, respectively; Lawrence is only just behind those marks at 85.0 and 5.75. Alternatively, if you throw out Lawrence’s rookie season, which Urban Meyer turned into one of the worst displays of NFL coaching this century, he’d be ahead of Mayfield’s pre-Coen career by both metrics.

Upside also oozes from this backfield, especially given Coen’s track record of having one that ranks top-3 in total expected fantasy points. Tank Bigsby has been getting most of the run with the first team in training camp so far, but he’s averaged just 4.0 receptions per season in the NFL. Much of the appeal of Coen’s backfield comes from his willingness to feature them in the screen game — Bucky Irving recently took advantage of this to average 22.5 FPG on just a part-time 58.7% snap share over his final five healthy games.

As the tweet above implies, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Coen were to focus this treatment more on his dynamic WR duo in Jacksonville. However, it does make Bhayshul Tuten (who, according to Scott Barrett, is an explosive big-play waiting to happen, leading all Power Conference RBs in career MTF/touch and yards after contact per attempt) very interesting. Travis Etienne is my least favorite of the three (especially at cost) after he lost such significant work to Bigsby last season, but it’s not hard to see how he could hit, too. I want to leave every draft with a Jaguars RB (ordered Tuten > Bigsby > Etienne on a cost-adjusted basis).

Finally, if the two-way dream for Travis Hunter doesn’t work out for whatever reason, TE Brenton Strange could well benefit. Cade Otton averaged an unreal 19.8 FPG in three games without Evans and Godwin last year. That’s arguably one of Coen’s most impressive feats to date, underscoring how capable he is of manufacturing production out of mediocre receiving talents.