Kliff Kingsbury flips his commitment! 🤯

It’s Super Bowl Week… already. Brace yourselves, everyone: we’re either about to have Patrick Mahomes win yet another Super Bowl, or the 49ers tie the league lead for Super Bowl wins. Lose lose, if you ask me – but what do I know, I just write a fantasy football newsletter.

What’s in store:

• Kliff Kingsbury flips his commitment at the last second 😂. The former Cardinals HC will be the Commanders’ OC in 2024.

• Is Justin Fields on his way out of Chicago? According to Adam Schefter, the writing could be on the wall for the Ohio State product.

• Marshawn Lloyd = diamond in the rough? Faraz says there may be more than meets the eye with the USC ball carrier.

• A quick reminder about why Breece Hall is an elite fantasy RB ✈️. He’s primed for takeoff in 2024 assuming New York can get its QB affairs in order.

• Eric Bienemy out, Kliff Kingsbury in as Commanders offensive coordinator in first days of HC Dan Quinn’s tenure in Washington

  • The former Cardinals head coach winds up in the nation’s capital after originally being reported to have joined the Raiders’ coaching staff as the offensive coordinator in Vegas. With Kingsbury joining the Commanders, the Raiders quickly locked onto former Bears OC Luke Getsy to fill the vacancy in new HC Antonio Pierce’s staff. In a corresponding move for Washington, the Commanders are expected to move on from former OC Eric Bienemy after just one season at the position. Bienemy’s offense sputtered in 2023 with second-year QB Sam Howell at the helm, with the former UNC quarterback leading the league in pass attempts and interceptions and the offense rankings just 24th overall in total yards and 25th in points scored. The addition of Kingsbury will be an intriguing one considering the fact that his offense in Arizona finished top-8 in total offense in two of his four years as head coach before the wheels fell off in 2022, and he’ll likely have full control of the offense with HC Dan Quinn erring on the side of defense.

• ESPN’s Adam Schefter finds it ‘difficult to imagine’ the Bears passing on USC QB Caleb Williams with the first overall pick

  • The report clearly sets nothing in stone, especially with the draft still just about three months away, but the Justin Fields saga promises to be one of the most consequential stories of the 2024 offseason. The Bears have held the top overall pick in each of the past two drafts and traded back last year with the Panthers, who ultimately selected Bryce Young. Rumors have also been swirling that Williams doesn’t want to be drafted by Chicago and would rather play in Washington – who just happened to land one of his former coaches in Kliff Kingsbury as their offensive coordinator (as mentioned above). Should the Bears follow through on the report from Schefter and take Caleb Williams first overall, Justin Fields would likely be on his way out of Chicago this offseason. One of his potential destinations – the Las Vegas Raiders – likely will be off the list after the team brought in former Bears OC Luke Getsy as their offensive coordinator. His struggles to effectively utilize Fields could have led to the situation the former Ohio State QB finds himself in today, and it’s unlikely the two would reunite on the Raiders even with Vegas desperate for a signal caller.

• Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa says he expects to be signed to a new contract extension this offseason ahead of 2024

  • Despite their first round exit in this year’s Ice Bowl against the Chiefs, the Dolphins’ signal caller remains confident that he’ll be signed to an extension this offseason as opposed to next. Miami has time to take if they want to with signing the former 2020 first round pick, but with multiple other quarterbacks set to cash in this offseason and reset the market, getting Tagovailoa locked up early could save them money down the road. As long as Mike McDaniel remains in town as head coach, fantasy managers can expect Tua to keep producing at a high level with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle set to run it back as his primary weapons in 2024, plus a top-flight run game to boot. Tua’s QB14 finish in fantasy points per game among QBs with at least 10 starts feels low for what we saw him do on Sundays this past season, but with Raheem Mostert scoring 18 touchdowns on the ground, it’s understandable that his upside would be limited to high-QB2 numbers. This is by no means urgent or surprising news, but it bears consideration heading into an offseason with plenty of burning questions for all teams across the league.

• The Senior Bowl has a lot of players who have something to prove - but I’m not sure USC RB Marshawn Lloyd really had that attached to his name this week because… I think we already know he’s good - at least in the run game.

  He doesn’t have a whole lot of mileage, but he was extremely efficient over the last two seasons at two different Power 5 programs. 7.1 yards/carry last year at USC, but more importantly, he was top-10 in yards after contact/attempt each of the last two seasons among the 80+ RBs who had 100 carries or more.

  There were more than 170 RBs in the entire FBS with 100 or more carries each of the last two seasons - he was 14th in missed tackles forced/attempt in 2022, and he was 2nd among all of those RBs this past season at USC.

  He kinda did what he had to do during Senior Bowl practices. He was able to find the hole and make a quick jump cut on a linebacker who just got free, and he broke another one for a big gain… this was a common occurrence last year. Almost 57% of his rushing yards are accounted by 15+ yard gains - that was #1 in the Power 5 last year.

  I think the questions around Marshawn were - how capable is he in the receiving game? I personally didn’t think he got a chance to show how versatile he was at USC. The numbers do show that he can be a plus in the receiving game - 1.2 yards/route run each of the last two years is a very solid number for a college RB, so with more opportunity can come more production. And I think he accomplished his goals of showing his receiving game chops this week.

  I think he’s more of a natural pass catcher than was shown in college in terms of his opportunity, and I can see him being taken on Day 2 of the NFL Draft.

The Jets offense, by any standard, was an absolute letdown in 2023 – but not necessarily by any faults of their own. After Aaron Rodgers went down just four plays into the season, Zach Wilson was thrust into the spotlight and exposed New York’s critical unpreparedness to deal with an injury to the future HOF quarterback; and with that sinking ship went star WR Garrett Wilson’s fantasy stock. Wilson was able to turn in a respectable year despite New York taking the rockiest road possible at signal caller this year, but it was Breece Hall that stole the show for the Jets offense and fantasy managers alike as he kept himself afloat as a top fantasy running back in the league in the murky depths of New York’s offense.

Breece was able to establish himself as a premier dual-threat running back despite less than serviceable QB play all year from backups Zach Wilson, Trevor Siemian, and Tim Boyle: his 16.3 PPR fantasy points per game were good for eighth in the NFL among RBs, a feat made all the more impressive when we consider that he was operating on the 2nd-worst offense in total offense per game and 4th-worst in total points scored.

So how was Hall able to overcome the odds? It came down to astonishing levels of efficiency on the ground and through the air, plus a little help from a massive workload in the passing game thanks to backup QBs who weren’t exactly eager to push the ball downfield. Hall’s 3.43 yards after contact per attempt ranked 4th among RBs with 100 or more carries, and his 1.76 yards per route run ranked second among RBs with 50 or more targets in 2023. Couple that with a league-leading 90 targets and 76 receptions as a running back, and Hall was able to make the most of the negative game scripts he was forced to play in in 2023 like a ferrari tearing up a dirt road.