Moore plays, Moore fantasy points in Philly? 🦅

Tune in to the latest episode of the Upper Hand Fantasy podcast over on our YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts! Faraz and Zach run through a full fantasy mock draft to give you an idea of where your favorite players/targets are coming off the board, and to discuss a few of the latest developments in the news this week:

What’s in store:

• J.J. McCarthy is out for the season 😔. What’s next for the Vikings offense while he’s sidelined for 2024?

• Injury updates for the Giants rookie tandem. Malik Nabers is trending up, while Tyrone Tracy is still going through it.

• Q&A with Eagles beat reporter Eliot Shorr-Parks! 🦅 Faraz gets the inside scoop straight from the horse’s mouth.

• Can Calvin Ridley bounce back with Tennessee in 2024? After spending last year as Jacksonville’s X, he could be right back at home in the Titans’ new offense.

• Vikings rookie QB J.J. McCarthy undergoes season-ending surgery to repair meniscus injury sustained in preseason Week 1

  • After lighting up his preseason (and NFL) debut with two touchdown passes and and multiple other highlight reel throws, the former Michigan QB will now be forced to wait until the 2025 season to take the field for the first time in the regular season. McCarthy complained of knee pain following the game last week, after which he underwent an MRI that revealed a torn meniscus that has officially cut short his rookie year just a handful of snaps into the beginning of it. It still lasted longer than Aaron Rodgers’ 2023 season, but the reigns to the Vikings offense are now exclusively in the hands of veteran journeyman Sam Darnold. To this point, Darnold has reportedly been outplaying McCarthy in camp and was listed as the starter on the initial depth chart heading into last week. Whether or not fantasy managers buy that is an entirely different argument, but we’ll have to hang our hats on Sam Darnold’s performance this season when it comes to projecting the rest of the Vikings offense under his direction. While Justin Jefferson can likely be counted on to produce at a very high level regardless of who’s under center (his price in drafts, though, is sitting a bit high for our taste), other receiving options like Jordan Addison have a track record of struggling without a quality starter. In Kevin O’Connell’s QB-friendly, pass-first system, Darnold and the Vikings may deserve the benefit of the doubt – however, the floor remains concerningly low for an offense that’s likely looking just to make ends meet with their QB of the future sidelined until next season.

• Commanders HC Dan Quinn says the team is currently embroiled in a search for their WR2

  • Look away, Jahan Dotson managers. After he played a full complement of snaps with the starters in the team’s first preseason action this past weekend, Quinn’s comments suggest that Dotson’s status as the team’s clear WR2 is still up in the air. Dotson split his snaps out wide and in the slot 50:50, with the snaps inside constituting a tremendous uptick in usage in the slot compared to last year. While fantasy managers (and ourselves, as well) anticipated that Dotson had a lock on the WR2 role in Washington, Quinn has tapped the brakes on the Dotson hype train following his comments yesterday. Among those names competing with Dotson for the evidently still available WR2 role are Dyami Brown (who hauled in Jayden Daniels’ first NFL completion on a beautiful rainbow for 42 yards) and veteran Olamide Zaccheaus. With two preseason games left to play, Dotson should have plenty of time to establish himself as the team’s WR2 once again – and that should be the expectation given the Commanders’ investment of 1st-round draft capital in him two years ago. With Jayden Daniels under center, the Commanders are hoping to field their most dynamic offense in years – and as for Dotson, the hope is that a rising tide will lift all boats.

• Giants rookies Malik Nabers & Tyrone Tracy recovering from ankle injuries; Nabers could play in preseason Week 2

  • Both rookies figure to be heavily involved in the Giants’ bare-bones offense in 2024, though Nabers appears to have the clearer path to both fantasy relevance and recovery than Tracy. Nabers suffered his ankle injury late last week and, after a brief scare, was ruled to have sustained a minor ankle sprain. Current reports indicate that Nabers isn’t far from full participation in practice and that he has a chance to play in the Giants’ second preseason game, a good sign that he’ll be available and fully healthy by the time the regular season rolls around. As for Tyrone Tracy, the fifth-round running back has been running ahead of second-year RB Eric Gray throughout training camp and even into last week’s preseason action… however, his claim to the RB2 role could reasonably be challenged in the coming weeks with Tracy unable to practice and play while he’s reportedly ‘week-to-week’ with an ankle injury of his own. Any time missed by Tracy will be an opportunity for Gray to capitalize on his absence as he fights for the No. 2 role behind projected starter Devin Singletary. Domination of snaps by any running back in the low-octane Giants offense is unlikely given the sheer number of potential options, but Tracy’s grip on the RB2 spot could loosen if Gray can reproduce his standout effort from Week 1 in Week 2. Singletary remains the RB to target in New York’s backfield despite a likely limited scoring ceiling as part of the Giants offense.

Q (Faraz): But now we actually have a new offense coming in. Kellen Moore is installing a new system, one that I think fantasy football fans should be excited about. What do you think are the main philosophies of Moore's offense and how do you think things change at a high level?

A (Eliot): So, I think you're going to see the Eagles run a lot more plays than they did last year, being through nine days of practice so far. As you know, I track every single rep each day - and right now, Hertz is up to around 260 reps or so through nine practices.

If you look at what he did last year in nine practices, that number was far below that (the 260 reps this year). So they're running a lot of tempo, a lot of speed, a lot of getting to the line. And I think one of the reasons they're doing that is because they had issues with the blitz last year. And if you're running tempo, it's hard to blitz, it's hard to substitute. But from a fantasy perspective, what (tempo) means is a lot more plays, a lot more targets, and a lot more rushing attempts.

So the biggest philosophy shift so far, I've noticed, of course, is that they’re doing more motion. There's bunch formations, but that's not really what we're here to talk about. What we're here to talk about is how they're going to be running a lot of plays, and I think they're going to have a lot of rushing attempts, a lot of targets to go around. And through nine practices, this offense looks like it could, without question, be one of the best in the NFL.

Q (Faraz): We've had some high level receivers have monster seasons out of the slot in Kellen Moore's offense: CeeDee Lamb in Dallas, Keenan Allen in LA… A.J. Brown lined up out of the slot at only a 24% rate last year, and Devonta Smith at 31%. Is there a chance we see one of these guys - maybe both - move into the slot more often? Because if they do, I'm going to be moving them up my rankings.

A (Eliot): Yeah. So I just left the practice field about an hour ago, and they spent a lot of time hitting Devonta, hitting A.J. over the middle of the field on crossing routes. So I have seen them line up in the slot a fair amount this year.

I think that's another part of Kellen Moore's offense, that he's going to move these guys around. Last year, it was kind of A.J. lined up on one side, Devonta lined up on the other. And then after the snap is when they would move around and obviously run different routes.

This year, I think pre-snap, they're going to move. And so far, the results of that have been really good. I have A.J. Brown down for 35 targets in nine practices, and he's caught a whopping 33 of them.

So when they've been throwing the ball to A.J., it has been in situations where he's able to make the catch, but the chemistry between Jalen and AJ has really shown in these nine practices. Devonta also getting a large amount of targets. I have him down with 32 targets so far through nine practices.

So they're throwing the ball a lot. They're putting the ball in those players' hands in the middle of the field… and yes, they are lining up in the slot.

Ridley fell short of admittedly sky-high expectations in his first season back on the field since 2021, but his return to action wasn’t without success; not only did he start all 17 games in 2023, but his 136 targets and eight touchdowns proved that he’s got plenty left in the tank going into 2024 after his near two-year hiatus. Of course, anyone who had Ridley in their lineups last year will remember the volatile nature of his production that included six weekly finishes inside the top-10 and ten outside the top-30.

That inconsistency can be partially attributed to QB Trevor Lawrence gutting out multiple starts with injuries, as well as TE Evan Engram reeling in 114 catches of his own – but diabolically bad luck in the end zone might be the most notable part of Ridley’s lone season in Jacksonville. His 24 end zone targets led the league in 2023 but only produced seven touchdowns, with near-miss scoring opportunities frequently appearing on NFL Red Zone screens on a weekly basis.

Given that he was competing with Engram, Christian Kirk, and Zay Jones for targets, his 21.6% target share and 0.23 targets per route run – while relatively low – are admirable, and he takes that target earning ability to Tennessee where he figures to be the 1A or 1B to DeAndre Hopkins in 2024. New HC Brian Callahan worked in a system in Cincinnati that tends to favor the passing game, throwing the ball at the 4th-highest rate in the NFL last year in Cincinnati despite the unproven Jake Browning starting nine games.

Ridley signed a massive four-year, $92M contract with the Titans this offseason (i.e. WR1 money), which bodes well for his role in Tennessee’s offense with the fiery Will Levis under center. The good news about Ridley’s new role is that he likely won’t have to face much press coverage, and can see a lot of free releases as a flanker opposite a true X receiver in DeAndre Hopkins - similar to what he had in Atlanta. Playing the X role in Jacksonville isn’t his strong suit, so it’s possible we see an uptick in production and consistency. 

As long as Levis can be serviceable behind an improved Titans offensive line, Ridley could end up being one of the better values among the mid-round crop of receivers.