Playoff Travis Kelce has arrived 😈

Well this is awkward. If you read our last newsletter, this opening section was used to talk about how the worst potential Super Bowl matchup was the 49ers and Chiefs. Here we are a week later staring down either Patrick Mahomes winning his third ring or Brock Purdy riding his super team to glory.

What’s in store:

• The Eagles land a new OC in Kellen Moore 🦅. The former Chargers and Cowboys playcaller will be on his third team in three seasons.

• Steelers look to fight (dumpster) fire with (dumpster) fire 🗑️. Arthur Smith is reportedly interviewing for their vacant OC position.

• What you need to know about Shane Waldron in Chicago. Faraz gives us a rundown on what you can expect from the former Seattle OC in his new home.

• Is Travis Kelce... back? We promise never to mention anything regarding his girlfriend in this newsletter, now and forever.

• Former Chargers and Cowboys OC Kellen Moore heads to Philadelphia in same capacity for 2024

  • After a disastrous one-year trial in Los Angeles that saw the wheels fall off of the Chargers’ season, Moore is on to greener pastures in Philadelphia as he makes his coaching return to the NFC East – this time with the dual-threat quarterback Jalen Hurts. The hope was that Moore would be able to elevate Justin Herbert in his first year with the team, but glaring shortcomings on the part of LA’s former head coach Brandon Staley, plus a litany of injuries throughout the season on offense, ultimately derailed Moore’s hopes of improving his stock around the league. With the Chargers’ addition of Jim Harbaugh at head coach, Moore was expected to become available and was quickly scooped up by the Eagles. Philadelphia is coming off a season where former OC Brian Johnson was unable to replicate the success of Shane Steichen with Jalen Hurts, and now the Eagles and HC Nick Sirianni will entrust the keys to the offense to the well-versed Kellen Moore.

• Lions OC Ben Johnson likely to field offers from Seahawks and Commanders this week for open head coaching positions

  • The gem of this season’s coaching cycle, Lions OC Ben Johnson’s services are officially on the market following Detroit’s heartbreaking NFC championship defeat at the hands of the 49ers in Santa Clara on Sunday night. Just two potential destinations for Johnson remain in Seattle and Washington, the latter of which are the heavy favorite to land him as their next head coach. The Commanders are an extremely attractive and intriguing option for Johnson, who would walk into the building with an already competitive roster, brand new ownership looking for their first head coach to tether themselves to, and perhaps most importantly the number 2 overall pick in this year’s draft. Johnson would be able to build the Commanders his way from day one by hand-picking his QB of the future, all the while enjoying the benefit of the league’s highest available cap space. The expectation is that Johnson lands in Washington, but Seattle remains in play for his services at this point in time as well. Also jockeying for one of the two jobs remaining is Ravens DC Mike MacDonald, also fresh off being bounced from the 2024 playoffs in the AFC Championship.

• The Steelers are interviewing former Falcons HC Arthur Smith for their vacant offensive coordinator position

  • Make sure you have a bucket or doggy bag nearby for when the Steelers announce that they’re enlisting Arthur Smith to save Kenny Pickett’s career. After watching their offense sputter with the former first round pick under center, the Steelers have apparently taken interest in Arthur Smith’s groundbreaking offensive gameplan to just use all of the backups possible and to avoid the players you drafted to be the starters. Pittsburgh got a taste of Smith’s offensive philosophy late in 2023 when they handed the keys to the offense over to Mason Rudolph, career backup, and watched as he proceeded to lead them to the playoffs and had the team playing competitive football against the Bills. All jokes aside, Arthur Smith will be a questionable hire regardless of where he lands – but to go to a team that was already struggling on offense to begin with like the Steelers would be an ironic development of epic proportions.

• The Bears secured their first W of the offseason by hiring former Seahawks OC Shane Waldron. Thie hire doesn’t necessarily suggest that the Bears will be keeping Justin Fields or drafting Caleb Williams, but expect improved passing numbers either way for whoever ends up under center in Chicago.

• Waldron was Sean McVay’s passing game coordinator before becoming Seattle’s OC. Not only did he revive Geno Smith in his first year in Seattle, but he helped Jared Goff have the best season of his career once he took over the Rams passing game in 2018. Both Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods had 1200+ yard seasons that year. Speaking of productive wide receivers…

• …at least two WRs in Waldron’s offenses have been pretty productive each year since 2018. In 2018, both Robert Woods and Brandin Cooks had 1200+ receiving yards apiece. The following year in 2019, Woods and Cooper Kupp each had 1100+ receiving yards each. In 2020, the Rams offense had a down year. Woods and Kupp totaled just 900+ yards each – still solid, but not as good as other seasons.

• In 2021 - Russell Wilson’s last year with Seahawks - Tyler Lockett had 1175 and D.K. Metcalf had 967 (regressed from his 1300 yard season in 2020). Then came 2022, the Geno Smith revival tour. Metcalf and Lockett each totaled 100 yards each. This past season in 2023, things tipped slightly more in favor of Metcalf, but they still totaled around 2000 yards together (Lockett ~900 yards, Metcalf 1100 yards).

• Slide 6: Another welcome change will be his pace of play and his preference to pass more. More plays = more fantasy points. Our friend Pat Thorman sums things up nicely in this tweet – go and check him out on Twitter.

• So Waldron’s going to run more plays and he’ll pass the ball more. But will he be effective? The answer lies in what he’s done – his offense was top 10 in passing offense DVOA each of the last three seasons. 3rd in yards/touch and 3rd in explosive pass plays, per FTN. On that same note, creativity and success on early downs is key in today’s game – and Seattle’s offense excelled on early downs. The Seahawks were 5th in EPA/play, 8th in success rate, and 6th in EPA/dropback.

• The two main struggles last year were in the red zone and on 3rd down, but all in all, this is a slam dunk hire for the Bears. Who should be running Waldron’s offense? Justin Fields or Caleb Williams? 

Was Travis Kelce’s fall from the overall TE1 spot in fantasy football greatly exaggerated? After leaving fantasy managers with an awful taste in their mouths in the weeks following the Chiefs’ Week 10 bye, there were legitimate questions about whether we had seen the end of Travis Kelce as we knew him. While those questions definitely still remain and he’s likely ceded his title as the dynasty and redraft TE1 (or at the very least as a first round pick in fantasy football in 2024), his performances in three playoff games have offered a glimmer of hope for him heading into 2024 and with the big game yet to play.

From Weeks 11-17, Travis Kelce was averaging just 11 PPR points per game and scored just one touchdown in that time span, a Week 11 touchdown against the Eagles’ porous secondary. That meager production came on just 19% target share and 22% air yards share and featured three straight single-digit fantasy performances in the biggest games of the year: the fantasy playoffs.

The NFL playoffs, though, have been a completely different story. After spending the second half of the season in hypersleep, Kelce broke into the playoffs reinvigorated. Over the past three games, Kelce has averaged a 30% target share, a 33% air yards share, and 23 PPR points per game while reeling in four touchdowns from Patrick Mahomes. He hasn’t had fewer than 70 yards receiving in a single playoff game this season, and had his first 100-yard game in the AFC championship since Week 7 against the Chargers.