Target Collins, Diggs, AND Dell in 2024? 🎯

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What’s in store:

• Justin Herbert offers high praise for a young Chargers pass catcher ⚡️. Could this wide receiver be his go-to guy in 2024?

• Dialing back the touches for Christian McCaffrey? 😦 Hear what HC Kyle Shanahan had to say regarding the All-Pro RB’s usage.

• Could Zack Moss or Chase Brown break out with more receiving work? It sounds like more targets could be added to their diets this year.

• Making sense of a messy receiving room in H-Town. Collins, Diggs, and Dell – who should be targeted at their respective prices?

• Chargers QB Justin Herbert lauds rookie WR Ladd McConkey, noting that he ‘picked up the offense easily’

  • Just as we all expected, it wasn’t Quentin Johnston that Herbert was heaping praise on, but instead the Chargers’ rookie second-round pick and former Georgia Bulldog Ladd McConkey. He’s been a favorite of Faraz’s throughout the draft process thanks to his sharp route running, solid athletic testing, and strong production profile, and landing in the Chargers’ barren WR room has him set up with a chance to be the most productive rookie WR in 2024, even over the likes of Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers. Of course, achieving such a feat will take a heaping helping of targets, and on an offense that is expected to shift in favor of the run game, he’ll have to be efficient on the volume he gets; however, given his track record through college (2.54 yards per route run, 0.12 first downs per route run), McConkey can be the chain mover for Justin Herbert and the rest of the Chargers offense. WR Josh Palmer also figures to shoulder a significant amount of the load in the passing game, but with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams both out of the picture, Herbert will need a wide receiver that he can depend on early to avoid a slow start to the season. McConkey can be that, and if things start clicking between the two sooner rather than later, he could easily outperform his late-6th round ADP on Underdog.

• 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan tapped the brakes on RB Christian McCaffrey’s projected workload: ‘we have to protect (him) from himself’

  • Now, is there realistically any reason to sprout grey hairs over one comment from Kyle Shanahan regarding the top fantasy football player in the NFL? The answer is no, but with quality options available behind McCaffrey (longtime backup Elijah Mitchell, rookie Isaac Guerendo) as he enters his age 28 season, could we see McCaffrey’s every-down role begin to shrink a little in comparison to what we’ve seen in each of the past two years with San Francisco? It might not be out of the question. Of course, a mitigation in workload of such slight proportions isn’t any reason to drop McCaffrey out of consideration for the 1.01 in 2024 – it’s highly unlikely that Shanahan would revoke any high-value touches at the goal line as part of a potential ‘keep him clean’ program. However, when given the choice between a player like CMC and Ceedee Lamb at the 1.01, a lesser role than CMC’s had in years past could be the difference between taking him and Lamb first overall. It’s important to remember, also, that this qualifies very much as coachspeak with ten weeks to go before football returns, so this very well may be just a fleeting comment nobody remembers come the height of draft season in August. But the fact remains that the 49ers DO have talent behind CMC and he’s not getting any younger, and it isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that the Niners start to dial back his workload at some point.

• The Athletic’s Paul Dehner says that Bengals RBs have been much more heavily utilized in the passing game so far this offseason

  • This report comes on the heels of a regular season where Joe Mixon, the team’s primary running back last year, ranked 12th in the NFL among RBs in targets earned with 64. Of course, neither Moss nor Brown are likely to have as large a role as Mixon did in 2023, but more targets in the backfield is never a bad thing when a player isn’t guaranteed to see a 60-65% snap share in a given season. Of the two running backs, Brown profiles as not only the better pass catcher in the backfield, but also as one of the best in the league (albeit on a small sample size); his 0.43 targets per route run and 4.46 yards per route run rank 2nd and 1st among all running backs to run at least 30 routes in 2023. As has been customary of the Bengals’ offense since Joe Burrow was installed as their starting QB, Cincinnati is built and likely will continue to favor the passing game in 2024 despite the loss of OC Brian Callahan to Tennessee. While the volume likely won’t be there for either running back to be considered anything close to a workhorse, lucrative goal line and productive pass-catching roles will likely be available for Moss and Brown to take on. Both players could be values as every-week flex options at their relatively depressed ADPs.

CJ Stroud had an amazing rookie year, and he’s one of the most sought after quarterbacks in drafts at this point. That’s for good reason - he has three ballers at WR, he has a great play caller, they’re projected to score a good amount, and they’re a relatively uptempo offense. If I’m betting on which WR to be the #1, it’s Nico Collins. I think the order of their ADPs are justified - Nico, then Diggs, then Tank Dell.

Even with the potential distributed target share between the three, I think Nico has a good shot of having his WR1 weeks and could potentially even finish as a WR1; he’s being taken off the board as the WR15, which is more than solid. I’m cool with it - he’s that good. With or without Tank Dell in the lineup last year, Nico averaged the same number of targets, and still averaged low-end WR1 numbers with Dell in the lineup. He’s the most well rounded of the group at this point of their careers, and I think he’ll be the first read for Stroud.

Now I’m looking at Diggs as the WR22 off the board, and Tank Dell as the WR26. These ADPs are suggesting that CJ Stroud is going to make these guys all close to WR2s are better, which, frankly, would be quite the feat. While Diggs isn’t necessarily the same player he was, say, two years ago, he’s still a damn good WR, and I think he’s still a better overall WR than Tank Dell as of right now… as much as I love Tank. So at worst I think Diggs is the #2 here in terms of target share, and I think that’s going to mean that either Tank is being overdrafted or that they’re going to be cooking something real special in Houston - three Top-24 WRs rarely happen, but they’ve happened. And given Tank Dell’s big play ability, he can see less targets but be more efficient, and in turn average more fantasy points/game than Diggs.

Yes, Diggs and Nico there will clear a lot of room for Tank to operate, but there are only so many opportunities for the ball to go around. And don’t forget, Tank is also coming back from a fractured fibula - not holding that against him too much, but we shouldn’t forget about that injury. Nico and Tank basically had identical opportunity and stats last year when they were on the field together in a limited sample, but I do think Nico is the best WR, and I do think Diggs will mess with the overall consistency and upside of Tank Dell.

With that being said, I can’t fade any of these three WRs - Bobby Slowik has this offense cooking, CJ Stroud can take another step forward, and all three of these guys are on my draft board - in the order that they’re being drafted in.

And by the way, I think Dalton Schultz is cooked after the Diggs trade. He’ll have his TDs here and there, but I don’t think he’ll be much of an every-week fantasy starter this year assuming these guys are healthy.

Amari Cooper’s 2023 season was a roller coaster, but he’s got real WR1 upside in 2024 despite a very low ADP.

Many will point out that Amari was best for fantasy with Joe Flacco under center… but I actually don’t think that’s the case. Now, Amari definitely had his best game of the season with Flacco when he went off for 11/265/2 against the Texans. That was an unbelievable game – but that game really inflated his averages with Flacco. Here are the splits with and without that game with Flacco as his QB.

With the crazy game:

• 9.4 targets/game

• 5.8 receptions/game

• 108.8 receiving yards/game

• 0.6 receiving TDs/game

• 20.3 PPR/game

Without that one crazy game:

• 8 targets/game

• 4.5 receptions/game

• 69.8 receiving yards/game

• 0.3 receiving TDs/game

• 13 PPR/game

Even without the one crazy game, he was still pretty solid for fantasy… but he was even more reliable with Deshaun Watson. In the 5 near-full games Watson played, here’s how he averaged vs Flacco (excluding the crazy game):

In games with Flacco (no outlier game)

• 8 targets/game

• 4.5 receptions/game

• 69.8 receiving yards/game

• 0.3 receiving TDs/game

• 13 PPR/game

With Deshaun playing meaningful snaps (5 games):

• 7.8 targets/game

• 5.6 receptions/game

• 96 receiving yards/game

• 0.4 receiving TDs/game

• 17.6 fantasy points/game

17.6 fantasy points/game with Deshaun Watson under center? That’s legit, and it would’ve matched Puka Nacua’s points/game total from last season, who was the WR6 on the year. The Browns added Jerry Jeudy, but that’s more of a problem for Elijah Moore than Amari Cooper. Expect Cooper to continue to get the lion’s share of targets.

He’s going off the board as the WR29 right now on Underdog, which is an absolute steal. The switch back to Deshaun Watson could actually end up being a good thing for him, especially when it comes to week-to-week consistency.