Throughout the month of January we’ll be rolling out a thorough review on touch, target and workload data from all 32 NFL teams in an effort to paint a complete picture of the 2014 fantasy football season and turn our attention to what things like (in the early part of the offseason) for 2015. Much will change, but understanding the relative workload distribution can go a long way to making projections for next year.
[View the full set of articles here]
2014 NFL Season Review: Detroit Lions Touches and Targets
Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate both had productive seasons but did Tate’s arrival limit Megatron’s production? (Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press).
After struggling through a 14 game season in 2013, Calvin Johnson was held to 13 games in 2014 and again spent much of the year as a noteworthy player on the injury report. His three game absence meant he was second on the team in targets as Matthew Stafford finally had a strong second target to work with in Golden Tate. In fact with 71 catches, and 1077 yards Johnson finished behind Tate in all categories, except for an 8-4 edge in touchdowns. Johnson remains a game changing talent when on the field but with more consistent, healthier options he’s trending to be a 2nd or 3rd round selection next year. Tate’s development helps to ensure that. His 137 target, 99 catch season after an exodus from a Seattle system that spread the ball around when it wasn’t focused on the run is promising in terms of his value heading into 2015. If Johnson plays 16 games, Tate will have a hard time topping his 1300 yard output from this year. In fact, he’s going to have a hard time either way, but he returned solid value for owners this year and is a good bet to post comparable catch/yardage numbers, but you’ll always be chasing touchdowns. He’s just not a redzone option (just 11 of his 137 targets came inside the 20), and he wasn’t targeted that often over 20 yards either (just 13) so he did most of his damage on the catch-and-run. The bigger question may be whether it was Tate’s arrival in Detroit, or his own injury issues that contributed more to Johnson’s 82.8 YPG total, the first time he has been held under 100 in that category since 2010. Of course, the answer may not matter a whole lot given that both are likely to remain storylines in 2015.
Behind them, Corey Fuller and Jeremy Ross each flashed sings of intrigue this season, but Ross’s 24/33 catch ratesure beats a sub-50% number from fuller. Looking ahead to 2015, I wouldn’t expect a major leap from either as Eric Ebron should take on a larger chunk of the offense and either Reggie Bush or Theo Riddick (or both) will do some receiving work out of the backfield as well.
On the note of Ebron, his first season was regrettable for anyone who drafted him in the fantasy realm, though his big club probably saw this coming. It takes a while for TEs to acclimate to the league with duties as a pass blocker and a route runner to learn and with Ebron coming into the league with well publicized issues with drops it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that he didn’t deliver a significant statistical output. All told, he was targeted just 46 times and caught slightly over 50% (25) of his balls for 248 yards, making four official drops and suffering from lapses in concentration on others. In his first season, he spent just 283 of his 452 snaps in route, and averaged .88 yards per route run, finishing outside of the top-30 in that category. His 13.79% drop rate finished similarly among his peers. Of course, teammate Brandon Pettigrew (14/10/70 and negative grades in all major PFF categories) wasn’t much better. Pettigrew does have three more years under his contract, mind you, but he’ll likely stick as a blocking TE leaving lots of room for opportunity for Ebron moving forward, provided he can show the requisite development from year one to year two.
Including Pettigrew, if he counts as significant, all key players in the passing game should be back in silver and blue in 2015. The same statement seems unlikely as it pertains to the run game, however.
The team has given no indication that they intend to part ways with veteran RB Reggie Bush, but he is coming off a disappointing year and is set to turn 30 this offseason so it wouldn’t be shocking to see them go in a different direction. Afterall, while Bush missed time at different points this year a competent backup was developing behind him. Bush played 100 more snaps than Riddick this season, and had 59 more touches but finished with considerably fewer yards per touch (4.74 vs. 7.28). Part of that has to do with the fact that Riddick’s 57 touches were made up of 20 carries and 37 receptions, but much of it has to do with their respective places on their career arcs. Bush showed in the Wild Card round that he still has the ability to make big plays, but Riddick looked like a more versatile, fluid back making a number of degree of difficulty catches and moving well laterally. He finished as the 4th best rated pass catcher among all backs according to PFF. If Bush is back next year, they’ll serve to limit one another’s upside as Riddick did enough in the middle of the season to find himself on the field late in the year even after Bush’s return from injury (adding seven catches on 10 targets in Weeks 16 and 17) and will see the field in 2015 even if as the 3rd back.
Of course, none of this conversation acknowledges the production of Joique Bell, who carried the ball 223 times this season for an average of 3.9 apiece and scoring seven rushing TDs. The sub 4.0 YPC number matches last year’s output, but no one can suggest that Bell didn’t do a good job of picking up the hard yards. Expect him, entering just his age 28 season, to lead the way again next year and hover around a similar 250-275 touch workload. He finished as fantasy’s 14th best RB this season and did so without a huge workload, or doing anything spectacular. As such, a return to similar production seems like a safe bet.
In their first season under OC Joe Lombardi, the Lions regressed, dropping from 395 to 321 points scored with Matthew Stafford throwing for just 22 TDs and 4200 yards, down from 29 and 4700 the year prior. Not all the signs were bad though, as Stafford’s picks were down (from 19 to 12) and his completion percentage climbed above 60 for the first time since 2011. How well the team adjusts to the system in its second season, along with the ability to stay healthy of some veteran producers (Calvin Johnson, Reggie Bush if in Detroit) and the development of intriguing young options (Theo Riddick, Eric Ebron) will go a long way to determining Stafford’s own value, and the fantasy impact of the collective in 2015.
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