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Eric Samulski analyzes the 2019 fantasy football draft values of Damien Williams and LeSean McCoy, and projects which running back will have a better season.
The fantasy football community has been littered with articles over the past few days about the impact of LeSean McCoy joining the Kansas City Chiefs.
While a few of the experts who weighed in have admitted that McCoy will cut into Damien Williams’ value, most still seem to think that this is Williams’ job (until Darwin Thompson potentially takes over).
I may be in the minority, but I think McCoy’s demise has been exaggerated and Williams’ talent has been overrated. In fact, I'm here to make the case that, barring an injury, McCoy could wind up with more fantasy points than Williams by season’s end.
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Scheme Familiarity
As many have stated before, snap count is crucial to fantasy success. You can’t have fantasy value unless you’re on the field. Part of the reason why McCoy signed with the Chiefs was his familiarity with Andy Reid’s offense after he played under Reid in Philadelphia from 2009-2012. Since Williams has only played for Reid for one season, he doesn’t have as much of an advantage over McCoy as would be typical of a returning player and a new addition.
Not only does McCoy have years of experience in Reid’s system, but he has thrived in the open field scheme that the offensive-minded coach runs. Yes, McCoy was 21 years old when he began playing under Reid, but I believe the success was as much due to the concepts that Reid employs as McCoy’s age at the time.
In the three seasons following his rookie year, McCoy never caught less than 48 passes in Reid’s offense and averaged 4.73 yards per carry. Part of this is because the zone running scheme and screen game concepts cater to McCoy's talent, while the Bills’ more power-based scheme, installed by Brian Daboll, wasn’t necessarily as good of a match.
McCoy may be older now, but the scheme fit should help maximize the juice that he showed he still has in the preseason.
Explanation for Poor Performance
Many people have been pointing to McCoy’s poor performance last year as a reason why he won’t make a noticeable impact this season with the Chiefs. It’s true that McCoy’s 2018 was not good, and then the Bills cut him this preseason, but that had more to do with the team being impressed by Devin Singletary and T.J. Yeldon than it did McCoy’s own ability.
The first thing to keep in mind when analyzing McCoy’s stats last year is that he played through a rib injury much of the year. For any football player, but a running back in particular, extensive rib pain that is exacerbated by contact can drastically change the way they approach game day. Last season McCoy lacked explosiveness and seemed hesitant to hit the holes. Overall, he looked slower, but that could have simply been due to pain management more than diminishing ability. After all, the Bills were out of realistic playoff contention early, and McCoy could have been simply trying to plan ahead and ensure his future health.
Another major part of that ineffectiveness was the Bills offensive line. Last year, they were among the worst run-blocking units in all of football. The team averaged the second fewest yards per carry of any team in the NFL, was rated the second worst in the NFL by Pro Football Focus, and finished third fewest in Football Outsiders’ stat Adjusted Line Yards, which “takes all running back carries and assigns responsibility to the offensive line.” The Bills had 3.89 adjusted line yards per carry, while the Chiefs finished in the middle of the pack at 4.37. All of which is to say that Kansas City’s offensive line was almost half a yard better than the Bills’ line last year.
In 2017, the Bills were similarly bad, finishing 27th in the NFL with 3.67 Adjusted Line Yards. Yet, in that season, McCoy finished with 1,138 yards (4 yards per carry), 6 rushing TDs, 59 catches for 448 yards and 2 receiving TDs. Unless you believe McCoy lost a tremendous amount of ability in just one year, the injury and offensive line performance need to be taken into consideration when evaluating McCoy’s 2018 performance.
Williams’ Fantasy Abilities Are Being Over-Stated
Another reason that McCoy will finish with more fantasy value than Williams has to do with Williams himself. For one, outside of 50 carries from last year, he has no sustained success in the NFL. Before last year he had never rushed for more than 3.9 yards per carry, never caught more than 23 passes, and never scored more than six total touchdowns. His career yards per carry is 4.0 and that’s even while factoring in last season’s numbers.
In half of the games in which he was the Dolphins starting running back in 2018, he averaged 2.1 yards per carry or less. If the argument is that he’s never been on an offense as good as the Chiefs, then that same argument works for McCoy, and he has a much longer track record of success as an NFL player.
Another concern is Williams’ recent injury history. Before last season he had surgery to repair a separated shoulder and then missed weeks of practice at the beginning of this summer with a hamstring injury. His injury history isn’t long, but he also hasn’t been given many carries in his career. His injuries in a short period of time could indicate an inability to handle a full workload. It’s unfair to simply assume he isn’t physically capable of being a full-time back, but we at least can’t treat it as a certainty that he can carry the ball 150 plus times.
In fact, Williams also hasn’t carried the load for an offense since junior college. In his five-year NFL career, he’s never had more than 50 rushing attempts in a season. Even in college, he wasn’t the full-time starter as Oklahoma chose to rotate him with Brennan Clay in 2012, and then ultimately gave Clay more carries than Williams in 2013, even before Williams was dismissed from the team.
So if Williams hasn’t been given a starting job in five NFL seasons and got fewer carries at Oklahoma as his tenure went on, why are we all assuming that he is a diamond in the rough that just needs a chance? He has had chances, and coaches have chosen to go in different directions. McCoy has never been on an NFL or college team and not emerged as the workhorse back.
Final Verdict
At the end of the day, the Chiefs backfield will be a confusing one to figure out. With McCoy and Williams battling for touches, and rookie Darwin Thompson proving to be an exciting NFL player in his own right, the team has an embarrassment of riches.
While we might normally avoid a backfield with this many question marks, we can’t do that when the offense is one of the best in the league. You’ll have to pick your poison. For me, I’m willing to assume McCoy’s talent and past success will give him the edge as he moves to new and much improved circumstances.
