There seems to be a common theme with my Breaking Down The Targets article lately. I'm writing about my league-mate's favorite teams. So clearly if you want to write about your team the best thing you can do is join a league with me!
This team we're going to examine the Saints, otherwise known as the team that had the second most pass attempts in the league last year. Due to the departure of Brandin Cooks, the Who Dat Nation is sure to look different than it has in years past. Sit back, relax, and get your beads ready to throw for the great sets of Saints stats I'm about to show you!
The Saints Pass Attempts
The Saints were one of only two teams along with Baltimore last season to attempt more than 650 passes. The Saints attempted 674 passes all told. Drew Brees attempted all of them except one, and the 673 set a new career high for him. The other pass was attempted by Willie Snead who was a perfect 1 for 1 on a 50 yard touchdown bomb to Tim Hightower. What's with the teams I'm examining lately having receivers who threw one pass for a long touchdown!?
It probably doesn't shock you to learn that the Saints had three receivers who were targeted over 100 times. Brees is known for spreading the ball around and the targets bear that out. Rookie stud Michael Thomas had 121, Brandin Cooks had 117 and Willie Snead had 104. The next largest would be the 162 looks the running backs group got, led by Mark Ingram's 57. Travaris Cadet (who refuses to get out of the way of more talented RBs), Tim Hightower and even John Kuhn all had 20 or more targets as well. Another 110 targets went to the tight end group led by Coby Fleener's 81.
Normally at this point of the article is where I mention the infamous "misc". I'm not doing that this time. I think it's important to point out that the Saints 4th wide receiver Brandon Coleman saw 38 targets. The other 22 targets went to end of the roster guys like Tommylee Lewis.
This is probably the part where you expect me to tell you the Saints threw a lot because they had a terrible rushing attack. Except they didn't. Despite earning himself a spot in Sean Payton's doghouse for fumbling, Mark Ingram put up a career high in rushing yards at 1043. He also had a career high of 5.1 YPC. That was good for 5th best in the league among RBs with 100+ carries! So why did the Saints pass so much?
They were often playing behind due to having the defense that gave up the 6th most yards in the league last season. Additionally, they have Drew Brees. So why did they throw so much? Because why wouldn't you if you had one of the top quarterbacks in the league?
I mentioned earlier things should look drastically different for the Saints this season. They shipped Brandin Cooks to the Patriots after Michael Thomas proved to everyone he wasn't the "bad" Michael Thomas. They also drafted and signed some intriguing new running back talent in Alvin Kamara and Adrian Peterson. Let's take a look at what that means for 2017.
2017 Predictions
Since 2010, Drew Brees has only not surpassed 650 attempts once. That seems like a good marker to use. I don't expect him to reach career highs again but he certainly should be among the top in the league for pass attempts again.
Last season was incredibly impressive for Michael Thomas. He burst onto the scene with a 92-1137-9 line on 121 targets, and quickly moved up everyone's dynasty ranking boards. Clearly he's in line to see a huge increase in targets with Cooks gone right!?
Not so fast! Since 2013, not a single Saints wide receiver has seen more than 130 targets. The only receiver on the Saints who saw more than that was Jimmy Graham, and we all know what a bromance he had with Drew Brees. Even looking at Sean Payton's entire tenure with the Saints, just six times in 10 seasons (11 with the suspended year) has a player reached 130+ targets. Three times it was Jimmy Graham, three times it was Marques Colston. Colston topped 131 targets just once, all the way back in 2007 when he had 143.
That's why I'm not expecting a huge increase for Thomas. He will definitely be the most targeted part of the offense for the Saints, but I'm expecting a modest bump up to 130 targets. He should still be able to do plenty with that, but he's not going to be the target hog some might be expecting.
Willie Snead is a less mentioned part of the Saints offense, but he has been very impressive in his two seasons. He almost broke 1000 yards in his rookie season, and came close to 900 last season while competing with both Thomas and Cooks for a role. He's not the same type of player as Cooks, but with Cooks gone I do think Snead absorbs some more of his targets. I'm going to bump him from 104 last season to 115 this coming season.
The new kid on the block is Ted Ginn, though calling a 32 year a kid is probably not right. Ginn has been around the neighborhood, and has never quite been able to break the 800 yard mark. However, he did average 96 targets the last two seasons with the Panthers. I'm going to expect slightly less for him this season at 90.
How the Saints backfield shakes out is anyone's guess. Sean Payton seems to hate Mark Ingram to the point that I think he asked one of the local voodoo practitioners to make a doll of him. I doubt Peterson will be very involved in the passing game, but I also doubted he could dominate in 2012 after tearing his ACL. The Saints also have Alvin Kamara, who many project to be more of a pass catching specialist than a bruiser. The 162 targets running backs as a group got last season seems high, and yet it feels right if this backfield remains unchanged.
Last year you could hear all the jazz musicians and fantasy analyst alike touting their horns for Colby Fleener to become the next Jimmy Graham in New Orleans. While a line of 50-631-3 isn't terrible, it's definitely not what anyone was expecting. The fact that he couldn't even break 40 yards per game also isn't exactly encouraging and it's something he's done just once in his career while playing for Andrew Luck and Drew Brees.
On the other hand, I imagine the Saints have one of the toughest offenses in the league to learn and Fleener now has another year of experience under his belt. I'm expecting a slight uptick for the Saints tight end group this year because of progress from Fleener. I'll assign them 115 targets.
Conclusion
That leaves 39 targets unclaimed for end of the roster receivers like Brandon Coleman. I wouldn't go targeting anyone outside of the Saints top 3 in your leagues, unless you can get them very cheap. By now, it should be very clear who I think has the most value compared to their ADP in this Saints' offense.
So what can Willie Snead do on 115 targets? If his catch rate remains about as consistent as it has that would put him at about 78 receptions, 1014 yards, and 7 touchdowns. Sounds like a guy I'd want on my team, especially since he is a free agent at the end of the year. He could end up the WR1 on a new team if he plays his cards right.
Willie Snead, besides having a name that reminds me of Smee from Peter Pan, seems to be the most undervalued part of the Saints offense. His price is starting to course correct, but you have to keep in mind he's only turning 25 and going 8 spots after Terrelle Pryor according to DLF's most recent ADP data. Snead had 5 fewer receptions,112 fewer yards, and the same amount of touchdowns as Pryor on 40 fewer targets. Don't let the clock count down until you get eaten by Tick-Tock, acquire Snead while his ADP is still catching up to his opportunity.
Until next time,
Rek
@RekedFantasy
*All stats pulled from espn.com, pro-football-reference.com, and dynastyleaguefootball.com
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