Last year I was very high on Steven Jackson of the Atlanta Falcons. I ranked Jackson as my top player. Yes, a 29-year-old running back who ultimately finished with 157 carries for 543 yards and six touchdowns in just 12 regular season games. Clearly I was wrong about Jackson for a plethora of reasons. However, I'm less concerned with whether I was right or wrong and more concerned about whether the thought process was flawed.
My thought process with Jackson was relatively simple, but explained in greater detail here.
In short: I understood how bad Michael Turner had been during the previous season and how he was still able to produce because of the situation he played in. Turner had finished the 2012 season with 222 carries for 800 yards and 10 touchdowns. Meager numbers by typical standards, but numbers that were much higher than Turner's individual talent warranted and his high touchdown numbers should have been easily replicated by Jackson in that situation.
Turner had produced relatively well because he played on an offense that was stacked with weapons around him. Julio Jones, Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez were all fully healthy in 2012 so they drew the focus of the opposing defense on a weekly basis.
Jackson wasn't as talented as other backs in the NFL at the time, but he had averaged 4.1 yards per carry for the Rams in a bad situation the previous season. He didn't miss a single game during the 2012 season, even though he had some injury issues that hampered him at times, and he fit the mold of a bigger, goal line back who could replicate Turner's role and improve dramatically on his production.
Abandoning the thought process at this stage would be simple and probably celebrated by those who thought I was insane, but there is a problem with abandoning this thought process. That problem is Knowshon Moreno of the Denver Broncos.
Moreno finished the 2013 season with 241 carries for 1,038 yards and 10 rushing touchdowns, along with 60 receptionsf or 548 yards and three receiving touchdowns. In his four seasons previous to that, he had never had more than 800 rushing yards and eight total touchdowns. Moreno didn't suddenly become a superstar running back, he became a benefactor of the situation he played in. Much like I had expected Jackson to be in Atlanta, Moreno was the piece that defenses tried to force the Broncos to go to. Instead of taking coverage away from Julius Thomas, Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker and Eric Decker, defenses gave Moreno more room to work in.
Understanding how defenses and offenses work in precise detail is important. Usage is one of the biggest factors in determining where the ball goes on the field and where the ball goes determines who can be productive. How the defense sets up to stop the offense will always affect usage, but for the most part it's easier to understand usage when you focus primarily on what the offense is trying to do independent of who they face.
Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson is someone that has been touted as a benefactor of situation in previous years.
The idea that Johnson is the Texans' only legitimate receiving threat and the fact that he consistently either leads the league in targets or is very high up on the list makes it seem like Johnson's production couldn't benefit from playing in another situation. Johnson is a future hall of fame receiver who is coming off a very good season. Statistically, he has continually produced everything at a high level except for touchdowns. Of course, touchdowns are a major part of football and an even greater part of fantasy football, so it's not really a surprise that Johnson is (at the time of writing) ranked as the seventh best receiver on Football Guys.
Last year, during a season when the Texans offense was dysfunctional and their quarterback seemingly imploded on himself, Johnson still finished as the 11th highest scoring receiver in standard leagues. Dez Bryant, the receiver ranked 10th, had eight more touchdowns than Johnson last year. In fact, every single receiver that ranked above Johnson in standard scoring last year scored more touchdowns than him. Most scored significantly more, as only Alshon Jeffery and Antonio Brown had eight or fewer.
Johnson is 32 years of age now. He will be 33 before the start of next season. He has never had 10 touchdowns in a single season of his career, so there shouldn't be any reason to think that will change in 2014. Right now, at a time when Johnson is under contract with the Texans and slated to be catching passes from Ryan Fitzpatrick next season, Johnson's numbers are more likely to regress than progress.
The caveat is the potential trade that the receiver's holdout could force.
Johnson has played his whole career in either rigid or subpar offenses that focused on running the ball and using him as a possession receiver. Even before Gary Kubiak's final season as the head coach in Houston, it was evident that his offense didn't spread the field and take advantage of the talent outisde. While the focus with Johnson in terms of fantasy production is always on his quantity of targets, it's rarely ever on the quality of targets he receives. If Johnson is traded, he will likely join a contending team that will understand how to properly use him all over the field.
A team that will be more aggressive with him in the redzone and a team that will have a quarterback who can accurately push the ball down the field. In other words, a much better situation.
During the 2013 season, each of Johnson's five touchdowns came on passes from Case Keenum. Keenum replaced Matt Schaub as the team's starter during the regular season and he initially provided a spark. Keenum didn't play great football, but he started off throwing the ball well and had an aggressive attitude that completely contrasted Schaub's. Once Keenum began to struggle, Schaub came back in.
Even though Keenum was more aggressive than Schaub, the quality of service Johnson received wasn't anywhere near what it should have been.
Every green circle on the above image is a catchable target. Every orange circle is a touchdown reception. As the chart shows, Johnson had only seven catchable targets in the end zone last season. Three of those weren't converted to touchdowns, with one contested drop over the middle of the field, one open drop down the seam and one poorly thrown jump ball that the defender beat Johnson to. Johnson's two touchdowns to the top of the above image in the end zone were the only two jump ball touchdowns he scored last year. The one at the bottom came on a crossing route against Patrick Peterson.
Both of those jump ball situations featured poorly thrown passes, but passes that both defenders, Peterson and Vontae Davis, failed to get to despite being in a better position than Johnson.
For Johnson to go through a 16 game regular season and only see three total jump balls there has to be something wrong with your philosophy on offense. Johnson has phenomenal ball skills, despite struggling with drops in 2013, and the size to dominate most defensive backs. Gary Kubiak has consistently avoided throwing the ball to his star receiver the closer the offense gets to the goal line. Over the past five seasons, only one team has run the ball more often within 10 yards of the end zone than the Texans.
The Texans ran the ball 225 times and passed it 164 times during that time. For context, the Detroit Lions ran the ball 142 times versus 190 passes and the Dallas Cowboys ran the ball 172 times against 187 passes. Each of those teams has a dominant receiving option, but only one was ignoring theirs.
Not only was Johnson not targeted enough in the end zone last year, an incredible 57 of his 138 total catchable targets came within 40 yards of his own endzone. Over half of Johnson's targets on the season, 72, came in his own half, while he had 59 in the opposition's half. 38 of his 59 targets in the opposition's half came within 40 yards of the endzone, while just 15 came within 20 yards of the end zone.
Johnson isn't an exceptionally explosive receiver, but he is explosive enough to score from deep.
It's no coincidence that his scoring touch returned when Keenum came in and pushed the ball down the field. Keenum's problems as a starter were his inability to read defenses and react to pressure, but he could find receivers down the field. Even when Matt Schaub was at his most productive, he wasn't an aggressive downfield passer who allowed Johnson's playmaking ability to shine. Instead he put up numbers within the cautious, rigid offense that Kubiak had designed.
Even at 33 years of age, Johnson still has the ability to make big plays when the opportunities arise. Unfortunately, he was too regularly catching the ball underneath or on intermediate routes to stretch his legs last season.
Any team that acquires Johnson from the Texans will be a competitor, but also a team that intends on using him in a way that his production can reflect the price they would pay for him. There are very few teams in the league who have a worse situation than the Texans for a star receiver like Johnson right now. In fact, there may only be one team, the Oakland Raiders who boast Johnson's previous starting quarterback, Schaub.
It's very unlikely that Johnson would agree to a trade with the Raiders, so his chances of winding up there are unlikely. If Johnson does land with a more realistic option such as the New England Patriots, who need wide receivers, the Philadelphia Eagles, who have some wide receiver options but also have plenty of cap space, the New York Jets, who have cap space and a need at receiver, the Carolina Panthers, who would need to get creative with the cap but need a number one receiver, the Cleveland Browns, who have cap space and will likely need to replace Josh Gordon, the Cincinnati Bengals, who have cap space but not a dramatic need at receiver, or the Atlanta Falcons, who may take an unconventional approach to replace Tony Gonzalez ahead of a season where the head coach and general manager need to win.
Some of those moves seem unrealistic at this stage, but if Johnson holds out for long enough, then the Texans may be forced to let him go for a cut price. They gain nothing from keeping him as they begin to rebuild their roster.
No matter what happens, there will be some uncertainty surrounding Johnson for fantasy owners this year. The only question will be if that uncertainty is born out of concern over a horrible quarterback situation in Houston or born out of the optimism that comes with one of the most talented players in the NFL potentially thriving in new pastures.
