Vanilla Vick's Projections Are Too Low
Is 2023 Daniel Jones a less trendy version of 2022 Jalen Hurts in fantasy drafts?
Daniel Jones has been a more useful fantasy player than most realize. He finished last year as Yahoo’s QB9 overall with 300 points but was actually QB7 per game since he sat out one game. Despite this year’s Giants offense looking poised to take a step forward he’s still getting drafted below that ADP at QB14. Maybe that will change after a strong preseason cameo by the Giants starters, but there’s a lot of legacy Jones criticism baked in so if the hot takes from his new contract are any indication it would seem unlikely the narrative changes during fantasy draft season.
Looking back on last season’s breakout fantasy QB, Jalen Hurts playing like a legitimate real world MVP wasn’t something most predicted. One thing he did have going for him was a reasonably high statistical baseline pre-breakout — which more than Jones made him a popular name in fantasy drafts with a 2022 preseason ADP at QB6. He was getting drafted ahead of Aaron Rodgers off an MVP season, Matthew Stafford off a Super Bowl, and Joe Burrow with all world receivers and an improved OL. Hurts’ rushing numbers were a big part of his fantasy appeal, but they also ended up a big part of his real world impact so discounting a QB’s running ability seems more like an area where perception may still be stuck in the pocket QB past when evaluating QBs, especially for fantasy football purposes.
This ‘22 blurb was from Jake Ciely, lead fantasy football writer at The Athletic, in a preseason article last year where he chose Hurts as his pick as the most likely “league winning” player.
Jake Cieley, August 2022:
Here was that 2022 projection on Hurts’ statline, which ended up dead on:
Each year Ciely publishes his user editable projection tool (Athletic subscription required) which spits out similarly useful statlines for each player on an offense based on the offenses environment (run/pass splits, total plays) and the players’ share of that offense (targets, touches, completition%, catch%). I’m a big fan of Cieley’s methodology, and it’s notable that this baseline was the key factor in his bullishness on Hurts last year when combined with the context of the skill around him improving.
As a starting point, here’s Cieley’s 2023 projection for Jones which add up to 295 fantasy points and QB17 overall, which in total is very similar to his season last year and almost exactly the same as the 298 points projected by Yahoo.
These projections assume a 53% passing baseline and it’s my belief that is a significant underestimate of the Giants offense and their playcallers - creating significant upside beyond the consensus projections.
Projecting The 2023 Giants Offensive Environment
In 2022 the Giants offense passed and run the ball the exact same number of times - 520 pass attempts, 520 rush attempts. Perfectly balanced.
Within that full season however there were actually 2 very different split seasons. In the first 10 weeks the starting wide receivers were an amalgamation of players who aren’t going to start anywhere this year. Kenny Golladay (4 starts) is out of the NFL, Marcus Johnson (7 starts) is currently unsigned, David Sills (5 starts) is in camp but is unlikely to elevate beyond the practice squad. Not surprisingly they were one of the most run heavy offenses in the NFL. Wandale Robinson, Kadarius Toney, and Sterling Shepard battled injuries and were all either injured or traded by the end of this split.
The Giants claimed Isaiah Hodgins off waivers on November 4th and from his first start 2 games later week 11 on November 20th the offense changed. In that 7 game stretch from week 11 to week 17 a competent starting trio of Hodgins / James / Slayton made the Giants offense a completely different unit than the first half of the season. They literally flipped the proverbial run/pass script. An achievement all the more impressive given the fact that all 3 were basically making league minimum.
In the playoff win against Minnesota, which isn’t included in any of the projections, they passed 35 times and ran 27 not counting the last 3 kneel downs, good for that same 56%. So while that game is not part of the projections I think it helps validate the offensive environment the coaching staff is shooting for. In fact it may even still be an underestimation because both were part of 60%+ offenses prior to coming to NY.
Jones’ baseline projection with 56% pass plays
If we start our projections with the same 1040 total offensive plays as the giants last year, which happened to be exactly middle of the pack, and use the Jones average rate metrics from weeks 11-17 with 56% passing plays we get:
56% = 582 passing attempts
69% completions = 401 completions * 6.8 y/a = 3,958 yards
3% td = 17 td, 1.3% int = 7 ints
124 rush attempts /780 rushing yards /10 tds (in 2022 he had 120/708/7 in 16g)
In Yahoo standard scoring this would equate to a 351 point season, which would have been QB5 last year, before counting any 2 point conversions (he had 2 last year).
I consider something having happened before one of the better predictors of what may happen again, so while Cieley’s projections are sound and capture some things that these projections don’t, like Darren Waller, I think for the purposes of estimating a baseline this is a better place to start conservatively and then revise up (or down) from there.
It’s also worth mentioning the projections have a lot of similarities. If you combine the aggregate Giant passing numbers (lumping Tyrod’s numbers in with Jones’) Ciely’s projections come in with almost the same passing yardage, +6 more passing touchdowns, and +3 more interceptions, all at a slightly lower completion percentage (66%). His projections have Jones with 295 fantasy points with the delta mainly coming from him projecting 25% less rushing production.
The arguments for upside
The weapons aren’t elite but they are a lot better - Remember how the receivers in the inputs from the end of last year were all minimum salary players? Not any more. Waller is one of the highest paid TEs in the league for a reason and they’ve added 3 new slots with about $80m in career earnings who may upgrade Richie James even before considering players returning from injuries or rookies. Jalin Hyatt is a legitimate boom factor who can also play slot. Hyatt was one of my favorite Giant draft picks of the last 2 decades because the upside is significant. His verified track times and performance against Alabama support him being one of the fastest non-Tyreek Hill players on the planet. If he hits and Waller stays healthy this is a totally different offense. Hodgins also has more boom factor than he gets credit for, a full season at his pace from last year is near 1k yards/10 tds.
More experience and confidence in the system - Jones has continuity with the coaches, a signature road playoff win, and a lot more in the bank. Not only can he let it fly, but these are coaches with histories running offenses with higher passing rates than 56%. It’s very possible they want to let it fly too.
The inputs from the 2nd half last year aren’t “cherry picked” - if you compare some of the inputs above to Jones’ career averages they aren’t that different. The 3% td rate estimated in our baseline is actually almost .5% below his career average of 3.4% and well behind his rookie year high. The 3% td rate is not far off the putrid Judge/Garrett offenses. League wide a 4% td% was only good for 20th best in the NFL last year and that would mean 23 touchdowns, which is more in line with Ciely’s projection. That’s an important fantasy scoring category with room for upside. Hurts threw touchdowns on 4.8% of his throws, so Jones’ bar for significant statistical improvement isn’t that high.
The arguments for downside risk
Other than the obvious (injury) the TL:DR macro risk is Kafka/Daboll having a sophomore slump. I wouldn’t dismiss a sophomore slump because I think there are a lot of reality-based reasons why those happen a lot, but regression to the prior levels of offensive incompetence under Judge/Garrett seems unrealistic, which as mentioned is something that gives me comfort in projecting a baseline with numbers not so far off Jones’ performance with them. There are however some tangible areas where I do see potential team regression this year:
Harder Schedule - this is a key reason I think the W/L record may regress, which will obviously impact how Jones’ gets judged in the real world. For statistical projections I’m not sure this is actually a negative. When teams play from behind they pass more, against defenses generally giving up empty yards. So for statistical purposes I think this is just as valid a speculative argument for improvement since they played so many close games last year. Game flow is another area of potential regression but since they were neutral last year, I see it more likely the harder schedule skews them toward playing from behind more which may mean more passing, not less. The 2022 Eagles ended up with about 50 more total plays than Ciely projected last year, yet fewer passing plays and more runs at a near 50-50 split. So Hurts’ explosion was almost entirely efficiency driven, not volume driven (he also only played 15 games) because they played from ahead so frequently.
Offensive Line Unknowns - this would be my top concern as it was one of the areas the Giants were most overmatched by better teams like Dallas and Philly last year. Rookies Evan Neal and Josh Ezeudu were liabilities in the passing game, and now John Michael-Schmitz is the next rookie projected to start. He was drafted 10 spots ahead of where Ezeudu got picked last year, 50 spots behind Neal, and center is also generally considered a more difficult position for rookies, so if he struggles similarly it shouldn’t be a surprise. Mark Glowinski is a veteran who struggled for most of last year but did settle down in the last month. Other than Thomas there’s questions across the rest of the line. Ben Bredeson hasn’t been named a starter yet and he may be the 2nd best lineman on the team. If the line regresses turnovers will increase, scoring will decrease, and the new weapons won’t matter. A lot riding on a young OL and Bobby Johnson.
Red Zone Efficiency - The Giants had the 5th best red zone TD% of all teams in 2022 at 64%, which was consequently their best as a team in decades. For context, Daniel Jones’ rookie year was one of the other good ones in the last decade at 57% which was good for 17th best in the league that season. The disastrous Judge/Garrett years aside, Jones also has a good history in the Red Zone even going back to Duke, but it’s an area where they were statistically successful last year so it’s an area where there’s risk they could regress.
So, is Jones a ‘league winner’ this year?
Since we’ve seen what Jones’ stat lines look like at some of the lowest points imaginable of modern offensive football, with some really bad OLs and skill players, I feel like his career rate metrics have a pretty safe floor baked in that should stay close to the baseline projection even if some of those negative arguments out. I refuse to believe there can be an offensive environment worse than the Judge/Garrett offenses, no less one coached by Daboll/Kafka. But hey it could happen. Jim Fassel had to relieve Sean Payton of play calling duties. And it worked. One of the reasons the NFL is great is the reliability of the unexpected happening, but based on last year that would certainly be unexpected.
Drafting players on teams you have rooting interest in is dangerous but it’s hard for me to not think the Giants offense has a higher ceiling with more explosive players. So I see a viable starting fantasy QB as a baseline in the range of where he finished last year (QB6-QB12), available at a relative discount (QB14+), and with top 6 upside if the offense clicks and stays healthy. I probably wouldn’t bet on league winner, but at his current ADP he should be a draft bargain when healthy. And if he’s not healthy, QBs are the easiest thing to find later. So at worst that should give you 1 more higher pick to roll the dice on a different league winner at a skill position.
One last possible risk is the team running Jones less to take fewer hits (Ciely projected less running, but I don’t know if he was just scaling Jones’ rushing totals to their prior norms or anticipating an intentional change in usage). If the Giants weapons are effective enough, especially if Barkley, maybe they choose not to risk Jones as much? That type of evolution happened with Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson as they became better passers and their fantasy values have been more volatile since, though it hasn’t happened with Josh Allen. At his current ADP Jones is worth that flier.