1018: Mailbag - Keon Coleman's Week 1, Kenneth Walker's Value, and More

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

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It's a mailbag day. Let's get to these questions. The first question is from Patreon. It's from Kevin. It says, Hey JJ, how sustainable was the breakout game for Keon Coleman? He looked great, but was that only because of GameScript? Not sure if we can expect a 2 touchdown deficit for the bills every week. So I had Coleman as a target in this year's draft guide. And when I say things like that, I don't say to be like, Hey, look at me. I'm going to do this a lot on today's show. I mention it so that you guys can be grounded with where I was with a player before I dig into that player. If it makes you feel any better, I had Zay Flowers as an avoid. So how's that working out? I'm going to be right, I'm going to be wrong. That's the way this stuff goes. But I'm grounding myself to say I liked Keon Coleman entering the season. I was higher than the market with Coleman. I thought there were reasons to be interested in him. And so my answer to this is that I do think at least some of this is sustainable. But there's a lot of noise to what went down too, so let's just dig in. Buffalo is actually at just plus 0.7% in pass rate over expect against Baltimore. That's because as you noted, they faced a poor game script. So they were expected to pass a lot. I don't think that kind of script is going to be frequent. Josh Allen threw it 46 times in that game. His highest pass attempt total last year was 40 attempts. This isn't the way that Joe Brady tends to run his offense. The Bills ran 47 plays in week one while trailing by 10 or more points. Their highest total last year within that category was 40 plays, and funny enough, that also came against Baltimore. But this is why we can look at peripherals, you guys. This is a prime example of why I focused so heavily on things like target share. Because game script fluctuates. Overall team volume can fluctuate. When you know how a team deployed a player within his team environment, you can then adjust for a more stable game script. One that we're more likely to see for the Buffalo Bills. Keon Coleman in week one saw a 94% route participation rate. That was best on the Bills. He had a 24% target share. That was best on the Bills. Coleman reached better than a 90% route share just twice last year. And those games were in week 17 and week 18, the end of the year for a young rookie. His target shares in those games, they were also the two highest shares of his season. So this is sort of an extension of what we saw down the stretch in that 2024 season, which is very, very encouraging. And that's the part that I'm really interested in. So no, what happened in week one, not totally sustainable. He saw 11 total targets when a 25% target share in Buffalo usually won't yield 11 targets. But there are a lot of encouraging signs for Keon Coleman that make me believe he's gonna outperform his average draft position this year. A lot of his year one comparisons, when you look at things like averaged at the target, yards per out run, they were players who can play that X role and who can be big touchdown scorers, like Cortland Sutton and George Pickens. There were misses in there too, not all of his comps were perfect, but the ceiling comps were definitely there. And I think with Coleman, there is an interesting ceiling, despite the fact that some of these separation scores don't like him. That's just not his game. He's not gonna score well within those kind of metrics. I think overall, it's a very encouraging game for Keon Coleman. The next question is from Davey. It says, There's been a lot of talk about Harold Fannin of the Browns. I'm curious about your take on David Njoku. Is he a hold because of the trade possibility and the fact that he still ran a full complement of routes? I mean, I think he's a hold because it's one game. And yes, he still ran a normal number of routes. And Njoku isn't the same type of tight end as Harold Fannin is. I talked about this at times throughout the offseason. Specifically, I remember having a discussion about it with Matt Waldman, whether it was on my show or maybe his show. But Fannin is a very good route runner. He's not the most traditional tight end in the world from that perspective. Whereas in Njoku, he's always used his athleticism to get the job done. And Njoku can really stretch the field if need be. Fannin is more of that technician. What we saw in week one was number one, the Kevin Stefanski special, which is a lot of 12 personnel, two tight end sets, which makes a lot of sense because the Browns don't have a lot of wide receiver depth. They have no obvious slot receiver. Fannin ended up running 42% of his routes out of the slot. That's not like an insane number, but it was a lot more than David Njoku. I do think that one possibility here is that we're looking at a similar situation as what we saw last year in Baltimore, with Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely. In week one last year, Likely comes out, he has a monster game, but Andrews was still the one running more routes for Baltimore. That's definitely a possibility. With that being said, I think there's a better chance that we see Fannin overtaking Njoku than Likely overtaking Andrews. And yes, hindsight's in my favor here. We know that Isaiah Likely didn't overtake Mark Andrews last year. If these two things and these two situations were happening simultaneously, maybe my take is a little bit different. I can admit that. I have no idea. But the reason why is pretty straightforward to me. Fannin's a rookie, and he was a better prospect than Isaiah Likely. He's also a completely different type of asset compared to what the Browns already have. And David Njoku, he's not as good as Mark Andrews. So I'll just be honest, as the weeks gone on, I've gotten more and more bullish on Harold Fannin. I mean, I liked him coming out, and I even liked him as a dart thrown like best ball this year. I'm just saying from a redraft perspective, I've liked him more and more as I thought about this situation. I think our natural instinct is to say, well, David Njoku is there. Surely, he's going to be the tight end one in fantasy for the Browns. But I'm not convinced that's going to happen with the way they deployed Fannin in week one. Now, I don't think that's a sure thing right now. I still have Njoku ahead, but that gap is much closer after week one than it was before week one. And look, I was already lower than the market on David Njoku. And again, not saying that to pat myself in the back, just more to tell you that that was my stance entering the season. And I'm still lower than the market. I think this Fannin stuff is legit, especially because they lack that go-to slot player. So Fannin doesn't destroy Njoku, but he definitely hurts Njoku. They may not play the same type of position, but when you have another threat in that offense, it lowers the target share potential of the players around that player. With Harold Fannin getting looks, it hurts every other player in that offense. From a fantasy perspective, it's another 15% target share that we have to account for, and maybe that target share is going to be even higher. So even if that route share is strong, which it was in week one for David Njoku, having another weapon will make David Njoku's fantasy output worse. It doesn't make him irrelevant, and he might even be fine here in week two. But over the long run, Harold Fannin's presence makes David Njoku a worse fantasy football asset.