Fantasy Football Care/Don't Care: Is Dallas Cowboys G Zack Martin the key to the offense?
The NFL training camp rumor mill and news cycles are beginning to pick up speed. Fantasy football analyst Matt Harmon helps drafters sift through it all to determine what is true signal — and what is simply noise.
Five things I care about
Brock Purdy cleared to practice
The status of Brock Purdy has been shrouded in mystery essentially from the moment he suffered the elbow injury that rendered him ineffective for the NFC championship game. It appears the mystery has been solved.
The 49ers announced Tuesday that Purdy has been cleared to practice. While he will initially be on a management program, he will take QB1 reps at practice. It’s great news for anyone with any level of investment in this offense.
Kyle Shanahan’s unit functioned better with Purdy at the helm than at any other point in his 49ers tenure. Purdy checked in with a 7.6% touchdown rate in the regular season and averaged 8.1 yards per attempt. Yes, it’s hard to divorce Purdy’s direct impact on those results from Shanahan’s influence and the litany of excellent skill-position players in San Francisco. But it doesn’t really matter, as all of that will be at Purdy’s disposal once more in 2023.
I have Christian McCaffrey as a locked-in top-five fantasy pick, I'm the biggest Brandon Aiyuk backer in the business and am not shying away from Deebo Samuel or George Kittle at their respective ADPs either. It’s going to be tough to make the math work from a projections standpoint with all those guys but Purdy being out there gets the entire unit to max efficiency.
Jimmy Garoppolo has no restrictions to start camp
Early best-ball drafters were taking guys like Amon-Ra St. Brown and Garrett Wilson — whom I legitimately love, BTW — over one of the best wide receivers of this era coming off a peak-level season.
I just can’t abide by that.
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Hopefully, the news that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be 100% at the start of camp eases the worries around Davante Adams. Garoppolo may not be a great bet to play an entire season but he’s more than good enough to feed Adams on the routes he excels at when active. Adams is fantastic on quick slants, outlet routes in the flat and digs. Garoppolo made music with Deebo Samuel on those routes, particularly the dig, for years in San Francisco.
Adams is going to produce monster numbers in 2023. They’re just going to be accumulated differently than what we saw last season.
The Lions WR room is in flux
The Lions traded for Denzel Mims last week, placed Marvin Jones on the NFI list and announced that Jameson Williams will miss practice time with a leg injury. I’ve been saying for months that the outside receiver position for Detroit was quietly a massive weak spot with Williams set to serve a six-game suspension to start the year.
Who knows if Mims can be a featured player in this unit after struggling to catch on with the Jets coaching staff (they were admittedly not the group that drafted him). But a vertical X-receiver who can win along the boundary, which is the type of player Mims should be, is exactly what this offense needs. He’s one to watch this training camp to see if he can make the roster and carve out any significant role.
Williams’ injury on top of the suspension paves a lane of opportunity. Even when he returns after the six-game absence, we still have next to no idea of who Williams is as a pro receiver. The Lions absolutely need him to return on the promise of his prospect profile to stretch out the field. Otherwise, they’ll be a painfully “small ball” offense.
All of this uncertainty outside does bring us to the top pass-catcher on the team, Amon-Ra St. Brown.
The third-year receiver is a primarily off-ball slot man but took his game up another level against press and man coverage last year. If he continues to progress and gets a little luckier in the touchdown department, we could be looking at a 1,300-yard, 12-touchdown type of season. He’s developing into that type of player.
It’s always something with Kadarius Toney
The oft-injured Kadarius Toney aggravated a previous knee injury during a punt return drill in the opening portions of Chiefs training camp and had a clean-up surgery. He will miss a ton of crucial practice time with the offense and his Week 1 status is in doubt.
I was already out on Toney as a top-40 receiver off the board in fantasy drafts prior to this injury. Folks who have followed my work know I have significant concerns with his translation to a full-time receiver role as there is zero consistent NFL evidence that he’s a good enough route runner against man coverage to fill that spot. His supreme in-space ability isn’t matched by technical nuance.
It’s a very old-man-yells-at-the-clouds thing to say but there’s a good chance his lack of progression as a route runner, inability to stay healthy and time spent in the offseason getting in fights with Giants fans online is all connected.
I’m far more interested in figuring out the rest of the Chiefs' receiver rotation in terms of who will actually fit in the outside and slot. Skyy Moore was always my favorite bet to assume JuJu Smith-Schuster’s vacated slot/flanker role. He’s a favorite late-round target of mine. Marquez Valdes-Scantling is locked into the X-receiver position but I’d like to see if rookie Rashee Rice can buck the trend of Andy Reid rookie receivers and earn playing time across from him.
Zack Martin’s holdout
Essentially the last man standing from the Cowboys' once-legendary offensive line, Zack Martin is still playing at the absolute height of his powers — and he’s planning to stay away from training camp to voice his displeasure with his contract. Martin is still the best guard — and one of the premier overall offensive linemen — in the league but checks in at eighth in average annual salary.
This one should not be complicated. Dallas should give him an extension, clear up some cap space in the process and bump him to the highest-paid guard in football. Easy, cut and dry; done. As a franchise, you just have to reward truly cornerstone Hall of Fame players like this and not make it difficult.
Hopefully, that’s the path Dallas takes with this one. Few offensive linemen are true needle-movers all on their own when absent. Martin, however, personifies one of those players. I’m tracking this holdout because if it goes south, it would force me to break ties against players like Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Tony Pollard, etc. in drafts.
Five things I don’t care about
Javonte Williams will not start camp on the PUP
It is a good sign that Javonte Williams did not hit the PUP but that’s far from the most important hurdle to clear and it doesn’t guarantee he will be fully operational come Week 1. He’s still a tough player to click on in drafts.
I envision Williams’ season playing out similarly to Saquon Barkley's in 2021. Barkley was coming off an ACL tear — a less complex one than Williams', reportedly — and touched the ball just 11 times in Week 1. His snaps rates shot up every week after that and he eventually recorded 40 touches between Weeks 3 and 4 and scored three times across those two contests. Barkley eventually suffered a freak ankle injury after getting stepped on by a teammate in Week 5, but you get the picture.
Williams may be on a similarly slow ramp-up period and I won’t be surprised if he takes longer to get rolling during the year. I’ll continue to monitor reports but right now, he feels like a player to avoid drafting but perhaps explore trying to trade for midseason, when those snap counts start to rise.
Michael Thomas to be a full participant to start camp
It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. That is generally a fine tenet to follow but it’s especially true in the case of Michael Thomas. It’s awesome he’s out there to start training camp but I’m far more invested in tracking how long he stays on the field and if he can play into the regular season.
Thomas was once an elite separator with vice-grip hands. The former trait was diminished even when he played last season but he was still excellent in contested situations. That type of player would be useful for the Saints this season.
There is no doubt in my mind that Chris Olave is the top offensive player on this team and Thomas’ presence likely won’t prevent me from projecting a massive target share for the second-year player. But Thomas being out there will make the offense better and that will help Olave reach his ceiling. I happen to think that ceiling is quite high.
My takes on Rashod Bateman’s talent
I have been a huge fan of Rashod Bateman’s game since charting his 2019 collegiate season for Reception Perception. He passed all the tests I want to see from an individual receiver as a rookie.
Constant injuries have derailed his career at multiple turns. He’s starting camp on the PUP.
I don’t care about my talent evaluation anymore because I know what the player is capable of. We have seen it play out when he’s been on the field; circumstances have just gotten in the way.
The only thing that matters now with Bateman is positive health news. When we get that, I’ll be ready to bump up my projections and enthusiasm for his season in this more wide-open offense. For now, I’ll put my talent evaluation aside in favor of simply tracking the news.
The Giants add their 100th slot receiver
New York signed Cole Beasley over the weekend to join a (likely) slot receiver spot occupied by some combination of Parris Campbell, Wan’Dale Robinson, Sterling Shepard, Jalin Hyatt and Jamison Crowder.
Several of those players have significant health concerns and there’s a zero percent chance they are all on the active Week 1 roster. Beasley himself is no guarantee to be around. There is also no shot they all play the slot. Someone like Campbell, Shepard or Hyatt is going to have to play some flanker if they want to get on the field. Even with their heavy backgrounds inside, they could operate out there in spurts.
All of this mystery at the Giants' slot role leads me to move away from focusing on that position and be more concerned with the guys lining up outside. Isaiah Hodgins is one of my favorite late-round picks right now. He showed real ability to contribute outside and win on in-breaking routes. He also has good hands. Hodgins stands out in this receiver room and that can take a player a long way.
Isiah Pacheco panic
There was a good bit of worry when reports hit that Isiah Pacheco was coming off offseason surgeries and might land on the PUP. That did not happen.
The Chiefs running back room remains something of a mystery. Undrafted rookie Deneric Prince is getting a good bit of camp buzz. Veteran Jerick McKinnon played a critical role last year but was only retained on a modest contract. I’m not sure that last part matters, but it might.
I can’t seem to find one fantasy analyst who wants to proactively draft Pacheco. I get he’s a banger back with some holes in his profile but he’s also attached to the best offense in the league and earned crucial playing time in big games. He also just cleared one big hurdle people were worried about this offseason. Double-digit touchdowns are not out of the question for this player and you don’t have to draft him high to get some of that upside.
