There are various reasons for a team’s target share to divide differently from one season to the next: coaching change, quarterback change, other personnel change, etc.
Let’s take a deeper look into some of these cases for 2023, focusing on the AFC for the first half of this two-part series.
- More Fantasy Football Advice
- Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
- Expert Consensus Fantasy Football Draft Rankings
- Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
AFC Target Analysis (2023 Fantasy Football)
NEW PLAYCALLER: Chargers, Kellen Moore (Offensive Coordinator)
Impacted Players: Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Quentin Johnston, Austin Ekeler, Gerald Everett
After two seasons with Joe Lombardi as the play-caller, the Chargers poached Kellen Moore from the Cowboys to wear the headset on the other line of Justin Herbert‘s helmet. While it’s a near certainty that the Chargers’ offense will be stretched more verticality in 2023 – only the Colts had a lower aDOT than LAC’s 6.4 figure in 2022 – it remains to be seen how Moore will leverage his new group of weapons.
It’s a safe bet that the Chargers will run the ball more after nearly leading the league with a 67% pass rate in 2022, but Moore’s affinity for balance shouldn’t stop there. While Moore is adept at building around his team’s strengths, he still has a strong track record of relatively even target distribution in his offenses too. You shouldn’t expect one or two receivers to dominate target share in his offense.
Let’s look back to Dallas’ 2020 season when the Cowboys’ deep group of weapons all managed to remain healthy over the full season. Here was their target distribution:
- Amari Cooper: 130
- CeeDee Lamb: 111
- Michael Gallup: 105
- Dalton Schultz: 80
- Ezekiel Elliott: 71
- Tony Pollard: 40
Even with their backs against the wall with their salary cap situation, the Chargers managed to retain Keenan Allen, Austin Ekeler and Gerald Everett. Plus, they used their first-round pick on Quentin Johnston despite having more glaring holes than WR3 elsewhere on the roster. With those four, plus Mike Williams, it’s clear that the Chargers place an immense value on each of them for 2023. Stylistically, it’s easy and pretty fair to compare the role of 2020 Cooper to 2023 Allen in Moore’s offense, and so on for Gallup to Williams, Schultz to Everett, and Elliott + Pollard to Ekeler.
The most interesting comparison of the bunch is Lamb to Johnston, who have more in common than one might think. Johnston has the reputation of a deep threat from his TCU days and might dwarf Lamb regarding weight and length. However, he’s a YAC monster like CeeDee and might be best – especially early in his career – on schemed touches close to the line of scrimmage. I think it’s reasonable to project Johnston for similar rookie production to Lamb, and he finished as the WR20 that season. There’s some baked-in upside, too, should Mike Williams continue to miss games.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | SoundCloud | iHeartRadio