Bryce Brown just can’t catch a break!
Tuesday night brought with it news that the NFL’s free agency period would kick off with a surprising trade between the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles that will send linebacker Kiko Alonso to Philly and running back LeSean McCoy to Buffalo – a stunning development for several reasons, but we’re here to talk fantasy football—so let’s do that.
CJ Spiller is a free agent, so it appeared that Brown—McCoy’s backup in Philadelphia for two years before he was traded to the Bills last May—would potentially get a shot at regular work. Sure, Fred Jackson is under contract for one more year, but the 34-year-old wasn’t going to be a workhorse.
Now he definitely won’t be, and Brown might find himself looking for a new team.
McCoy has back-to-back seasons without missing a game, combining for 706 touches over that stretch. He also managed to average 5.1 and 4.2 yards per carry, respectively, the last two seasons, totaling just shy of 3,000 rushing yards. And this was despite all of the injury-related turnover on Philly’s offensive line last season. Speaking of offensive line, that’s the most interesting part of McCoy’s change of scenery.
Pro Football Focus rated the Buffalo’s O-line 30th in 2014, and there’s not a lot of optimism regarding potential improvement going into 2015, as the Bills don’t have a first-round pick. The Bills, having lost out on the (cough, cough) Josh McCown sweepstakes, also lack a competent answer at the quarterback position. With a slower-paced offense and far worse unit in front of him, not even Rex Ryan’s bulk rushing attack will help McCoy match his pace of the last two seasons.
But at least that bulk is still there.
In his six seasons as head coach of the New York Jets, Ryan oversaw an offense that finished out of the top six in rushing attempts just once. And fortunately for the Bills, Ryan has plenty of experience running a squad without a capable quarterback. That said, Ryan hasn’t had a single rusher finish higher than ninth in rushing attempts since Thomas Jones was second with 331 back in 2009. The next highest total for a Ryan back was Shonn Greene’s 276 carries in 2012. Then again, Ryan’s best two rushers in any one season came from the likes of Jones, Greene, Chris Ivory, Bilal Powell, and past-their-primes Chris Johnson and LaDainian Tomlinson. McCoy will be the best Ryan’s had to work with, and it’s not close.
Given Brown’s playmaking ability, I anticipate McCoy will once again top the 300-carry barrier (given 16 games of relative health), but his ceiling is in the low 4s for yards-per-carry versus the low 5s it would’ve been in Philadelphia. Taking a look at Buffalo’s schedule, the average rank of rushing defenses (with AFC East teams counting twice) from 2014 is 17, so at least the starting point for opponents is slightly below league average in the run defense department prior to free agency and the draft.
Overall McCoy is still looking like a top 10 fantasy back, but he’s now a late-first rounder in 2015 fantasy drafts rather than a top-five pick.
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I’m not sure I agree that it dips slightly–the Bills have no offensive line, their quarterback is average at best even with Matt Cassel, and their receiver corps is largely unproven young guys. Teams will come in keying on McCoy–who with his likely sulky attitude–fueled by his douchebag agent (unless the Bills cave and give him more cash)–I move McCoy down my board quite a bit. And I’ve always had him lower than most to start.
Sounds basically like this is just affirmation of your previous dislike of McCoy. If you had him lower than most already you had a negative impression of him (relatively speaking), so any negative value impact would reasonably have a disproportionate impact (again, relatively speaking) on his adjusted value. Where I could agree with your assessment of how much the O-line will impact McCoy is that of the backs in Buffalo’s stable last season, CJ Spiller is probably the closest comp–and he was arguably the worst of all of them. That said, even though he’s the closest comp, I don’t think he’s a GOOD comp, and if Fred Jackson can still find success despite the bad offensive line, I think McCoy can, too. Plus, with the short supply of workhorse backs, and the assumption that McCoy will still be one, I think there’s only so far down the rankings McCoy can drop regardless of anyone’s overall options of Buffalo’s supporting cast.
Not like I am dropping him to the third or fourth round of my board–I just think there’s a lot to dislike. And not sure that I would call Fred Jackson’s 2 TDs and 3.7 YPC a lot of success.
That being said, if you want some upside, I suspect he will be just as involved (if not more) in the passing game. And, I can’t see McCoy holding out, because the Bills will probably cave to Douche Agent’s demands…
Fair point on Jackson’s numbers, though that leaves out his career-best receiving stats. Obviously they had to do something to get their RBs away from that offensive line, and McCoy certainly has that skill set moreso than Jackson does.