With NFL training camps officially open, your prep work for shꦰould be kicking into high gear. There is a lot of ground to cover over the next month, including training camp battles to monitor, depth charts to st﷽udy and draft strategies to test out.
If you’re looking for the best place to begin, if you’re looking to gain that edge over everyone else, you should start with one of the most important yet most o💛verloo🍒ked aspects of the game and learn every team’s coaching system.
One of the most common mistakes made by fantasy players, and even most analysts, is how they base their opinions of players on year-to-year statistics. If a receiver posted 1,300 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2018, he has to be a highly coveted draft target in 2019, right? But what happens if, in 2019, that player is on a different team wiℱth a different coach, and not just a different offensive scheme but also a different quarterback throwing him the ball? Can you count on a duplicate performance?
There is no doubt Antonio Brown is an outstanding receiver. His talent is off the charts. But Brown has spent the past nine seasons playing in Pittsburgh within Mike Tomlin’s system and with Ben Roethlisberger throwing him the ball. Yes, he will be the featured rec🐼eiver in Oakland, but there is no guarantee he will be force-fed targets as we’ve seen in previous seasons, and there is no telling how long it will take for him and QB Derek Carr to get their timing down.
Do you remember how much Jarvis Landry struggled after going from Miami to Cleveland? He went from being the featured slot receiver with 100-plus catches and nine t🌃ouchdowns to and 80-catch wideout who found the end zone just four times. Not only did he and quarterback Baker Mayfield struggle wit𒅌h their timing, but he was no longer the first-look for the man under center.
But it is more than just landing with a new team. There are eight new head coaches, 16 new offensive coordinators a꧂nd 10 new defensive coordinators this season. New systems are in place all around the NFL. What happens to the workload of David Johnson in Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid offense in Arizona? Does Kenny Golladay still have the same upside now that Lions coach Matt Patricia has Darrell Bevell, his run-first offensive coordinator, in place?
Studying and understanding each team’s offensive system is going to put you light years ahead of your competition. You’ll learn which wide receivers wil🤡l see the most targets, which tight ends will be more incorporated in the passing attack and which backfields, both starters and handcuffs, to draft. Let your opponents assume Adam Thielen is still a thing. You’ll know better and finish higher in the standings because of it.
Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at . Follow him on Twitter and catch him on the award winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 4-6 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy sports advice, and average .