Commanders QB, WR, RB & TE reports from Football Outsiders Almanac 2022

The annual Football Outsiders Almanac was just released, and I got my copy this week. I have a short interview lined up with the author of the Washington Commanders section of the almanac sometime between now and the start of training camp (27 July), and I expect that to be fairly interesting.

In the meantime, I thought I’d give you a taste of what you can expect from the 539-page almanac if you buy a copy.

In the back of the book, there is a blurb on nearly every skill player in the league who played in 2021 and returned for the ‘22 season, along with some of the top-drafted rookies. This is intended primarily for fantasy football team owners who want to prepare for their fantasy drafts, with stats history for recent years and projections for 2022, but the assessments are based on real football from as many as the past 3 seasons (depending on how long the player has been in the league).

Let’s see what the Football Outsiders have to say about the primary offensive skill position players on the Commanders team.

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QUARTERBACK

The guys at Football Outsiders absolutely hate Carson Wentz! Their analysis and criticism of Washington’s starting quarterback goes far beyond anything rational, and throughout the team summary (which I don’t quote in this article) they’re advancing every negative narrative about the QB that you’ve heard from the past two seasons with the Eagles and the Colts. I’ll delve deeper into the irrational hate in the “coming soon” interview article, but you’ll get a small taste of it here (and in the blurb on Terry McLaurin).

I don’t think I’ll be giving too much away to say that Football Outsiders seems to be expecting the Commanders to have a top-5 draft pick in 2023, though they don’t say it in as many words, and that expectation seems to rest squarely on their dim view of Carson Wentz, even as they project him to nearly replicate his numbers from last year’s 9-win season in Indianapolis.

Carson Wentz

The book on Wentz last year was to keep throwing zone coverages at him. His DVOA declined by 14.6% against zone in 2021 and by 14.3% against zone in 2020. Wentz was hit in motion a league-high 12 times last season and a league-high 11 times in 2020, and the Colts had a -36.3% DVOA on throws to receivers behind the line of scrimmage. Defenses were able to wait out his big mistakes while they made him hold the ball longer, and the only element of the short game to keep defenses honest (and hide a lot of bad Wentz play) was Jonathan Taylor carries.

Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

There will be no Jonathan Taylor carries for Wentz this year in his return to the NFC East. “I’ve seen the energy level rise,” Ron Rivera said in April. “When I talk to [Wentz’s] new teammates there’s an excitement in their voice. ... You can feel that energy spike.” The sugar rush of pretending to solve quarterback problems makes for a fun offseason story, but you can ask the Colts about how that energy spike felt during and after the 2021 season.

Taylor Heinicke

It wasn’t bad for a total non-prospect who got his first real chance to start at 28, really. Heinicke’s major problem is that he will hold the ball forever. His 2.97-second average time to throw was fourth-highest among qualified starters per NFL Next Gen Stats, and while he has some innate playmaking ability, he also dragged a decent Football Team offensive line down to 24th in adjusted sack rate.

Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images

Despite all that, nothing hurt Heinicke’s raw stats more than Washington’s short game: he had a -25.2% DVOA on 89 targets to receivers behind the line of scrimmage. Throwing to every other area of the field, Heinicke delivered at least a 29.3% DVOA. Heinicke absolutely showed enough last year to qualify as a quality backup. Based on the recent history of Carson Wentz, that’s a good thing for the Commanders to have. Heinicke will be a free agent after the season and figures to command $3 million to $5 million a year if healthy.

Sam Howell

A cautionary tale of Way-Too-Early 2022 Mock Draft Season, Howell fell all the way to the fifth round before the Commanders stopped his slide.

His completion percentage fell nearly seven points in his final season at North Carolina, and he threw for six fewer touchdowns (which was especially concerning because his total had already fallen by eight touchdowns the season before).

His mechanics and throwing power give him highlight-reel plays, but he’s only 6-foot-even and gets hung up in his process and stuck on targets. It’s hard to name many quarterbacks who have fallen this far down in the draft and developed into a legitimate starter.

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WIDE RECEIVERS

For as much irrational hate as FO has for Wentz, they seem to be just as excited about Terry McLaurin as most Commanders fans are. While the fantasy projection for McLaurin is surprisingly conservative for a guy who just signed a 3-year $71m extension, the blurb on McLaurin is clearly written by one of his fans, and includes a shot at Carson Wentz and the Commanders front office at the end.

After that, however, there’s not a lot of love for Washington’s returning receivers, though the fantasy blurb below on rookie Jahan Dotson is more positive than the view of him expressed in the team overview section of the Almanac.

Terry McLaurin

One of the forgotten soldiers of the 2022 War for Wide Receiver Pay, McLaurin didn’t attend voluntary OTAs as he searched for a new contract in line with the new reality of the position. The Commanders gave it to him in late June: three more years through 2025 for $71 million with $53 million guaranteed and a record $28-million signing bonus.

On deep targets last year, McLaurin had just a 4.2% DVOA. The average is 26.0%, and McLaurin was the only player with more than 40 targets to be below 5.0% not named DK Metcalf. The main issue? He caught just 36% of those targets. And only 71% of his total targets on the season were catchable, per Sports Info Solutions’ charting.

Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

In the first four weeks of the season, McLaurin caught eight balls with a target depth of 15 yards or more. He had just 10 the rest of the season, as Taylor Heinicke was shut out throwing to him deep on multiple occasions.

This sure seems like a wideout who has everything you’d look for in a star; all he needs is the quarterback to bring it all out. Now let’s just all pretend that we don’t know what Washington did instead, doesn’t that feel better?

Jahan Dotson

A bit small for an NFL flanker, Dotson uses his suddenness to punish cornerbacks—he displayed several excellent double moves in college, and the ability to create separation comes naturally to him.

The concerns about his size also show up in contested-catch situations, which will be a problem for him in the NFL without further development.

The Commanders sprung him much earlier than anticipated in the first round, so it’s obvious that he’ll get plenty of early playing time. Ultimately the player the Washington hope Dotson emulates in the pros is T.Y. Hilton. He has a ways to go to get there, but the separation is the most important thing, and he has that in spades.

Curtis Samuel

In Year 1 of his three-year, $34.5-million contract, Samuel was extremely hurt. He only played 84 snaps, laid low by a groin injury from training camp and then briefly resurfacing in the middle of the year until a hamstring injury put him back on IR.

This is an enormous season for Samuel, who probably needs to be productive in 2022 to be regarded as a starting-caliber NFL wideout. He did report to OTAs and practice in May, so that’s a good start.

It’s hard to say that he’ll have heavy fantasy relevance in a suddenly packed Washington receiver corps, but when healthy he has the behind-the-LOS tackle-breaking game that the Commanders both want to use and had almost no success with last year. Samuel is well off most fantasy radars right now, but he’s a bit of a sleeper if everything comes together right for him. Samuel’s KUBIAK projection includes 20 carries for 88 yards and a touchdown (0.6% DVOA).

Dyami Brown

Brown qualified for NFL Next Gen Stats’ weekly leaderboard twice: Week 3 and Week 6. In those two weeks he gained 2.1 and 1.4 yards of separation on average, respectively. Those would both be bottom-10 numbers in the NFL over the course of the full season. After opening the season with snap count shares of 93% and 87%, Brown never played that much again and dealt with a nagging knee injury through October.

He’ll get some run if the Commanders have more setbacks with Curtis Samuel, but nothing from Brown’s rookie season is all that encouraging. The hope that he’ll develop in the NFL still hangs on his college performance, which gave him an 84.7% Playmaker Rating.

Cam Sims

A big body at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, Sims was mostly a bystander on offense even with the injuries the thenFootball Team dealt with. He started the final three games of the season and produced just 48 scoreless yards.

The 26-year-old is likely to find his way into a roster spot, but only $750,000 of his $2.5-million deal is guaranteed. He’s a nice role player, and probably would have produced better if Washington had better quarterback play, but he’s no hidden gem.

Dax Milne

One of Zach Wilson’s favorite targets at BYU, Milne had a very odd usage in 2022: No special teams snaps at all, but a consistent two- to 12-snap role on offense while everyone was healthy.

The lack of special teams play probably hurts his chances to stick on the roster for another season, especially after Washington picked Jahan Dotson in the first round.

When asked by the Deseret News after the season what his teammates asked him about playing at BYU, Milne replied: “People ask me if I have multiple moms, or multiple wives. That sort of thing.”

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RUNNING BACKS

Football Outsiders definitely don’t see the uptrend with Antonio Gibson that I do. To me, Gibson is improving his actual running skills almost game-by-game. If he can solve last year’s fumbling issue, then I think he’ll be in the top half of the league’s ball carriers this season, but in a fantasy-focused analysis, I can understand why FO’s report on Gibson is a bit underwhelming.

FO is a bit more bullish on JD McKissic, though I think they still are less impressed with him than I am — again, I write that off to the difference between fantasy football and real football.

As fantasy plays, Washington’s returning 1-2 punch is much less exciting than they are on a real field on a Sunday, Monday or Thursday.

Although I’ve seen a lot of people suggesting that Robinson will take over the lead back role this season, I don’t agree, and neither does FO. Their assessment of Brian Robinson is pretty close to my own, though they describe the 6’1”, 228 pound Robinson as being “a bigger between-the-tackles back” than the 6’2”, 220 pound Gibson, which seems a stretch for a guy who is one inch shorter and 8 pound heavier.

Antonio Gibson

How do you lose the trust of your coach as a potential every-down back? Well, one thing you could do is spend nearly the whole season battling shoulder, hip, turf toe, and shin ailments, as Gibson did. Another thing you could do is finish with a -29.1% rushing DVOA in the red zone, the worst of any back with more than 45 carries in that area, while averaging 1.7 yards per attempt.

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

The red zone stats probably aren’t super sticky—Gibson ran for a 51.4% DVOA on 29 red zone attempts in 2020. But it wasn’t hard to build a case that Gibson struggled last season.

As with a more famous back in the NFC East, you can trace some of this to playing hurt. Unlike that other NFC East back, Gibson is on a rookie contract and was drafted by a different front office. He’s a dynamic back but it looks more and more likely he’s destined to be a committee guy.

JD McKissic

Has a two-year, $7-million contract ever delivered so much fantasy impact? McKissic was going to desert the Commanders for Buffalo in April, but reneged on the contract as free agency was officially opening.

Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images

The cascade effect helped destroy Antonio Gibson’s fantasy value and boosted James Cook into the perfect place.

McKissic missed the last six weeks of 2021 with a concussion, but remains a PPR-viable back as Washington had a hard time hanging in games against tougher opponents and could never get Curtis Samuel fully healthy. While we’re happy that McKissic was rewarded with the contract, there’s not a ton of upside for him in 2022 with the running back committee gaining a new member in Brian Robinson. He’ll look to dominate passing downs again.

Brian Robinson

Robinson got almost no run at Alabama until his final season, but blew up in a big way with nearly half of his career rushing total (1,343 yards) and over half of his career receptions (35) in 2021.

He’s an interesting stylistic addition to the Washington backfield, as his 225-pound frame marks him as a bigger between-the-tackles back than Antonio Gibson. He may eventually develop into something like the AJ Dillon to Gibson’s Aaron Jones, and at age 23 he’s an older rookie who should be ready to take that kind of role this year.

Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The DeAngelo Williams/Jonathan Stewart Panthers were part of Ron Rivera’s first season as a professional head coach, and with J.D. McKissic on the roster as the main pass-catching back, there could be a full-blown committee this year. If the Commanders are as bad as our projections fear, Robinson probably won’t get as much as the other two portions of it.

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TIGHT ENDS

Like me, Football Outsiders seems to be a fan of what Logan Thomas was accomplishing prior to his knee injury late last season, and, also like me, seem unsure about what to expect from the former quarterback as he returns from the major injury. I love the final sentence of his blurb, which pretty much mirrors how I am looking at Thomas this season.

John Bates gets a pretty good writeup here too, though FO suggests that Bates was behind Ricky Seals-Jones on the depth chart for all of last season. In fact, following the Week 10 injury to Seals-Jones, in the 3 weeks that both tight ends were healthy (14,15,16), Bates out-snapped RSJ on a per-game basis roughly 40 to 30. Seals-Jones is now on the NY Giants roster.

The assessment of Cole Turner seems fair enough, though I could see him as a frequent red-zone target in 2022, playing a bit of a ‘TD vulture’ role for the Commanders.

Logan Thomas

Thomas spent time on IR early in the year with a hamstring injury, then suffered a torn ACL in Week 13’s loss to the Raiders. Thomas has a strong history of health in the past, but he turned 31 in July and could start training camp on rehab status rather than with the main group. We could truly see this going either way.

Thomas was on the ascent after the last few years and he has the size and speed to be a matchup problem. He’s also a 31-year-old tight end with exactly one year of more than 18 receptions.

Photo by Chris Unger/Getty Images

KUBIAK is kind of splitting the middle ground here—and it makes sense because of the lack of history to fall back on—but if Thomas is healthy for 17 games he has a chance to obliterate that projection.

John Bates

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Logan Thomas’ latest long-term injury put Bates into the No. 2 tight end role, and whenever Ricky SealsJones was down, Bates became a full-time player. What we learned in his first season is that Bates can help on backside blocks and catch some balls as a lower-rung depth option. That’s not a bad outcome at all for a fourth-round pick, and Bates will be penciled in next to Thomas again in 2022.

Cole Turner

The fourth-round tight end out of Nevada has a chance to have a fantasy impact in the future. He combines 6-foot-6 height with soft hands and some suddenness, and he has shown he can make contested catches.

If Logan Thomas is healthy, Turner will likely learn from him this year and have a shot at the real job in 2023. If Thomas isn’t, Turner could battle John Bates for targets. He’s an interesting dynasty fantasy stash, though not one with a ton of upside.

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