A year ago, Jerick McKinnon was a fantasy darling and showing up in the second round of a lot of drafts. After he was lost in the preseason, Matt Breida struggled to stay healthy but turned in good numbers alongside the ancient Alfred Morris. Oh, and Kyle Juszczyk seemed to get 2.5 targets every week.
This season, it seems that the newly-signed Tevin Coleman has been anointed the 49ers' primary back. Is that so? And if it is, just how primary is primary? What is McKinnon's role? What is Breida's? Will we see anything from the youngsters Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson? Oh, and will Juszczyk continue to get 2.5 targets every week?
Andy Hicks
The San Francisco backfield is fascinating heading into 2019. Starting at the bottom first and it is clear that Jeff Wilson and Raheem Mostert will have a battle on their hands to make the final roster. That said they were admirable in the way they filled in last year and should injury befall one of the guys higher in the pecking order they may still have a team role. Kyle Juszczyk has been remarkably consistent in both Baltimore and San Francisco with 40-50 targets a season and averaging around the mid 30 receptions for the last four years. It would be hard to argue for more or less in 2019.
Getting to the heart of the battle, all of Matt Breida, Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon could have a convincing argument made in their favor. Breida, it’s fair to say has overachieved in his career to date, but his constant injuries and his size do him no favors for reliability. His ADP reflects his current value and it is hard to see him getting a substantial role ahead of McKinnon or Coleman.
Jerick McKinnon was pigeonholed for a significant role in 2018 and the fact they signed Tevin Coleman should point to where he sits for 2019. Another advantage for Coleman is the fact he worked with Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta. When in doubt, we should always follow the money and the blind fact is that San Francisco can get rid of both McKinnon and Coleman with a minor cap hit, at any time. We also must be aware that it could be a true job share all year, with a horses for courses approach or simply a team role to limit the workload on any of the backs. All are undersized from a traditional perspective. If I had to rank the pecking order as to which order they finish in it would be Coleman, then McKinnon and Breida at the tail of the three backs.
Jason Wood
It borders on lazy analysis, but this strikes me as a situation that will work itself out via the injury list. I suspect whoever is healthy in a given week will be a viable play in most fantasy leagues. In those rare instances when both McKinnon and Coleman are healthy, the 49ers will have a thriving ground game but it'll be maddening as a fantasy manager to try to get it right.
I was exceptionally bullish on McKinnon's chances last year before his season-ending injury. But the 49ers aggressive move to acquire Coleman does have me wondering if the 49ers view McKinnon as a sunk cost. Of course, they're never going to say that publicly, but if I had to bet on one of the two securing a clear cut No. 1 role, it has to be Coleman.
The problem with that bet, however, is Coleman never earned the lead role in Atlanta with or without a healthy Devonta Freeman.
Sometimes the smartest way to win your fantasy league is to know which situations to avoid on draft day. Barring preseason injuries, I'm not targeting anyone in the 49ers backfield unless they fall far enough below ADP the risk/reward becomes unmistakable.
Chad Parsons
I don't feel good about the clarity here. Jason Wood mentioning injury is a good guide, but I will also add it is an ambiguous situation, I want one of the cheapest options, if not the cheapest one. In San Francisco that is Matt Breida. He showed well when healthy (and even when dinged up) in 2018 and has more athletic juice than Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon. Regarding Coleman, Atlanta was resistant to giving him a full workload even when Devonta Freeman was out for a chunk of 2018, forming a committee with NFL fringe talent Ito Smith. McKinnon has faded athletically since his opening season or two in Minnesota. I doubt that returns from a serious injury last offseason. Coleman is the best bet for the most touches in Week 1, but Breida comes at a fraction of the cost and needs only a glimmer of an opportunity to show his mettle again in 2019.
Adam Harstad
- Tevin Coleman: 2 years, $8.5m, $3.25m fully guaranteed
- Jerick McKinnon: 4 years, $30m, $11.7m fully guaranteed
I totally get that stuff has happened since McKinnon's signing, and player contracts are influenced by the market as a whole, yadda yadda yadda. That's a pretty massive gap. Seems pretty relevant to me, yet I never really see anyone bringing it up.
Andy Hicks
Adam, I frequently look at player contracts and brought it up in my post. The fact is that Jerick Mckinnon can be cut for a $6 million cap hit right now. Next year his cap hit is over $8.8 million and the dead cap amount only $4million. Unless he is a superstar, he will be gone after this season.
Tevin Coleman is basically locked in for this season, but would only have a dead cap amount of just under $5million anyway. Next year he has no dead cap number at all. If he underachieves this year, he is an easy roster change. If he is half decent his salary cap number is almost half that of Jerick McKinnon in 2020.
McKinnon had a large upfront cost, but he has the shakier roster spot moving forward despite the reported numbers.
Adam Harstad
Andy, I get the roster management aspect of it. I’m talking more about the revealed preference aspect of it. All else being equal, if a team gives one guy a $30m contract and another guy at the same position an $8.5M contract, it’s a pretty good bet they think the former guy is a better player.
Who knows who makes the team in 2020. Like you say, there are cap implications to consider. But in a world where both McKinnon and Coleman are competing for touches, give me the guy making nearly twice as much per year.
Ryan Hester
I'll piggy-back Jason's answer and say this one is an avoid at the moment. There was plenty of talk about injuries in the responses above, and the fact that San Francisco had to push players like Mostert and Wilson into significant roles likely played a role in this over-correction to having too many capable backs.
McKinnon is probably the most talented in terms of upside, but how will he respond from the injury? And how comfortable is he with Shanahan's offense having never truly played in it?
Coleman has the experience edge over McKinnon in terms of time spent with Shanahan, but as Jason mentioned, he's never been the lead runner in a backfield - at least not on merit alone or for a sustained stretch of time.
Perhaps the only viable strategy here is for Best Ball managers with a portfolio of teams. Sprinkle a bit of each of McKinnon, Coleman, and Breida into your roster mix and hope that the combination of Shanahan's great scheme and injuries lead to a handful fo RB1 weeks.
Phil Alexander
There's often wisdom in what Chad suggested about targeting the least expensive piece of an ambiguous backfield, but I'm doing the exact opposite and going after Coleman at his current late-sixth round ADP.
The case for Coleman emerging as the starter is mostly narrative-driven, but also rather compelling:
- San Francisco jumped at the opportunity to add Coleman to their roster despite McKinnon's rich free-agent contract and Breida's 2018 efficiency (5.3 yards per attempt).
- McKinnon entered last season dripping with upside but unproven as an NFL starter. Now he's a complete question mark coming off a major knee injury.
- Breida is 5'9 and 195 lbs. Fantasy gamers had to hold their breath every time he got tackled last season. He's already dealing with a partially torn pectoral, highlighting his extreme injury risk.
- The last time we saw Coleman under Shanahan's tutelage, he recorded a career-high 421 receiving yards in only 13 games. Coleman is reportedly being split out wide in OTAs.
- That isn't the only positive news out of camp. Beat writers are speculating Coleman will receive the most touches among the 49ers running backs.
As long as Coleman's ADP remains outside of the first four rounds, where is the downside? He was an elite prospect coming out of college, is still only 26 years old, and he's playing in a familiar, ascending offense. He won't need to emerge as a workhorse to have a consistent every-week role for the 49ers, nor is he the type of player who needs a ton of touches to post fantasy relevant box scores in the first place.
At worst, Coleman returns his current ADP value in a timeshare. But if he becomes the starter and reaches the top of his outcome range, you're getting RB1 production from an RB3 draft slot -- a key ingredient in a championship recipe.
Ryan Hester
While I still think it will be frustrating without an injury to one back to boost the value of another, Phil's response has me leaning more towards Coleman than I was with my original entry here.
After all, who hasn't drafted Tevin Coleman in the fifth or sixth round and bench-stashed him while waiting for an injury to his backfield mate to give him some RB1 weeks? In a couple of recent seasons, it actually worked out.
As Phil intimated, a sixth-round pick is a low-value asset in that whiffing completely on your sixth doesn't prevent a fantasy manager from winning it all. But hitting a second or third-round value with your sixth could lead to a significant return. If Coleman can provide even three-to-five predictable RB1 weeks, that's a profit on his investment.
Dan Hindery
The biggest question mark at this point is Jerick McKinnon. Everything seemed to be lining up perfectly for him when he got the big contract last offseason. In fact, McKinnon carried a third-round ADP at this time last offseason. However, leading up to the 2018 season there were numerous reports that Matt Breida looked better than McKinnon in OTAs and training camp. On top of the questions about how McKinnon stacks up when healthy, we also have to worry about how the ACL injury will have impacted him. McKinnon's best trait has always been his elite athleticism, so he could be impacted even more significantly than most if he hasn't regained his full explosiveness. He is not someone who I am targeting at his current ninth-round best ball ADP.
The way McKinnon's contract is structured means he is only earning $3.75M in new money this season, so unless he really performs poorly, he should be on the roster in 2019, which makes it seem as though we are headed toward a three-man committee.
Phil makes a convincing case for Tevin Coleman and he makes sense as a 6th-round pick best ball target. The only issue for me is that Coleman's current ADP is virtually identical to Lamar Miller, Miles Sanders, and Derrius Guice. You can make a good case for the upside of each of those running backs as well, so I am not going out of my way to target Coleman.
Matt Breida probably gives you the most bang for your buck at this point. His ADP is in the 13th-round, which given the amount of uncertainty in the 49ers backfield and the upside in case of injuries Jason pointed out, makes it look like a good situation to simply target the least costly of the trio. It is also worth remembering that Breida was really good last season and made plays despite being banged up. PFF graded him as the fourth-best running back overall and he earned the highest receiving grade at the position. Breida's multiple injuries and seeming inability to hold up to a heavier workload are negatives. However, he also seemed to earn a lot of respect from the coaching staff and in the locker room for his ability and willingness to play through pain last season. His talent and heart should earn him a consistent role in the backfield.
Jason Wood
I think Dan is onto something as it relates to Breida. We have to remember how quickly the running back position thins out on draft day, so we all will be rostering a lot of runners who don't have obvious weekly value on draft day. One of the keys in this era of committee running games is correctly forecasting upside among backups. Breida has to rank highly, if not the highest, among projected third-stringers to start the season.