Old Faces, New Places: Free Agent Risers

There is no way to describe the average NFL front office. Each franchise has its own set of rules, follows different parameters when evaluating players, and builds its roster in a very particular way. Even with a clear mindset, an organization's principles might be tweaked in order to accommodate players into the salary cap, for example, which makes decisions even harder to take and for us to understand in some cases.

No matter what, every offseason we see the same musical chairs game. As the title of this column says, old and known faces always move to new places, whether because they find no love in their last team anymore, or because they're truly coveted by every other team around the league and paid big bucks to go play for other franchise. This doesn't mean those changes are always good, or bad, as each move is a case to study on its own with multiple potential ramifications.

For fantasy football purposes, it is easy to try and predict whether those moves fall in the "positive" or "negative" side of things. That is what I'll be writing about next, highlighting four players that didn't generate much noise during the 2019 season but that, after changing teams during the past few weeks, are poised to improve their fantasy football production in their new surroundings.

Teddy Bridgewater, Carolina Panthers

You might call me a cheater for picking Bridgewater here as he wasn't the true starting quarterback for the Saints last year. That's correct, but we have to consider everything when looking at potential risers for the upcoming season. Bridgewater appeared in nine games last season and started five of them. Although he wasn't the flashier of players at the position, Teddy B went on to win all of his starts, completed 67.9% of his pass attempts (133 of 196), and threw for 1,384 yards (7.1 yards per attempt) to go with nine TD against just two INT.

As many as 35 quarterbacks started five or more games last season. Bridgewater ranked 6th in completion rate, had the third-lowest interception rate (only behind Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson), and was 12th in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. All of that, simply put, allowed him to reach 90.5 PPR points on the season for an average of 10.1 PPG. That last number is skewed, though, because of his last three games of the season, in which he played a non-factor role. Looking only at his five starts (from Week 2 through Week 6), Bridgewater averaged a much healthier 19.1 PPG that translated to 241 Yds/G and 1.8 TD/G.

Bridgewater is the clear go-to quarterback in Carolina, barely has a backup (which means he will stay as the QB1 all season long no matter what), will have a great trio of receivers playing for him (DJ Moore, Curtis Samuel, and Robby Anderson; instead of just Michael Thomas), and most of all, he will always have the option to check down to Christian McCaffrey out of the backfield and let him rack up yards that would ultimately benefit the quarterback. It's a win-win situation for Bridgewater and his ultimate redemption after all he has gone through during his career.

Brandin Cooks, Houston Texans

Cooks landed in Los Angeles back in 2018 and spent two seasons there after playing for New Orleans and New England. Cooks has always been on a steady ascension since entering the league in virtually every metric... until he hit a wall in 2019 and also missed playing time. It made sense, though. The Rams featured a three-headed monster at the WR position for the past two seasons made of Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, and Brandin Cooks. Something had to give. It was Kupp in 2018 (as he fell injured and replaced with Josh Reynolds) and Cooks in 2019, going from 243.2 PPR points in 2018 to just 117.5 last season.

The good news for Cooks? A change of scenery for 2020, and quite a good one. Cooks will play in Houston next season, and Houston has lost its no. 1 WR up to this year. With DeAndre Hopkins no longer a Texan, Cooks instantly becomes the go-to receiver for stud QB Deshaun Watson. Only in his rookie season (69) and last season (72) has Cooks logged fewer than 114 targets and reached fewer than 221.2 PPR points over a season. Assuming he stays healthy, he will rebound in 2020 as the leader of his offense.

Cooks is a surefire WR2 with upside to finish the year as a WR1 if all things go as expected in Houston. Even with a "down" year last season, Cooks is one of only 13 wide receivers to have more than 1,000 fantasy points in the last five seasons combined and ranks 10th in the overall leaderboard.

Hayden Hurst, Atlanta Falcons

There was a little bit of a debate last summer on whether Mark Andrews, Nick Boyle, or Hayden Hurst would become the no. 1 tight end on Baltimore's offense. At the end of the year, Andrews was the clear leading man at the position with more targets (98) than the other two combined (82), and almost three times their individual PPR outcomes. Last year was Hurst's second in Baltimore, but that and the presence of the other two aforementioned tight ends made the Ravens move from Hurst this offseason, even with his first-round pick pedigree from just a couple of years ago.

No team was in a better position than Atlanta to acquire a tight end. The Falcons have lost stud Austin Hooper to Cleveland, and Hurst has instantly become their go-to man at the position, and no less than the third receiving option on the whole offense only behind Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley (Todd Gurley is there now, but he shouldn't factor that much in the passing game).

While I'm not saying Hurst is Hooper, the latter logged the sixth-most targets among tight ends last season and most of those will now go Hurst's way. Matt Ryan is a great volume-passing quarterback that will benefit Hurst's upside, and he should have no problem reaching 500 yards on the year to go with a few touchdowns if only because of the red-zone looks he will receive. No one knows how things will turn out for Hurst, but not many players can (at this point) be happier about how things are looking for them going forward after flipping teams.

Eric Ebron, Pittsburgh Steelers

I regret this is not a column for the 2018 season instead of 2020, as I'd be retiring on top in a few months. If you remember those days, Ebron was entering his first season with the Colts and up to that point he had racked up 55.8, 132.4, 144.2, and 130.7 PPR points in his first four pro-seasons. Then, the explosion. Ebron went on to score 222.2 PPR points in 2018, finishing as the TE4 on the year and reaching 750 yards while scoring a monstrous 13 TD. Imagine that happening in 2020...

Actually, I'm not saying it will happen, but there is a chance it happens. Everybody knew Ebron would regress in 2019, and indeed he did. That was partly injury issues, part the world working to a logic law of averages. Ebron could only appear on 11 games last season, had half the yards from two years prior (375), and only three scores. He couldn't even rank as a TE2 finishing as the 27th-best player at the position. He is now a Steeler, though.

Pittsburgh is loaded on offense and Ben Roethlisberger will have a lot of options to throw the ball to, even in the backfield. That being said, Vance McDonald surely looks cooked and should play the TE2 role to Ebron's TE1. Ebron should experience a positive regression, complete the full 16-game schedule, and finishing with over 100 PPR points, most probably back to his average of around 130-140 points for the whole year. That impossible 2018 outcome is most probably not happening again, but he's shown what he can do and he'll be part of a great offense giving him chances to rack up points again.

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