Making The Case For D’Andre Swift
*Highly Recruited
*College Production
*Athleticism
*Draft Capital
*Landing Spot
*Receiving Upside/Floor
Highly Recruited
D’Andre
Swift was ranked as a 5-star prospect by 24/7 Sports & a 4-star prospect by
ESPN. The two sites both had him in their top-100, as the 33rd &
66th best player (4th & 6th highest ranked
RB) in his class. Both also had Swift ranked as the best player from his home state
(PA).
Swift passed on offers from colleges including Penn
State, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Miami, Auburn, LSU,
Clemson, and Alabama, to sign with Georgia – a program which was becoming known
for churning out NFL RB’s after propelling Todd Gurley into the top-10 picks in
the NFL Draft & boasting highly-touted seniors & clearly NFL-bound RB
talents in Nick Chubb & Sony Michel.
College Production
Even as
a true freshman in 2017, Swift forced his way onto the field, despite playing
behind the two dominant seniors.
Even with Chubb leading the way on the ground with
223/1345/15 & Michel exploding for 156/1227/16, Swift made his own presence
felt with 81/618/3 (7.6 YPC) – as a true freshman, in the SEC.
Swift was even the Bulldogs preferred receiving weapon out of the backfield, out-producing
Chubb & Michel combined, with 17/153/1 receiving compared to 4/30 &
9/96/1 for Chubb & Michel.
The
Bulldogs more than doubled Swift’s rushing load the next year (2018) – giving
him 163 carries, which he took for 1049 yards (6.4 YPC) & 10 TD’s. He also
continued to show his receiving prowess with 32/297/3 receiving, a particularly
impressive feat considering Georgia has historically under-utilized RB’s as
receivers.
Since 1995 (25 seasons), a Georgia RB has hit 30+
receptions only 3 times…
3 times!
In 25 seasons!!
Knowshon Moreno (2008) - 33/392/2
Todd Gurley (2013) - 37/441/6
D'Andre Swift (2018) - 32/297/3
The last Georgia RB to do it before that:
Terrell Davis (1994) - 31/330/0
Not bad company to be in…
After
that impressive sophomore season, the Bulldogs continued to rely on Swift as a
junior (2019). He took his 196 carries for 1218 yards (6.2 YPC) & 7 TD’s
& caught another 24 receptions for 216 yards & another TD. He then made
the obvious decision of forgoing his senior year & declaring for the NFL
Draft, finishing as Georgia’s 7th all-time leading rusher after
hitting 6.2+ YPC in all three seasons.
Athleticism
There
wasn’t a whole lot left for Swift to prove, but he decided to participate in
the NFL combine anyways.
He measured in at 5’8”/212 pounds, which might not seem impressive on the
surface, but is actually 87th percentile BMI (information, which I have thanks
to this tweet)…
After Swift weighed in at the combine looking like a
21-year old reincarnation of his father Darren…
He
ripped off a 4.48 40-yard dash & 35.5” vertical & rightfully called it
a day.
Post-combine, pre-NFL Draft, Swift was the No. 1 RB on most people’s boards – and rightfully so, being a dual-purpose ultra-productive super-athlete who requires hyphenated words to accurately describe him…
Draft Capital
When
the Kansas City Chiefs came up to pick at 32 in the 2020 NFL Draft, it was like
a match made in heaven, but they opted to instead draft Clyde Edwards-Helaire,
and fantasy players started losing their minds…
When Swift was drafted 1 night & 3 picks later,
with the 35th overall pick, to the Detroit Lions – instead of 32nd
to the Kansas City Chiefs – there was a collective groan…
The Lions?
Really?
You really had to do D’Andre Swift like that, NFL?
“THE LANDING SPOT… UGH…”
Almost everyone hates it.
Because of that, the No. 1 RB on a lot of people’s boards coming into the Draft
has fallen to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th,
even 6th in some rookie RB fantasy rankings…
Swift’s caught the fade hard in redraft formats as well…
But is the landing spot really that bad??
Some
want to play the “name the last DET RB not named Barry…” game, but the fact of
the matter is Detroit RB’s have succeeded with Matthew Stafford under
center, we’ve only been de-conditioned to that fact based on the last 2 uninspiring
seasons…
We might not have always been able to see it in the moment (based on our
preconceptions of over-valuing carries vs targets)… but this has always been an
impeccably ideal situation for a dual-threat RB to land in…
This kind of landing spot is exactly what we should
have always been rooting for...
In his
11 seasons in Detroit, Matthew Stafford has played 8 full seasons, including 8
of the last 9. Take a look at how he’s targeted RB’s in those 8 seasons:
2011: OC – Scott Linehan
Jahvid Best (6 games) – 40
Maurice Morris – 35
Kevin Smith (7 games) – 28
Keiland Williams – 8
Total RB Targets – 111
Total Pass Attempts – 663
RB Target Share – 16.7%
Can we
take a minute to just marvel at the fact that Jahvid Best saw 40 targets in
just 6 games – a 16-game pace of 106 targets…
2012: OC – Linehan
J Bell – 68
M Leshoure – 49
K Smith – 16
Total Targets – 133
Total Attempts – 727
RB Target Share – 18.3%
117 targets to Joique Bell & Mikel Leshoure…
JOIQUE BELL & MIKEL LESHOURE PEOPLE (!!)
Decrease the attempts by 25% & you still have ~ 100 tgts to RB’s…
2013: OC – Linehan
R Bush – 80
J Bell – 69
T Riddick – 8
Total RB Targets – 157
Total Pass Attempts – 634
RB Market Share – 24.7%
149 targets to Reggie Bush & Joique Bell…
149!!
Even with the No. 1 + No. 2 WR (Calvin + Durham) having
241 targets that year & the starting TE (Pettigrew) having 63.
2014: OC – Joe Lombardi
R Bush – 56 (in 11 games)
J Bell – 53
T Riddick – 50
Total RB Targets – 159
Total Pass Attempts – 602
RB Market Share – 26.4%
Even with Calvin seeing 128 targets (in 13 games),
Golden Tate seeing 144, the team rotating Jeremy Ross & Corey Fuller as the
WR3 for 66 combined targets,
& Eric Ebron seeing 47 targets (as a rookie), the
RB trio still saw 159 targets & had 3 guys hit 50+ …
2015: OC – Lombardi/Jim Bob Cooter
T Riddick – 99
Abdullah – 38
J Bell – 27
Total RB Targets – 164
Total Pass Attempts – 592
RB Market Share – 27.7%
Calvin had 149 targets, Tate had 128, Ebron had 70,
& Lance Moore had 43 as the WR3…
Still, 164 RB targets…
164 (!!)
2016: OC – Cooter
Riddick – 67
Zenner – 23
Washington – 15
Abdullah – 5 (in 2 games)
Total RB Targets – 110
Total Pass Attempts – 594
RB Market Share – 18.5%
Even fringe practice-squad “talents” like Zenner &
Washington combined for 38 targets despite starting just 6 combined games…
2017: OC – Cooter
Riddick – 71
Abdullah – 35
Total RB Targets – 106
Total Pass Attempts – 565
RB Market Share – 18.7%
This was the 8-year low…
106 RB targets…
2018: OC – Cooter
Riddick – 74
Kerryon – 39
Blount – 15
Zenner – 10
Total RB Targets – 138
Total Pass Attempts – 555
RB Market Share – 24.8%
To summarize, that’s RB target totals of:
111
133
157
159
164
110
106
138
At no point, over the span of 8 full seasons & his first 3 offensive coordinators, did Mathew Stafford target his RB corps less than 106 times. His offenses averaged ~ 134 RB targets in that time…
A lot of people want to throw out that information because “Jim Bob Cooter is gone” or “Darrell Bevell is the coordinator now,” but even last year with Bevell, look at the RB targets…
2019: OC – Darrell Bevell
(8 Stafford starts)
Kerryon (6 games) – 14
JD McKissic – 17
Ty Johnson – 16
Total RB targets – 47
Total Pass Attempts – 291
RB Market Share – 16.1%
Even in
a Darrel Bevell offense, 47 targets in 8 games is a pace of 94 RB targets… to
Kerryon, McKissic, & Ty Johnson…
That would have been a remarkably high career-low in
RB targets for Stafford.
Even if you project the same 94 targets for Swift
& Kerryon this year, a 50% share of that is 47 targets, a 60% share is 56
targets, & a 70% share is 65 targets.
& if you project the RB duo of Swift/Kerryon to earn even an incrementally
higher market share of the total targets this year than the trio of Kerryon/McKissic/Johnson
earned in 8 games last year, we could be talking about the total RB targets
being back up in the more typical 110-120 Stafford range.
That gives us roughly a projected range of ~ 90-120 RB
targets in DET this year.
If Swift demands a larger share of the targets than 60%, or Kerryon gets hurt (which he’s been known to do), we could be talking about close to an 80-target ceiling for Swift, even as a rookie.
To
illustrate just how important these targets are, consider the fact that in a
PPR league, a target is worth roughly 2.5 – 3X more than a carry.
Just search “target more valuable than carry” into
Twitter & you’ll get some great breakdowns…
(Graph credit to Scott Barrett & PFF)
Essentially,
each carry has been worth about .55 to .60 fantasy points in PPR leagues, on
average, while each target has been worth about 1.55 to 1.63 fantasy points, on
average.
That’s nearly triple the value in a target vs a carry…
Using those
numbers, on average:
150 carries/50 targets > 200 carries/30 targets
150 carries/75 targets > 270 carries/30 targets
175 carries/50 targets > 250 carries/40 targets
175 carries/80 targets > 300 carries/30 targets
Swift
doesn’t even need more than nine-ish carries per-game (9.3/150 total) to provide
RB2 value. If he sees just 50 targets (about 50% of the total RB targets) in
addition to 150 carries, at league average efficiency, he’ll get there:
150 carries x .6 pts/carry = 90 pts
50 tgts x 1.62 pts/target = 81 pts
= 171 pts
= RB24 last year
Imma go ahead & call RB24 his floor if healthy…
Even if he sees less than 150 carries, his stellar
efficiency at Georgia indicates he’s got a solid chance at above-average
efficiency in terms of fantasy pts/carry.
At his ceiling – whether due to his own deserving performance, or an injury to
Kerryon – he could see closer to 65-80 targets, & with even just 11 carries
per-game (175 carries total), he could land in the top-12 as a back-end RB1:
175 carries x .6 pts/carry = 105 pts
80 tgts x 1.62 pts/tgt = 129.6
= 234.6
= RB12 last year
That gives us a rough estimate of RB12 ceiling &
RB24 floor, just based on projected touches, assuming league-average
efficiency…
With an RB25/63.0 overall (6th round) redraft ADP in PPR leagues according to FantasyPros, that makes D’Andre Swift not just a massive bargain, but a potential league-winner as your 3rd or even 4th RB drafted in 2020.
