2022 Fantasy Coaching & Coordinator Breakdown: Las Vegas Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders have a completely new regime in 2022, as they attempt to make the necessary moves to keep up in a wild AFC West. 

Let’s take a look at how the team’s coaching staff shapes up for the season, and what that means for fantasy football.

Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach: Josh McDaniels

Patriots OC 2006-2008, 2012-2019, 2020-2021

Josh McDaniels has had a bit of a seesaw career. He’s gone from quarterbacks coach to Patriots offensive coordinator, landed a head coaching job in Denver, had a one-year stint with the Rams and finally has been the offensive coordinator in New England since 2012. But he’ll now return to a head coaching role in Las Vegas where we will surely see multiple aspects of his past offenses in New England.

To start, we know McDaniels has been in run-heavy systems. Just this past season, the Patriots posted the league’s highest rush rate in neutral gamescripts (50.3%), while only the Ravens had a higher neutral-script rush rate than New England in 2020 (50.7%). Of course, that was in the two immediate seasons following Tom Brady’s move to Tampa Bay, but New England posted top-10 finishes in rush attempts per game in 2019, 2017 and 2016. We have seen the Patriots use multiple running backs for years, becoming perhaps the largest headache in all of fantasy football. I would fully anticipate the Raiders to follow a similar path, and the writing is already on the wall. For starters, the Raiders added Zamir White, Ameer Abdullah and former Patriot Brandon Bolden during the offseason. Secondly, running back Josh Jacobs campaigned for Kenyan Drake to get more work halfway through last season, so it appears very likely Jacobs’ touches will come down, especially after the Raiders declined his player option right before trading up for White in the draft. 

Since the 2013 season, there have been seven different instances where a Patriots running back failed to reach the 210-carry mark. And of course, New England has had a clear pass-catching running back every season. Just take a closer look at all of the running backs that have played a major role in McDaniels’ offenses year over year:

• 2012 Patriots
  • Stevan Ridley: 290 carries
  • Danny Woodhead: 76 carries, 40 receptions
• 2013 Patriots
  • Stevan Ridley: 178 carries
  • LeGarrette Blount: 153 carries
  • Shane Vereen: 44 carries, 47 receptions
• 2014 Patriots
  • Shane Vereen: 96 carries, 52 receptions
  • Stevan Ridley: 94 carries
  • Jonas Gray: 89 carries
  • LeGarrette Blount: 60 carries
• 2015 Patriots
  • LeGarrette Blount: 165 carries
  • Brandon Bolden: 63 carries, 19 receptions
  • Dion Lewis: 49 carries, 36 receptions
  • James White: 40 receptions
• 2017 Patriots
  • Dion Lewis: 180 carries, 32 receptions
  • Mike Gillislee: 104 carries
  • Rex Burkhead: 64 carries, 30 receptions
  • James White: 43 carries, 56 receptions
• 2021 Patriots

It shouldn’t surprise anyone if we see Jacobs, Drake and White all involved, though the usage will be tough to predict if McDaniels continues to use multiple running backs. Of course, it has often been matchup-based as to which running back gets the most work on a given week. And as I mentioned earlier, running backs have been an integral part of McDaniels’ passing attacks over the years. Dating back to the 2016 season, running backs have accounted for 27% of New England’s targets, which is well above the league average mark of 20%. That 27% clip also only trails the New Orleans Saints during that span. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Jacobs gets that role, as Drake was the pass-catching back in this offense last year, but the team added Abdullah and Bolden, who have operated as pass-catching running backs for much of their careers. Jacobs handled that role last season at times but that was in a different regime and only really when Drake was sidelined. If you look at the splits, Jacobs played in 10 games alongside Drake last season. In those contests, he averaged 16.3 touches per game but in six games with Drake sidelined, Jacobs’ touches per game climbed to nearly 21. 

Let’s take a closer look at the passing game, shall we? McDaniels’ passing games have more often than not been built from the inside out, focusing on passes over the middle of the field. Last season, 13% of Mac Jones pass attempts were on crossing routes, while nearly 17% of his passing attempts were to the short middle area of the field. And in 2020, Patriots starting quarterback Cam Newton attempted 22.1% of his passes to that area of the field. As a result, we’ve seen slot receivers really operate as focal points in this offense. From 2007 to 2012, Wes Welker recorded five 100-catch seasons, while leading the NFL in receptions three times during that span. Then there was Julian Edelman, who averaged 141 targets in his five healthy seasons since 2013. Edelman also finished as the WR7, WR12, WR15, WR20 and WR7 in fantasy during those years. Finally, Jakobi Meyers has burst onto the scene as a reliable slot receiver as of late, sporting target shares of 23.2% and 24.4% over the last two seasons, while his 86 slot targets ranked fifth in all of football in 2021. This bodes well for Hunter Renfrow, who is coming off a breakout campaign in 2021. He operated out of the slot 64.5% of the time, while 79.2% of his receptions came from the slot, the fifth-highest rate in the league. It may be tough for Renfrow to repeat last year’s WR10 finish but he’ll remain incredibly involved in this offense, despite the addition of Davante Adams. 

Finally, look for the Raiders’ red zone offense to take a step forward with McDaniels at the helm. Last season, Las Vegas was putrid at converting red zone trips into scores, finding the end zone on just 49.2% of red zone possessions, the fourth-lowest rate in the NFL. The Patriots, meanwhile, ranked top-10 in red zone scoring percentage in all but three seasons since 2012, including the seventh-highest conversion rate this past season (63%). The Raiders should be much improved in this area in 2022, especially when you consider they added one of the best touchdown-scoring receivers in football during the offseason.

Offensive Coordinator: Mick Lombardi

Patriots assistant quarterbacks coach in 2019, WRs coach in 2020

Lombardi has been with the Patriots since 2019. He has been an assistant quarterbacks coach and last year he moved to receivers coach. McDaniels added him as the Raiders offensive coordinator, though we likely won’t see him do much playcalling. 

Personnel

In past installments of the Patriots offense, two tight end sets have been very, very prominent. However, as of late, there have been less two tight end sets but plenty of 21 personnel. In fact, since 2018, New England has operated out of 12 personnel just nine percent of the time, which is well below the league average of 20% during that span. And while the Patriots climbed from two percent 12 personnel rate to 14% this past season, it was shocking that number wasn’t higher given the fact that they signed both Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith in the offseason. Las Vegas, meanwhile, ran two tight end sets 18% of the time last year but I’m not sure if that rate even climbs with McDaniels in town. What should rise, however, is the 21 personnel, which features two running backs. The Patriots were second in 21 personnel sets last year, sporting a 23% rate. And since 2018, their 26% rate cruises past the league average of eight percent. Las Vegas also added former Patriots fullback Jakob Johnson this offseason, which pretty much tells us McDaniels once again plans to deploy plenty of two running back sets. 

Fantasy Football Takeaways

One of the most underrated signal callers in football as of late, Derek Carr enjoyed another solid season in 2021, tossing 23 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. However, he set career-high marks in passing yards (4,804) and pass attempts (626), while his 7.7 yards per attempt was the second highest of his career and the seventh-highest mark in all of football. The 3.7% touchdown rate was his lowest since 2018 and the third lowest of his career but you can bet the touchdowns are going to climb after the Raiders acquired arguably the best receiver in the NFL in Davante Adams. Per the FTN Fantasy advanced passing stats, Carr tied for fifth among all quarterbacks in highlight passes (36), which are throws that feature perfect placement in a tight window. And in 2020, only Tom Brady had more such passes than Carr (24). During that same two-year stretch, Carr has also ranked 10th and seventh in adjusted completion percentage among all quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks and now he is surrounded by the most talent of his career by far. An uptick in passing scores could boost Carr into the top-12 fantasy quarterbacks this season. 

Josh Jacobs has seen pretty great volume over the course of his career, which has helped mask some underwhelming inefficiencies. He averaged over 18 touches per game last season, while averaging 20.4 and 20.1 touches per game in 2020 and 2019. However, he’s ranked 37th, 54th and 23rd in yards per touch through three seasons. Jacobs also doesn’t rip off a ton of long runs, as he’s ranked 54th and 53rd in explosive rush rate over the last two seasons (15.4% and 17.6%). In this version of McDaniels’ offense, Jacobs will have the Damien Harris role, which is one that depends on touchdowns. He should be the goal-line back in a good offense, but Jacobs will also lose plenty of snaps and touches to Kenyan Drake and Zamir White, while the passing role is unlikely to be there. 

After catching passes from Aaron Rodgers for the first eight seasons of his career, Davante Adams will now reunite with former college quarterback Carr in Las Vegas. Rodgers and Adams were the premiere quarterback/receiver duo in the NFL for years, as Green Bay’s entire passing game went through the All-Pro wideout. He has seen a target share north of 30% in each of his past four seasons and over the last two seasons, Adams has seen a whopping 256 first-read targets. In fact, in 2021, Adams was targeted 169 times. However, he was the first read for Rodgers on an insane 150 of those targets, which is nearly 90% of the targets. That volume isn’t likely to be repeated in Las Vegas, but Adams is still an elite talent, keeping him in top-five consideration. He just isn’t an unquestioned top-three fantasy receiver like he has been in Green Bay.

Hunter Renfrow is coming off a breakout 2021 campaign where he hauled in 103-of-128 targets for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns. Renfrow was a top-10 fantasy wideout and benefited from bracket coverage against tight end Darren Waller, while the All-Pro tight end also missed a handful of games. Renfrow ultimately saw 30% of the Raiders red zone targets last season, the fourth-highest mark in all of football. His targets will come down a bit with Adams in town and Waller healthy, but he should thrive in this system and if the Raiders throw as much as they did last year, Renfrow should easily return WR3 value.

It looked like Darren Waller was in line for a monster season. He opened the year with 10 catches for 105 yards and a touchdown on 19 targets, but his usage was inconsistent the rest of the way. Opposing defenses threw bracket coverage his way more often than not but that simply can’t happen this season with Adams on the outside. Waller still finished third among tight ends in deep targets with 12, despite missing six contests. And in 2020, no tight end saw more deep targets than Waller (17), so he will be able to make the most of his targets, even if they go down this season. In an emerging offense with better touchdown fortune headed his way, Waller remains an elite fantasy tight end.

Defensive Coordinator: Patrick Graham

Patriots linebacker coach 2011, 2014-2015. Giants DC 2020-2021

Graham also comes from New England, which means we could see the Raiders play a good bit of man coverage this season. In 2021, no team in football played zone defense more than Las Vegas (79.9%) but I do question how much man coverage they will want to play given the fact that they have one of the weaker secondaries in the NFL. It also sounds like Graham will deploy multiple different defensive schemes, whether it be 4-3, 3-4, etc. He is also going to use his top defensive players in multiple ways and attempt to give opposing offenses any different looks. It’ll also be interesting to see if the Raiders defense is more aggressive this season after a 2021 campaign where they posted the lowest blitz rate in football (12.1%).