As part of the Sharp Football Draft Kit, Raymond Summerlin is posting a fantasy football preview for all 32 NFL teams.
This preview includes advanced stats, the fantasy football outlook for Derek Carr, Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara, Jamaal Williams, and every other notable Saint, and in-depth analysis of the coaching staff, passing game, and rushing attack.
Find a link to every team preview in our Draft Kit Hub.
Highlights:
- Derek Carr finished below Andy Dalton in completion rate over expected last season, and Dalton’s 78% on-target rate easily outpaced Carr’s 71.8%.
- Chris Olave‘s 2.42 yards per route run as a rookie was almost identical to Ja’Marr Chase’s in 2021, the exact same as A.J. Brown’s in 2019, and just behind Justin Jefferson’s in 2020.
- Over the first four seasons of his career, Alvin Kamara averaged 5.0 yards per carry and 6.2 yards per touch. Over the last two, he has averaged 3.9 yards per carry and 4.8 yards per touch.
2022 Saints Stats (NFL Rank):
- Points: 330 (22nd)
- Total Offense: 5,674 (19th)
- Plays: 1,015 (24th)
- Offensive TDs: 36 (18th)
- Points Per Drive: 1.73 (21st)
- EPA+ Per Play: -3.6 (21st)
- Situation Neutral Pace: 33.04 seconds (29th)
2023 Saints Coaching Staff:
- Head Coach: Dennis Allen
- Offensive Coordinator: Pete Carmichael
New Orleans made big changes to the defensive coaching staff, but Pete Carmichael will be back for his 18th season with the Saints and 15th as coordinator.
Sean Payton called the plays during the vast majority of that run. Carmichael took over those duties with Payton suspended in 2012, and he got another run as play caller at the beginning of the 2016 season. Those were still Payton offenses, though.
Last year was the first time Carmichael had full control, and his offense was one of the more run-heavy in the league.
New Orleans ranked 30th in neutral pass rate and 26th with an overall pass rate 6.8% under expected. That is a continuation of what we saw from Payton’s offense over the final few years of his reign.
Of course, that run saw late-career Drew Brees, Teddy Bridgewater, Taysom Hill, Jameis Winston, Andy Dalton, Trevor Siemian, and Ian Book start games.
Will the offense open up now that Derek Carr is at quarterback?
Perhaps, but I am betting on something closer to the last couple of years than the high-flying offenses we watched during the Payton-Brees glory days.
2022 Saints Passing Stats:
- Dropbacks: 562 (26th)
- Neutral Pass Rate: 42.3% (30th)
- Pass Rate Over Expected: -6.8% (26th)
- Pressure Rate Allowed: 17.2% (4th)
- ESPN Pass Block Win Rate: 60% (16th)
2023 Saints Passing Game Preview:
The Saints will face the second-easiest passing schedule based on 2022 efficiency numbers.
- QB: Derek Carr, Jameis Winston
- WR: Chris Olave, A.T. Perry
- WR: Michael Thomas, Bryan Edwards
- WR: Rashid Shaheed, Tre’Quan Smith
- TE: Juwan Johnson, Taysom Hill
Unceremoniously dumped by the Raiders at the end of last season, Derek Carr quickly found a home with the Saints, signing a four-year, $150 million contract.
The question now is how big of an upgrade will Carr actually be?
Carr actually finished below Andy Dalton in completion rate over expected last season, and Dalton’s 78% on-target rate easily outpaced Carr’s 71.8%.
Carr did push the ball downfield more, but his career aDOT is similar to the number Dalton posted last season.
More importantly, he was not really successful doing it, ranking 24th in adjusted completion percentage on deep throws according to PFF.
He has been better in the past, but it was not a strength last season.
Of course, Carr’s 2022 on-target percentage, completion rate over expected, and EPA per play were all under his career averages.
From 2017 to 2021, Carr ranked 25th among all quarterbacks in EPA per play and 9th in completion rate over expected.
Those numbers are not elite, but he will be an upgrade if he can return to that form.
Even if Carr gets back to form, however, his fantasy ceiling is as a weekly starter in 2QB formats.
Carr has averaged 0.81 rushing fantasy points per game to this point in his career, and he has been under that number each of the last two years. He was 51st in rushing fantasy points per game last season.
In nine seasons, Carr has finished higher than the QB19 in per-game scoring a grand total of once.
A better version of Carr should help the rest of this passing game, but his fantasy value will be limited to 2QB formats.
Chris Olave had an outstanding rookie season, finishing sixth in yards per route run and target rate per route.
His 2.42 mark in that metric was almost identical to Ja’Marr Chase’s in 2021, the exact same as A.J. Brown’s in 2019, and just behind Justin Jefferson’s in 2020.
He turned 119 targets into 72 catches for 1,042 yards and 4 touchdowns.
That touchdown mark is a bit of a concern. The Saints only had 17 pass attempts in goal-to-goal situations last season, tied for 27th, and Olave was the target on just two of those.
That was the same number as Michael Thomas, who played three games.
Olave was targeted 10 times in the red zone, but seven of those came from 15 yards out or more.
All of that is to say there was nothing unlucky about his 4 TD total, and he will need to get more usage in the scoring areas to really ascend into the WR1 pantheon this season.
The good news is he has the talent to make that happen.
As for Thomas, he came out of the gates hot in 2022, catching 16 passes for 171 yards and three touchdowns in the first three weeks.
Unfortunately, those were the only three games he played all season, and he has now managed 10 total games since his monster 2019 season.
Thomas was healthy entering training camp and has reportedly participated fully. That is a great sign, but it is impossible to trust his health at this point.
There also have to be questions about his fantasy upside even if he is fully healthy.
Thomas has lived on volume throughout his career. He has been targeted on 27.1% of his career routes (would have been 8th last season) and saw 33.1% of the Saints’ targets in 2019.
That target rate per route was down to 21.2% when he played last season, and that was before Olave took hold of the No. 1 role.
Even if healthy, it is possible Thomas is just a 5 for 60 kind of player who really needs a touchdown to get there in fantasy. That is basically what he was last season.
That possibility takes some of the luster off the reward part of his risk-reward gamble.
A groin injury will likely keep him out for most of camp, but Rashid Shaheed is the best bet to win the No. 3 receiver job.
The speedy receiver caught 28 passes for 488 yards and two touchdowns last season and actually posted a better yards per route run than Olave thanks in large part to an unsustainable 82.4% catch rate.
He was eighth among all receivers who ran at least 175 routes in yards after catch per reception, and he was 16th in the percentage of his targets that came behind the line of scrimmage.
With deep speed and playmaking ability, Shaheed will be an interesting fantasy option if he gets a real opportunity.
The Saints have a complicated situation at tight end.
Juwan Johnson just got a two-year, $12 million contract and is the starter, but behind him is tight-end-in-name-only Taysom Hill, Foster Moreau, and, as it stands currently, an unretired Jimmy Graham.
Johnson earned his new deal with 42 catches for 508 yards and 7 touchdowns last season, enough to make him the TE15 in per-game scoring.
However, that touchdown total was inflated – according to PFF, Johnson’s expected touchdown total was just 4 based on his usage – and he earned those opportunities in a decimated receiving group.
With more behind him at tight end this season and likely to see some touchdown regression, there are reasons for concern for Johnson.
That said, those concerns have pushed him all the way down to TE21 in Underdog ADP and actually behind Hill a the position. Johnson is worth a gamble at that price.
As for Hill, he finished as the TE7 in per-game scoring among all tight ends last season despite running only 122 routes and catching nine passes.
He made up for it by rushing for 575 yards and seven touchdowns, but it is fair to wonder how many opportunities he will get near the goal line moving forward after the Saints brought in Jamaal Williams over the offseason.
Williams, of course, dominated the goal-line work in Detroit last season on his way to 17 rushing scores.
Hill averaged 41 yards from scrimmage last season with just three games with more than 60 yards.
Like a lot of TE2s, Hill is reliant on touchdowns to hit as a fantasy play, and those could be more difficult to come by if Williams takes on more of the work near the end zone.
2022 Saints Rushing Stats:
- Rushing Attempts – Scrambles: 451 (14th)
- Yards Before Contact Per Attempt: 2.4 (26th)
- Football Outsiders’ Adjusted Line Yards: 4.5 (12th)
- ESPN’s Run Block Win Rate: 71% (16th)
2023 Saints Running Game Preview:
The Saints will face the sixth-easiest rushing schedule based on 2022 efficiency numbers.
- RB: Alvin Kamara, Jamaal Williams, Kendre Miller
- OL: Trevor Penning, Andrus Peat, Erik McCoy, Cesar Ruiz, Ryan Ramczyk
As expected, Alvin Kamara was suspended to open the season. Luckily, he will only miss the first three games.
That is unquestionably a good outcome, but there are still red flags in Kamara’s fantasy profile coming off back-to-back down seasons.
Over the first four seasons of his career, Kamara averaged 5.0 yards per carry and 6.2 yards per touch.
Over the last two, he has averaged 3.9 yards per carry and 4.8 yards per touch.
He also saw his touches in goal-to-go situations fall to a career-low eight last season, a situation that is unlikely to improve with Jamaal Williams now in town.
Some of that dip in efficiency can be explained by Kamara running into stacked boxes at by far the highest rates of his career over the last two years.
If the Derek Carr addition and a healthy Michael Thomas improve the passing game and Williams takes on more of the work on clear running downs, Kamara could see his per-carry numbers improve.
He will also need to find more opportunities in the passing game.
Kamara has caught 47 and 57 passes in each of the last two seasons after topping 80 catches in each of his first four seasons in the league. His target rate per route has fallen to the 25% range after being around 30% over those first four years.
The good news is Carr has targeted a running back on 22.8% of his career attempts (would have been seventh last season).
Williams was used in passing situations during his time in Green Bay, so it is possible he is a bigger threat to Kamara’s target share than it appears just looking at his role last year.
Still, Kamara should be the primary pass-catching option out of the backfield once the suspension is over.
Kamara’s ADP has risen in the wake of the suspension news, but he is still being drafted outside the top-25 backs.
That price mitigates the risk of the suspension and Kamara’s declining efficiency over the last two seasons, and he more demonstrated upside than any other back going in that range.
Williams should have defined fantasy value over the first three weeks as the Saints’ lead back – although the team did bring in Kareem Hunt for a visit, so he could have company – but he will likely be hit-or-miss once Kamara is back.
Not an explosive back – just 8% of his career carries have gone for more than 10 yards – Williams needs volume and carries around the end zone to score consistent fantasy points.
The first will be questionable once Kamara returns, and the second will be difficult given the offensive environment and the presence of Taysom Hill.
The Saints were 30th in plays run in goal-to-go situations last season with 36. The Lions were third with 84.
Even if the offense improves with Carr, that is a massive gap.
Of the Lions’ 51 rushing attempts in goal-to-go situations, Williams handled 38 of them. It is difficult to imagine he will get nearly 75% of the opportunities around the goal line with both Kamara and Hill available.
Williams should be a useful stopgap for zero-RB teams as they search for long-term answers on the waiver wire over the first three weeks, and he is likely the right handcuff for Kamara.
However, it is tough to see him earning consistent standalone value when Kamara is active.
Third-round rookie Kendre Miller is seemingly in line to serve as the backup behind Williams while Kamara is out, but the Saints have been looking at veteran backs, suggesting they are not yet comfortable with him in that role.
Miller did start the second preseason game with the top two backs sitting out, suggesting he is clearly the No. 3 back right now.
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