Offenses That Will Make the Leap From Inept to Competent

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  • By Jon Mosales

    Last Updated on June 29, 2025 1:07 pm by Jon Mosales | Published: June 29, 2025

    This is my favorite article every year and honestly it’s the most important.  Buying low on a team no one expects anything out of is the single best way to crush your draft….as long as you’re right.  Every season I try and zag and find the offense that was bad this past year and that everyone expects to bad again this year.  Two years ago, it was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, last season it was the Washington Commanders who finished 6th in total offensive TDs with 55, but even there was a path to them being competitive. 

    I want to look at the true dregs of the league and see if we can find a Cinderella team that could from being a bottom-five offense to one in the top-half of the league.  The Browns, Giants, Patriots, Raiders and Titans all scored 33 or less TDs last season.  The Cowboys also scored 33, but I would put them closer to a top-five offense than a bottom-five one this season.  Sometimes all a team needs is a QB change to reset the culture, sometimes the team around a QB has to evolve and it takes a coaching change to unlock an offense.  The Jags will be a popular offense to invest in this season, but they are too obvious with Liam Cohen grabbing the reigns, same goes for the Bears with.

    Tennessee Titans

    2024 Stats

    • Points/Game: (27th)
    • Yards per game:  (26th)
    • Pass Yards:  (26th)
    • Pass TD’s: 19 (16th)
    • Rushing Attempts: (16th) 
    • Rushing Yards:  (19th) 
    • Rush TD’s: (25th) 
    • 1st Downs: (24th)

     The Titans have been a fantasy wasteland for several seasons and it was only Derrick Henry who was making them relevant.  There is a new bulldozer in town, rookie QB Cam Ward who could change the culture of losing, the unwatchable football games and the fantasy irrelevance in one throw.  Ward might not be Jayden Daniels, but he’s got a cannon of an arm and you can be sure the Titans won’t finish 32nd in FPPG.  It’s always tricky predicting rookie QBs to overhaul an entire franchise overnight.  It happens and it happened with Daniels and Bo Nix last season, but generally we should expect the TEN offense to take off in year two.  The simply nature of having a QB who can air it out will have a cascading affect on the entire offense.  Whether you think Tony Pollard will the big winner or Tyjae Spears, an signifigant QB upgrade almost always impacts the star WR first and foremost.  Calvin Ridley is the big winner along with TEN fans, but Ridley who finished as the WR27 only caught 64 of 120 targets.  For contract, Tyreek Hill who played half the season with a zero at QB caught 81 of 123.   I have never been the biggest Ridley fan, but he’s still only 30 and right at the age cliff and he might one more eff you WR1 fantasy season in him.  With an ADP of the WR33, that’s a lot of upside for the clear-cut WR1 on his team with a QB who isn’t afraid of making mistakes.  I won’t be targeting Ward in 1QB leagues, but the Ward/Ridley stack in Super Flex leagues is starting to grow on me.  It’s possible we are sleeping on this TEN offense.

    Fantasy Thoughts:

    • Points per game: 18.3 (27th)
    • EPA per dropback: -0.06 (27th)
    • EPA per rush: -0.18 (29th)
    • Points per game against: 27.1 (30th)

     

    • Quarterback: I am currently avoiding Cam Ward, but not fading him up.  I feel like I will start to warm up on him once I watch some preseason.  
    • Running Back: Tony Pollard vs. Tyjae Spears feels like a movie we have seen before.  Pollard has three 1000 yard rushing seasons in a row, but is 28 and averaged 4.1 YPC over the last two seasons.  Pollard is going as the RB25 while Spears is brimming with explosive potential.  Spears is much more effective in the passing game and post three RB1 finishes in the fantasy playoffs.  One of the biggest issues for both Spears and Pollard last season was the offensive line, which finished with the second-lowest team run-blocking grade in the league.  I’m out on both as of now, but could see myself grabbing Spears in a zero RB strategy.
    • Wide Receiver:  It might not the most effective way to run an offense, but a single WR-centric passing offense will see extreme volume and air yards.  Ridley was 18th in targets last year with a 23.7% TS.  That was with a handful of games from DeAndre Hopkins and a full season of Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, both who have moved on.  There isn’t another WR (Tyler Lockett or Van Jefferson) that is worth drafting.
    • Tight End: Chig Oknokwo’s YAC ability remains an exciting roller coaster ride, but it takes quite a bit of optimistic projecting to paint a picture where he finishes as more than the borderline TE2 he’s done in each of the past two seasons.  He might offer some nice spike weeks in a streaming format in the right matchup, but he’s not bankable. 

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    June 29, 2025, 1:00 pm