Fantasy: Passing Fancy - Martz Does Chi-Town

Like McArthur marching on the Yalu River or Billy Squier following up his hard-rockin' “Don't Say No” album with that pink satin pajama video some guys insist on doing things their way despite mountains of evidence that success is down a different path. This incessant egoism got General Doug fired by Harry Truman and Billy Squier relegated to the bargain rack between Southside Johnny and Supertramp, but in the realm of the NFL it keeps getting a guy like Mike Martz work. And that can be a good thing for astute fantasy players.

Questions about touches, attempts, pass/run mix and the like are constantly on owners minds in the weeks and days leading up to one's draft. Particularly when it comes to finding value in the mid and late rounds opportunity is as important as talent in ferreting out the sleepers from the just plain dead. Fortunately Mike Martz makes this easier when it comes to evaluating Chicago this year.

That's because everyone knows Martz is going to pass, pass and pass again. Pass more than Kate Moss does on the dessert cart. Pass more than the big winner on the first showcase on The Price Is Right. Pass more than…alright you get the point. However, things are not just as easy as loading up on Jay Cutler and Bears' wideouts this year. As many fantasy gurus have pointed out Martz no longer has Warner/Faulk/Holt/Bruce at his disposal and his more recent efforts with middle-of-the-pack teams in Detroit and San Francisco have not always produced fantasy success.

So what to do? Well let's chuck The Greatest Show on Turf days since not only will Mad Mike not find that kind of talent in the Windy City, but defenses have also caught up to some extent with this type of system. That leaves the following fantasy production in his last 3 years as OC in Det. and S.F.:

Now let's see if we can't get some kind of projection for Bears fantasy players using these seasons as rough comps and adjusting for differences in talent and expected opportunity:

Quarterback: Kitna and Shaun Hill were undrafted and O'Sullivan was a 6th rounder out of 1-AA Cal Davis so Cutler is clearly more highly regarded then these journeymen. Combining the two S.F. QBs numbers in 2008 they would have finished a QB9. Thus Cutler should definitely be viewed as a top tier QB this year. If healthy he should easily top 4000 yards and while INTs may continue to plague him in this system the yardage plus about 25-27 TDs will make up for it. We'll project him as QB8 easily behind the consensus Big 7, but just ahead of Favre who looks due to regress to the mean after a monster 2009.

Running Back: Even the mighty Frank Gore couldn't crack the Top 10 under Martz and that bodes poorly for the prospects of Matt Forte and Chester Taylor this year. The only upside is that both RBs are excellent receivers, but this only means they'll probably cut into each others opportunities, neither able to carve out a definitive niche. This is a training camp situation to monitor, but unless injury thrusts one of them into the spotlight we would be looking elsewhere for starting RBs.

Wide Receivers: It's never easy. Mike Furrey's 2006 season gave us hope that Martz could spin any old fantasy flotsam into gold, but alas 2007 and 2008 yielded a spread the wealth approach that left no one ranked higher than WR23. Frighteningly the Bears fleet looks a lot like those latter two units with 4 players (Hester, Knox, Aromashodu, Bennett)capable of 30 plus receptions and none a proven standout. That said there is upside and the player we feel most likely to realize it is Devin Hester. In 2009 Hester was averaging 9.1 FPPG through the first 9 weeks of the season before injuries slowed him causing missed practices and games. Had he maintained that reasonable pace throughout he would have finished around WR14-16. Instead Devin Aromashodu saw more targets and increased his stock mightily over those final weeks. Still with Hester cutting back on return duties, working with Isaac Bruce this offseason and getting the endorsement of Martz at mini-camp we see a guy poised to far exceed his current WR44 ADP.

Tight End: As police at an accident scene say- “Move along. Nothing to see here.” Dan Campbell and Sean McHugh are non-entities, but Vernon Davis is an abject lesson in drafting Martz tight ends. Davis was TE14 with a bullet in 2007, but dropped to TE26 with a career low 45 targets under Martz before bouncing back to be no less than TE1 (free at last!) last year. Unless reports from training camp have Greg Olsen splitting out as a 4th WR we see better options even as your second TE.

Kicker: Don't forget high pass, low run offenses like Martz' often tend to get bogged down in the Red Zone when the field condenses. Jason Hanson had his only two Top 10 finishes in 2006-07 and Joe Nedney was K14 on 33 attempts in 2008 so Robbie Gould should be on your radar late in the draft or as a bye week replacement.