Fantasy Football Today - Darnell Mooney Profile: More Than Just a Target Hog? (06/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Jacob Gibbs makes a case for Darnell Mooney while Adam tries to pour some cold water on it. What do the metrics say? You can also follow the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Darnell Mooney went over a thousand yards last year. Now what can he do as an encore? He is currently the 29th wide receiver off the board. Let's talk about the metrics on Darnell Mooney with Jacob Gibbs of Sportsline right now. Please go to Sportsline.com and follow Jacob on Twitter

at JAGibbs underscore 23. Jacob, break it down for me on Darnell Mooney. What do you like about him in terms of advanced stats? So it was somewhat by necessity, but still Darnell Mooney completely dominated um the volume in chicago last year and like really an unprecedented way for a second year receiver for any second year receiver especially a fifth round pick who like wasn't even a sure thing to beat out anthony miller when he was drafted you know what i mean for him to come in

in year two and just like dominate the offense with Allen Robinson, who was healthy for, you know, the beginning of the season, like we talked about, um, on his episode yesterday, um, Mooney counted for 26% of Chicago's targets and 30%, 36% of their air yards, um, over the course of the full season. Um, only six players reached both of those benchmarks last year, Justin Jefferson, Devonta Adams, Tyree kill DK Metccalf, Brandon Cooks, DJ Moore. Here's another fun list. Receivers under the age of 24 who finished a season with a target share and an area audit share as high as Mooney's,

26 and 36, over the past 15 years. Nine receivers other than Darnell Mooney to do this. Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson, Josh Gordon twice, Kelvin Benjamin, Mike Evans twice Odo Beckham twice DeAndre Hopkins DK Metcalf Justin Jefferson um so obviously that is a that's a pretty good list yeah to be on um unless he's Kelvin Benjamin like everyone else on there is a really really you know highly efficient wide receiver one for fantasy yeah okay I'll get it I'm not a huge Mooney fan so I'm hoping you're going to be able to convince

me here uh alan robinson not not in the picture and it took a while for him to really separate himself like before alan robinson's injury mooney was the number one guy but not in the substantial way that he was after robinson came back but we don't have to worry about that anymore and they didn't really replace him so what does this mean for Mooney? Right. Yeah. He really stepped up after Robinson went down. Um, so Robinson missed the final eight games basically for Chicago. Um, I think he played two of those games. Um, and Mooney really just stepped into the target hog role that we'd seen Robinson play prior to 2021. Um, he was targeted 16 times in the first game out of the buy. Um, and we, we saw him display that type of target hog ability

multiple times throughout year two, which is really exciting for a young receiver when they do this type of thing. So he had three games last year where he saw at least 35, he was targeted on at least 35% of his routes. The only other players to do that were AJ Brown, Antonio Brown, Cooper Cup, Devante Adams,

Devo Samuel, and Tyree kill. He had two games where he drew a target on at least 40% of his routes. The only other players to do that. And Tony Brown, Cooper cup, Devante Adams, Devo Samuel, Tyree kill. Um, and you'll love this one. One other player on that list. Kadarius Tony. Hey, there you go.

I know, I know you and I are still there. Still there. Loving Kadarius Tony. Yeah. There you go. I know you and I are still there. We're still there loving Canarias, Tony. Yeah, so over the final eight games, with Robinson mostly off the field, Mooney's target and Ariadne's share were up to 28% and 38%. We talked, you know, the previous point was 26% and 36%, and like only a few players have ever done that at that age. It was 28% and 38% when he was operating as the true wide receiver one

in the role that we expect him to be in this year. Justin Jefferson and DJ Moore were the only players to hit both those marks last year. So again, it's mostly about volume, but the volume could really, really be unique for Mooney, like only a few guys in the entire league see. Okay, so finishing up your thoughts on Darnell Mooney, give me the splits with and without Justin Fields

because from what I saw, he was a lot better with Andy Dalton, especially late in the year. I have a lot of concerns about Mooney. I love the target volume. I think if you can get him as a number three receiver, that's great. Some people will take him as a number two, but he wasn't really that good last year for someone who had 140 targets. Also, his best work to me came with Andy Dalton. It came against Detroit, two games against Detroit. He killed them.

It came without Allen Robinson. But what do you see? I know you can paint a more optimistic picture. Yeah, I think that's all fair. I think when it comes to his ability to draw targets, he definitely did stand out when playing with the other quarterbacks. So on 324 routes with Justin Fields, he was targeted on 20% of his routes, um, on 289 routes with other quarterbacks, his target per hour rate was up to 26%. So you're right. He was definitely targeted at a higher rate with those other quarterbacks. Um, but it's important to note that his average

depth of target with those quarterbacks was only nine yards, um, compared to fields, it was 13.5 yards. So that's a massive difference. Um, and it makes those targets a lot more valuable and so what I did here is just to get a better understanding of Mooney's game I looked at his efficiency in terms of his discrepancy at different average depth of target intervals compared to wide receivers in the entire NFL the league average and then also compared to wide receivers in the entire NFL, the league average, and then also compared to wide receivers on Chicago to just get an idea of, is he good on short yardage routes, intermediate routes, or deep routes? And what I found was that he was clearly the best on deep routes. On short and intermediate, he was slightly below the league average for his career, and then

slightly above the league average in 2021. On deep routes, he was slightly above the league average for his career, and he was way above the league average in 2021. On deep routes, he was slightly above the league average for his career and he was way above the league average in 2021. And the same thing when compared to Chicago receivers, he was of course above the league average or above Chicago's average on short routes, above Chicago's average on intermediate. And then we look at deep routes, he was by far the best receiver, 54% better than the average Chicago receiver on deep targets. And so I do think that's really exciting with Fields. I think his target rates could go down a little bit, like we've talked about.

All those, you know, 28% target share, that could drop a little bit with Fields if what we saw last year is going to be what we should expect this year. But I do think Fields brings in, you know, second highest average depth of target last year, 23% of his passes went 15 or more area yards, which is the fourth highest rate.

16% of his passes went 20 or more area yards, which is the second highest rate. And so I think that, I think D'Luis Jones is going to play more of the intermediate role and we're going to see Mooney target downfield more often. And if his target program rate sustains or is even close to what we saw last year, then we could see him really pile up air yards at like one of the highest rates in the NFL with fields under center. You know who I like? I like Cole Komet I like the value for Cole commit better than the value for Darnell Mooney, but we will see. Yeah,

I will say, all right. Thank you to Jacob. There's a couple of weekend here with a couple of bears wide receivers, one current, one former, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. We'll talk to you later on fantasy football today.

Bye.