There are 32 teams in the National Football League. Eighteen of them have new playcallers this year. Eighteen!
It's a staggering number. The race is on to find the next Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay or Ben Johnson, any genius who can innovate an offense and push a team toward a Super Bowl. You know, as Klint Kubiak did, he went from the champion Seahawks to the worst-in-league Raiders this offseason.
The funny thing is that almost every single one of the 18 playcaller jobs that were filled are connected to Shanahan, McVay or Johnson. And it's even funnier that as former assistants fill those jobs, those three continue to tweak their offenses, adding wrinkles and changes to keep things fresh. Even those who revolutionized offenses are evolving.
The players themselves matter more to Fantasy Football since they're the ones you're drafting and starting. Talent is obviously important but opportunities matter more, and it's these playcallers who will determine the opportunities their players get. That's why studying each new playcaller and making some educated guesses on what they'll do and how they'll operate this season is important draft prep work.
I've gone ahead and ranked all 18 playcallers -- some are head coaches who will call plays, others are offensive coordinators. Last year, new play callers Liam Coen (Jacksonville) and Ben Johnson (Chicago) had two of the biggest impacts on the Fantasy Football season. So keep an eye on who ranks atop this list. We'll put together a landing page for all 18 pieces at the end and cross-link on each piece once we're caught up.
We'll start by working backwards with my 17th-ranked new play caller until we get all the way through to No. 1. Without further ado, the team with the 17th-ranked new play caller, Falcons offensive coordinator Tommy Reese.
Who's new?
Kevin Stefanski is their new head coach, but Tommy Rees will call offensive plays, just as he did under Stefanski with the Browns for nine games last season. Rees also called plays at Notre Dame for four seasons and at Alabama for one. The system should be West Coast-based with spread concepts that best fit with their quarterbacks. Legendary offensive line coach Bill Callahan is also on the staff.
What's expected this year?
Rees has been balanced as a playcaller, having a 55.4% pass rate in Cleveland last year despite a beat-up offensive line and a lot of rookies at the skill positions, and pass rates of 49.1% and 51.7% at Alabama and Notre Dame, respectively. That's sort of unique for a former QB-turned-playcaller; usually, those guys lean into passing more.
Expect the Falcons to have plenty of run-game versatility and play-action passing. Probably plenty of quick throws off of RPOs, given who they have at quarterback. Rees' history suggests a large workload for Kyle Pitts: Last year, Browns TEs had a 31.1% target share, and at Notre Dame, tight ends saw at least a 21.9% target share annually (as high as 34% in 2022 thanks to Michael Mayer).
One area of concern: Rees leaned into his running backs in the pass game last year in Cleveland (23.9% target share), but that wasn't the case in his college stops. In fact, his highest running back target share was 17.7% at Notre Dame in 2021 when he had Kyren Williams. Certainly, Rees would be silly to not lean on Bijan Robinson in the pass game, but it might not be at the 19.8% target share he specifically had last year.
Winners and losers for Fantasy
Stefanski spoke vaguely about asking Pitts to do "a couple new things," but the passing game coordinator said he's "going to be a big piece of this thing." After running an out route on about one-third of his routes last year, the guess is that he'll be asked to level up his route tree (crossers could be on the menu to utilize his after-catch skills). Pitts is coming off career lows in average depth of target and yards per catch, but also a career-high in PPR points per game (12.4 thanks to some big games without Drake London).
London and Robinson are still expected to be big contributors, but one guy who turned heads in OTAs has been rookie Zachariah Branch, whom Tua Tagovailoa compared to Jaylen Waddle. If the Falcons are going to lean on quick throws, Branch should fit in because he caught a ton of screens and short outs at Georgia last year.
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