Fantasy football team preview: Buffalo Bills

The Bills enter 2017 with a new regime at the reins, as Sean McDermott takes over head coaching duties. A defensive-minded coach, McDermott’s 4-3 scheme will be a dramatic departure from Rex Ryan’s defense. On the offensive side of the ball, Rick Dennison will serve as offensive coordinator after handling the same duties in Denver for the last two seasons. A Mike Shanahan disciple, Dennison runs a West Coast offense that relies heavily on zone blocking. That means only minor changes from last year’s offense, which was also West Coast under Greg Roman and Anthony Lynn.

Quarterback

While he may not be in the Bills’ long-term plans, Tyrod Taylor remains inked in as the starting quarterback this season. Taylor has emerged as one of the league’s top dual-threat options with 500-plus rushing yards in each of the last two seasons. Last year, Taylor accounted for 19.1 percent of the Bills carries and tied for the league lead among quarterbacks in carries inside the 5-yard line with 8. He also ranked 11th among quarterbacks in fantasy scoring. With QB1 upside, Taylor is a solid value in fantasy drafts this year.

Behind Taylor, the Bills have journeyman backup T.J. Yates, former Ohio State QB Cardale Jones, and rookie Nathan Peterman. There really isn’t much to get excited about here for redraft purposes, but those in deep dynasty leagues should at least be aware of Peterman. A fifth-round selection, Peterman comes from a pro-style system at Pitt. Though Peterman doesn't have the biggest arm, he managed to complete 21-of-42 passes traveling over 20 yards in the air for 825 yards and eight scores last year. He also excelled under pressure with a passer rating of 114.7 when pressured. Peterman has future starter potential and should be consider a deep dynasty stash.

Running back

To say the Bills offensive line impressed in the run game last season would be an understatement. Buffalo led the league in yards per carry, and a big part of that was the space the offensive line was about to generate with a league-best average of 2.76 yards before contact per attempt. Anthony Lynn is gone, but Dennison’s zone-blocking scheme bodes well for continued success along the offensive line.

With five top-12 fantasy scoring seasons in eight years as a pro, LeSean McCoy has been one of the most consistent options at the running back position over the last decade. Of course, Father Time has a way of catching up with even the best football players, and McCoy is entering his age-29 season. Still, we don’t anticipate a dropoff in production just yet. McCoy consistently saw heavy volume last season, ranking 11th in the league in touches per game with 18.9. He also finished as a top-10 fantasy option eight times, including every week during the crucial end-of-season stretch from Week 12 to Week 16. McCoy is locked and loaded as a top-five fantasy running back this year.

The understudy in Buffalo has been a valuable spot over the last two years with Karlos Williams (2015) and Mike Gillislee (2016) posting RB3 numbers despite playing in a backup role. This year, that distinction goes to Jonathan Williams. The second-year man touched the ball just 28 times last season, but that volume will increase dramatically this year. He’s worth a late-round dart in this year’s fantasy drafts.

Wide receivers

Will he or won’t he be healthy? That is the question with Sammy Watkins. The fourth-year receiver is as dynamic as any player in the league and has the ability to put up an entire week’s worth of fantasy production is just two or three catches. Of course, health has been the major issue for Watkins thus far in his career, as he’s missed a combined 11 games over the last two seasons. Three of those missed games came in 2015, but he still managed to finish as a top-20 wide receiver in both standard and PPR scoring thanks to 1,047 receiving yards and nine scores. Watkins was limited throughout spring practices and remains a very volatile fantasy option as an extremely high ceiling WR2.

With Robert Woods and Marquise Goodwin gone, the Bills addressed wide receiver in the draft with the second-round selection of Zay Jones. The all-time FBS leader in receptions (399), Jones is coming off a massive 2016 campaign with 158 for 1,746 and eight scores. He has good size (6-2, 201) and ran an impressive 40 time (4.45) at the combine. The one minor knock on Jones is that despite seeing a massive 216 targets, only 13.4 percent came on deep balls. Still, Jones has the skillset and opportunity to make an immediate impact on the field. He’s a fringe fantasy option in 2016 with a bright long-term outlook.

There’s a whole lot of nothing beyond Jones in this Buffalo wide receiver corps. Andre Holmes and Corey Brown joined the team in the offseason. They’ll compete for No. 3 duties with Holmes the early favorite. Neither player is likely to surface on the fantasy radar given Buffalo’s run-heavy offensive tendencies.

Tight end

Charles Clay remains locked in as the Bills top pass-catching tight end. Clay hasn’t finished as a top-10 fantasy option since 2013, but you might remember him catching fire down the stretch last season. During the fantasy playoffs, he posted fantasy finishes of fourth in Week 14, third in Week 15, and second in Week 16. Those expecting to catch lighting in a bottle again with Clay will be wise to look elsewhere. The Bills run-heavy offense limits Clay’s overall volume, making him a back-end TE2 option with occasional weekly upside.