Fantasy football team preview: Green Bay Packers

The Packers have a future Hall of Famer at quarterback in Aaron Rodgers, but it’s fair to say that they leaned too heavily on the passing game last season, ranking third in the league in pass play percentage. Green Bay addressed the running back position in the draft with three Day 3 selections, and head coach Mike McCarthy will attempt to be more balanced this season. McCarthy runs a West Coast offense with vertical elements and relies almost exclusively on zone blocking in the run game.

Quarterback

Consistency, thy name is Aaron Rodgers. Over the last ten years, Rodgers has played eight full seasons. He finished first or second in fantasy scoring in seven of those seasons, and the other year was an eight-place finish in 2015. Yep, he’s really good, and you know that. Last year, Rodgers only had two weeks where he didn’t rank as a QB1, and he was in the top-3 a whopping eight times.

What’s most interesting about Rodgers’ productivity is he produces these fantasy numbers without massive yardage totals. Last year, he was fantasy’s No. 1 fantasy quarterback while ranking fourth in yards with nearly 800 fewer passing yards than Drew Brees. For Rodgers, it’s all about touchdown efficiency. He’s thrown for at least 30 scores in six of the last eight years. He also adds value with his legs, rushing for 300-plus yards in each of the last two seasons and notching four rushing scores last year. Rodgers is locked in as the No. 1 fantasy option at quarterback this year.

Following an early-season injury to Eddie Lacy and general lackluster play from James Starks and Christine Michael, the Packers turned to converted wide receiver Ty Montgomery to handle a bulk of the workload out of the backfield. Montgomery was very much up and down in this role, but he flashed major upside in Week 15 when he ran all over the Bears on his way to a third-place fantasy finish. Montgomery is a strong receiver out of the backfield, but there are some questions as to how he’ll perform on early downs. If he gets the early-down job, he’s a borderline RB1. But for now, those questions are enough to keep Montgomery in the back end of the RB2s.

Green Bay added three running backs in the draft with Day 3 selections of Jamaal Williams, Aaron Jones, and DeVante Mays. Jones and Mays are interesting dynasty names, but Williams appears to be the most likely candidate to leapfrog Montgomery on early downs. Williams is a decisive grinder who is coming off a strong 2016 campaign where he put up 1,375 yards and 12 scores despite missing three games with an ankle injury. He isn’t the most dynamic runner, but did post 55 forced missed tackles on 235 carries and averaged 3.3 yards after contact last season. Williams has the potential to surface on the RB3 radar if he beats out Montgomery for early-down duties.

Wide Receivers

Jordy Nelson returned from a torn ACL last season and remarkably caught 97 balls for 1,257 yards and a league-leading 14 touchdowns. He finished the year as the No. 1 wide receiver in standard scoring and No. 2 in PPR formats. That’s the third time in the past six years he’s finished in the top-3. Nelson projects to continue seeing heavy volume – he finished tied for fifth last season in targets – especially in the red zone. His 20 end zone targets in 2016 ranked second in the NFL and he tied for fourth in 2014 with 19. While Nelson is well north of 30 years old, he remains squarely in the WR1 conversation.

It wasn’t always pretty, but Devante Adams took a step forward last year and emerged as the Packers’ No. 2 receiving option and finished as a top-10 fantasy option. Adams wasn’t far off Nelson in end zone targets with 16 of them, and he scored an impressive 12 times. Of course, touchdowns can swing dramatically from one season to the next. The more important numbers for fantasy purposes with Adams are his targets and yardage production. Adams did top 100 targets with 118, but he failed to crack 1,000 yards. With the potential for touchdown regression very likely, Adams will need to continue to see this sort of volume in order to sustain WR2 production. As it stands, fantasy drafters would be wise to not overvalue Adams on draft day. He’s best viewed as a back-end WR2.

Randall Cobb is coming off an inconsistent season where he saw just 80 regular season targets in 12 games, and 36 of them came over a three-game span. Cobb finished a lowly 58th among wide receivers in fantasy scoring. It’s easy to view Cobb as the same fantasy option he was in 2014 when he finished top-10 among wideouts, but those days appear to be in the rear view mirror. At this point, fantasy drafters would be wide to consider Cobb as no better than a flex option.

Tight End

With Jared Cook now in Oakland, the Packers will look to veteran Martellus Bennett as their No. 1 receiving option at tight end. Bennett comes over from New England, where he was at times an elite-level fantasy option when Rob Gronkowski was sidelined. Bennett had six top-10 fantasy weeks last year and wound up 10th among tight ends in fantasy scoring. If he manages to stay healthy, Bennett gives the Packers a consistent option over the middle of the field who can do his share of damage in the red zone. Bennett is worth considering as a mid-range TE1 in the middle rounds of fantasy drafts.