Mike Davis just may win you a championship this season.
David Montgomery just may lose this a season.
The Chicago Bears are shaking things up in their backfield, and for good reason. Matt Nagy had a glorious offense in Kansas City under Andy Reid and honed his skills playing quarterback in arena football and at Delaware. He loves the West Coast offense sprinkled with the Air Raid offense. These are not great offenses for traditional running backs.
Look at the moves Nagy has made. Jordan Howard out. Mike Davis in. The Bears traded up for David Montgomery. But wait, they also pulled in Cordarrelle Patterson? Hmm, why would they do that? Tarik Cohen is a versatile back that Nagy loves for his type of offense. So is Patterson, but he’s so much bigger with the exact same speed and is insanely good at kick returns.
Nagy also loves Mitch Trubisky, and running RPO plays with him. The only team to run more RPO plays last year were, you guessed it, Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs. Trubisky had 68 carries for 421 yards, compared to Mahomes who had 60 carries for only 272 yards. 19.2% of Nagy’s playcalls in 2018 were RPOS, and judging by his moves in the offseason that number should increase.
We’re looking at the possibility of two main backs, two hybrid backs/receivers (three if you count Taylor Gabriel,) and a rushing quarterback here. Great fun to watch, yes, but scary as hell for fantasy. There won’t be a bell-cow because Nagy doesn’t coach offense like that. He prefers dual purpose players and his best skillset is causing mismatches against the defense. A bell-cow back does not create mismatches, and is easy to scheme against, which is the antithesis of Nagy’s offensive ethos and why he got rid of Jordan Howard.
The group-think that David Montgomery will supplant Howard and gain all his touches is illogical to this author, especially after seeing the moves Nagy made to improve his NFC North Champion offense. Currently the ADPs of all of Chicago’s backfield are supremely out of whack.
ADP according to Fantasypros.com:
David Montgomery
50 OVR 24 RB in STD. 49 OVR 24 RB in PPR
Tarik Cohen
60 OVR 27 RB in STD. 58 OVR 26 RB in PPR
Mike Davis
167 OVR 54 RB in STD. 202 OVR 63 RB in PPR
So logically, you have to avoid Montgomery and Cohen like the plague in your drafts, but Davis is a huge value. He’s also a really good back, and Nagy has said so after OTAs.
After being asked if anyone intrigued him after OTAs, Nagy said “. . . all the rookies are obvious . . . I can’t say there’s one person that just jumps out to me that just says I can’t wait to see . . . maybe you look at somebody like Mike Davis, right, who, who, uh is coming here and it’s just hard for these running backs right now because they’re all, everything’s passing.” Nagy may be great at creating an offense but isn’t an outstanding wordsmith. But this says a ton, he basically admitted that Mike Davis is beating out David Montgomery.
“Um, I would say there’s no limit to none of us actually. Um, we all can be put in different spots. So, um, we all can go out wide, heh, we all can be in the backfield, so we all can be on the field at the same time, so it’s gonna be crazy the things we do as far as all three of us being on the field.” -Mike Davis
“. . .It’s not one-dimensional (Nagy’s offense,) y’know he allows all the
players to play everyone of (sic) position. I mean everyone on the field, so that’s big. Just being able to be versatile and kind of be a hybrid guy.” -David Montgomery
“See, I don’t like being labeled, y’know people try to say I’m a receiver or running back or kickoff returner, y’know. I can do anything on the field that, that’s, y’know, I put my mind to. “ -Cordarrelle Patterson (who threw three passes in practice.)
So what we have here is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable offenses in football, but that is not a good thing for fantasy football. Nagy will spread the ball around and isn’t shy about talking about it. Montgomery hasn’t won the starting job much to the average bear’s chagrin, and Mike Davis may be winning out over him. Which isn’t surprising to me. Mike Davis has great vision, patience, and is my breakout candidate of the year. Montgomery will have to prove himself against NFL defenses, which are light years ahead of the Big 12 arm tacklers he faced. Davis has already done it in the SEC and Seattle.
If you understand value based drafting, you can see how easy this decision is in your draft. You can get Davis in the last round who may turn into a solid pick, and if not, you can drop him. Woe is he who drafts Montgomery or Cohen though, they’re far too risky at their current positions.
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