Projections are a handy tool in understanding the range of outcomes for a player.

Leonard Fournette's range of outcomes are staggering.

In this thread we will walk through where my assumptions are rooted and what I think is the most likely scenario.

Lets dive in.

So first things first. I took everyone with an RB1 season that changed teams since 2014 aged <30 at the time

I had to do this manually so if I missed someone much appologies. (also let me know and ill add them)

I think the list is:

Le'Veon Bell
Demarco Murray
Eddie Lacy (weight clause contract)
Mark Ingram
LeSean McCoy
Jordan Howard
Carlos Hyde
Kareem Hunt (played with Nick MF'ing Chubb)

If I missed anyone let me know

Lacy had to sign a weight clause in his new contract. This indicates to me major issues off the field. He barely played in Seattle.

This type of flame out is certainly a possibility for LF, but I dont think its very likely.

Hunt also had the unusual circumstance of signing on a team where there was already a genuine superstar in the RB1 role.

I get that some of you like Rojo but he sure isnt in that realm. (more on that later).

So for these purposes I am omitting them. I totally get it if you want to include them, but I just do not see any parallels to this situation.

I am a firm believer that volume is earned and that established players "own" their volume for the most part.

As you can see, these players "owned their volume for the most part as well.

They averaged a 69% opportunity share over the preceeding 3 years before changing teams, and then they had a 64.92% share in their first year with their new teams.

Carlos Hyde's was a bit tricky to calculate as he only played 6 weeks with the Browns after leaving San Fran

So I calculated his rush op manually

Note 1 everything else is opportunity share so it includes targets

Note 2 - Hyde in year 1 with the Texans had a 62% opp share fwiw

Also Demarco Murray's is awkward.

He left Dallas for Philly and saw a massive dip but then left Philly for Tennessee and saw a massive increase.

Rather than putting it in twice, I just used the net change from Dallas to Tennessee for ease of use.

So basically, on average these RB1 types do see a small decline in opportunity share on their new teams but it really isnt anything to be concerned about and could just be complete variance.

So, what has LF's opportunity share been over the past 3 years?

2017 - 66.7%
2018 - 57.0%
2019 - 90.1%

Average = 71.3%

On a side note, I excluded those 30+ rb's for a reason. They basically all were terrible.

PS. this is foreshadowing for where my LeSean McCoy projection.

The next thing part of this is looking at specifically rush share.

Fournette has averaged 66% of the rushes on his team throughout his entire career.

Jones's best share is 42%

So if Rojo "owns" his rush share of 29% and LF "owns" his share of 66%...

I really dont think this is a split backfield. LF wasnt yielding half the attempts to Peyton Barber level talent, he was relegating them to the bench.

When LF played with Carlos Hyde, LF still had a 64% share of the rushing attempts in '18

Remember that Hyde had a monster opp share with the Browns earlier in '18 bringing up his avg

Remember that Hyde has an RB1 finish AND a 1,000 yard season (different years) on his resume

So lets give Rojo a pass for his rookie year and say he owns his 42% rush attempt share. LF owns his 66%

That looks like a pretty solid split

66+42 = 108 (still need to fit in Brady (lolz) and a McCoy)

But lets remember that 66/42 = 1.57 ratio of LF to Rojo attempts.

Next lets talk about Target Share.

Leonard Fournette has a career average of 13.4% of the targets.

2017 - 11.4%
2018 - 9.9%
2019 - 18.9%

Ronald Jones on the other hand averaged 6.5% in 2019.

I can assure you that you dont want to know it in 2018

Again, targets are earned.

Rojo was out there ceding targets to their special teams captain that they cut this year, Dare Ogunbowale, who had 7.8%.

Let that sink in.

LeSean McCoy actually had decent target share pulling in a target share of 9.7% last season.

However, keep in mind he was so important to the team that the Chiefs literally scratched him in the Superbowl in favor of Darwin Thompson

Couple that with the fact that the RB's that I looked at that changed teams and had an RB1 finish were basically dust over 30.

McCoy is this.

So in terms of target share, Im making the assumption that Fournette is going to be the primary receiver out of the backfield because Rojo is highly "meh" and McCoy is highly "dust"

If you think they are more than that thats fine, I dont and this is my thread. So deal with it

so then lets talk the size of the pie

This was a brief comparison between the Bucs and the Patriots pass attempts in the past few years https://twitter.com/DFBeanCounter/status/1250065150733934594?s=20

There is a narrative that the bucs wont have to pass as much because Brady wont throw 30 int's...

I am not sure that narrative is very accurate

Brady throws a lot of passes. I cant see that changing because he moved to Bruce Arians offense instead of the Belichek/McDaniels one

Anyway, based on coaching trends over the past 3 years @pahowdy has the bucs projected for 630 passes and 399 rushes.

I think that is pretty fair given what the pats/bucs have done the past 3 years.

(to be continued, ran out of available tweets on this thread).

The Bucs' team target % by position show an average of 15.97% of the passes going to the RB's with a high of 18.1% in 2019.

Tom Brady and the patriots show an average of 28.05% of the teams targets going to the RB's with a 3 year low in 2019 of 26.8%.

Id expect the bucs to be somewhere in the middle in 2020.

So you cant accuse me of playing favorites lets just merge the two.

(15.97+28.05)/2 = 22.01%

This actually matches up pretty closesly with what Jacksonville has done while Fournette had been there.

So I dont think there is any real reason to scale Fournette's target share up or down based on Brady's propensity to target the RB.

So lets look at a few examples.

In this first one we will assume a decent drop from his career norm opportunites about the same as our normal drop from the RB1's that changed teams in the sample above.

This would be his stat line.

220.5 PPR Points. That would have put him at RB13 last season.

But what if he gets his career norm usage?

This jumps him up to 281.8 ppr fantasy points.

That would have been RB6.

And then to take it step further... what if he is just a more efficient player in a high flying Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense than he was in a... (i am going to refrain from using an adjectives to describe the Jaguars offense) Jacksonville offense?

Leonard Fournette literally has top 5 RB upside.

To be projecting him for a 50/50 split isn't based on math, its based on feelings.

I like math.

To be fair, if someone IS projecting him for a 50/50 split based on math I'd love to dig into the assumptions you are making to ge there.

Anyway, this is the type of fact based analysis that goes into my rankings on patreon.

The intro tier is only $3/month. You can afford it

Come on in! https://www.patreon.com/DFBeanCounter