Four big questions for the NFL season

It's going to be almost 90 degrees this weekend and the leaves haven't started changing color at all, so that can only mean one thing: football season is here! When we left off last season, an ascendant Carolina Panthers team struggled in Cam Newton's first Super Bowl against Von Miller and the Denver Broncos. And when we picked up this season, not too much had changed. With Game One in the books and an exciting slate of football ahead this Sunday, let's dig into some of this season's biggest questions.

Are Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers going to be OK?

Last year saw some very weird seasons from a number of superstar quarterbacks. Out of 36 qualified QBs, Future Pro Football Hall-of-Fame Inductee and arguable GOAT Peyton Manning finished 36th in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A). Manning's struggles in 2015 were well-publicized, but a mere five spots above Manning on the ANY/A chart was his direct replacement and someone with GOAT potential of his own: Andrew Luck. Luck averaged just 5.04 ANY/A in a season plagued by injuries. Were Luck's struggles a one-time thing or a troubling sign of what's to come?

While we can't know where Luck is at from a health standpoint, beyond what's been publicly reported, we can look back at QBs who had similar seasons at his age. Luck's raw numbers may not be super helpful to compare to past QBs, given how much the game has changed to inflate passing numbers. However, we can use an Index Stat -- ANY/A+ -- to adjust raw numbers for era. If you're familiar with OPS+, ANY/A+ is the same idea scaled the same way, so an ANY/A+ of 100 means a QB had a league average season while an ANY/A+ of 150 means he was 50% above average.

In 2015, Luck had an ANY/A+ of 82. Indianapolis Colts fans may want to brace themselves before looking at this list of players who had an 82 or worse ANY/A+ in their third, fourth, or fifth season since 2000 (you can see the full list here):

 

That list is rough, but it's not all bad news. The example to point to here is Drew Brees, who bounced back from a 2-9 season in 2003 to post an ANY/A+ of 129 and going 11-4 for the San Diego Chargers. Brees shows that it's possible for an elite QB to have bad year at a young age, even if the rest of this list is disconcerting.

But Luck and Manning weren't the only stars who had rough 2015s. Aaron Rodgers very quietly had his worst season since taking over as Green Bay Packers' starter, finishing outside the Top 20 and below league average in ANY/A. Is this the beginning of the end for Rodgers or should everyone fretting about his 2015 performance just, well, you know.

Doing the same exercise with Rodgers that we did with Luck, here are QBs since 2000 who had a below average ANY/A in an age 31, 32, or 33 season, since 2000 (last year was Rodgers' age-32 season):

 

Once Packers fans get over the shock of seeing Rodgers and Cutler side-by-side, this actually looks a little more promising. Rivers and Manning have both bounced back to have well-above average seasons since their bad year, and Carson Palmer led the league in ANY/A in 2015.

One year like that can be an anomaly but, as Drew Bledsoe and Kerry Collins show, a second year tends to be a pretty strong warning sign. Still, the smart money is on Rodgers to bounce-back with a strong 2016.

How Are All These Young Quarterbacks Going to Do?

Eight of 32 teams will be starting a QB in one of his first NFL three seasons this week. Admittedly, that list includes Jimmy Garoppolo, who, of course, will probably not be starting after Week 4 unless something has gone really really well or really really wrong. But it also doesn't include Jared Goff, who will presumably take the starting reins from Case Keenum at some point.

What's truly fascinating about this, however, is that these young QBs won't just be starting for rebuilding teams searching for a QB of the future. Many of them, especially some of the least experienced, are going to be expected to produce at a playoff level (or better, in the case of Trevor Siemian, who's stepping into the starting role for the defending champs). How realistic is it for the Denver Broncos and Dallas Cowboys (assuming Tony Romo struggles to recover from his preseason injury) to expect playoff appearances from QBs who had taken one combined NFL snap (a kneeldown by Siemian) before this year.

The good news is neither Dak Prescott nor Siemian would be breaking new ground by making the playoffs in their first or second season. Post-Merger, 57 quarterbacks have thrown at least 15 passes in a playoff game in their first or second season in the league, a list that includes budding superstars like Russell Wilson and Tom Brady, injury replacements like A.J. McCarron and Caleb Hanie, and pretty much everything in between.

So plenty of first and second year QBs made the playoffs, but actually succeeding there is another matter. The average rookie or sophomore QB had a 70.02 passer rating, 6.6 yards per pass attempt, and a 54.9% completion rate. Out of 116 post-merger playoff games by a 1st or 2nd year QB, just 16 had a passer rating over 100. Worried that I may be factoring in too many QBs from older eras? Well if you just start the sample in 2000, which still includes 66 of those 116 games, the passer rating increases, but by a very modest five points, to 74.99.

So that's the challenge of succeeding in the playoffs, but what about just getting a team there? Last year's Broncos, the worst passing offense to make the playoffs, averaged 5.1 ANY/A. PFR doesn't have Index stats on a team level, but that mark is very close to Andrew Luck's 5.04 ANY/A in 2015. Using Luck's ANY/A+ of 82 as marker for the kind of QB performance, relative to era, it would take to get the Broncos to the playoffs, the news is very positive. Since the merger, 63 rookies and 132 2nd-year QBs have had an ANY/A+ of 82 or better. If you think Prescott, Siemien, or Derek Carr can play as well as Geno Smith in 2014, then you think they can replicate the production that the defending champions had a QB last year.

But there's the rub: last year's champions were extraordinary on the other side of the ball. The Broncos allowed 4.4 yards per play last year, the lowest mark since the 2009 New York Jets (another team famous for covering mediocre QB play from a rookie with excellent defense) allowed 4.2. You can't just have a great defense, you need a historically great defense to survive with that kind of QB play.

So that's bad news for Prescott and Carr, but what about Siemien, who will now have this exact kind of defense supporting him? Well, the other problem is that the last team to have repeat seasons allowing under 4.4 yards per play was the 2003/04 Buffalo Bills, in an era where NFL offenses as a whole were nearly a half yard less productive than they are now.

So if a team with a young quarterback makes the playoffs, it wouldn't be a surprise, especially given the sheer amount of teams with young QBs and high hopes this year, but it shouldn't be anyone's idea of Plan A.

How Many Fantasy Leagues Will Devonta Freeman Affect This Year?

If you owned Devonta Freeman in fantasy football last year, there's a very good chance you have a title to defend this year. The only player more valuable in fantasy than Freeman was Antonio Brown and, unlike Brown, Freeman went very late in fantasy drafts and very cheap in auctions.

That's not the case this year. Freeman is a top 10 player in nearly every fantasy ranking published online, which is an issue since there were some troubling signs buried inside Freeman's ascendant 2015.

For one thing, on a per attempt basis, Freeman's 2015 wasn't all that ascendant. Among 47 qualified running backs, Freeman was 32nd in rushing yards per attempt, tied with Charcandrick West, who is not a top 10 fantasy pick unless you play with the person who runs the Charcandrick West Fan Club. Freeman wasn't even the best running back on a per attempt basis on the Atlanta Falcons; Tevin Coleman averaged a half a yard more per carry.

Then there's the fact that the Devonta Freeman who wrecked defenses in the first half of the season didn't really show up in the second. Here's Freeman's numbers through Week 7:

 

 And here they are for the final 8 games he played:

 

After Week 7, Freeman didn't break 88 rushing yards in a game, scored just 2 rushing touchdowns, and averaged an essentially replacement level 3.25 yards per carry.

Devonta Freeman may still decide your fantasy champion in 2016, but this time, it seems more likely it'll be by eliminating a rival who spent a first round pick on him.

Can Someone Break Marvin Harrison's Receptions Record?

There are many unbreakable records in sports. Marvin Harrison's single-season receptions record is not one of them. Both Antonio Brown and Julio Jones took a run at it last year, with both receivers coming up seven receptions short of Harrison's 2002 mark of 143.

Still, that record's going to fall at some point. The average NFL team in 2015 completed 22.5 passes per game, over two passes more than in 2002. What will it take to happen this year? There are a few commonalities between 2002 Harrison, 2015 Jones, and 2015 Brown that we can look out for.

For one thing, both Harrison's Colts and Jones' Atlanta Falcons had sub-par rushing attacks. The Colts ranked 29th in yards per attempt, while the Falcons were 25th. In both cases, the teams were forced to rely on the pass because the run was failing them.

The Falcons and last year's Pittsburgh Steelers also needed to score a lot of points to stay in games, because their defenses weren't as reliable. Despite the Steelers' reputation as a defense-first franchise, last year's model was 21st in yards allowed, 19th in yards per play allowed, and 18th in net yards per pass attempt. The Falcons, similarly, were 16th, 22nd, and 22nd in those measures.

Lastly, and perhaps most obviously, all three teams had great quarterbacks. If you have Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, or Matt Ryan throwing to you, it's going to be a lot easier to catch the ball than if you have Case Keenum or, well, last year's Peyton Manning.

So who are good candidates to break the record? Jones and Brown seem like the obvious choices, they're clearly the two best wide receivers in football and are playing on teams that we already know meet the conditions we're looking for. But that's no fun, so instead, I'd like to highlight a few receivers who may take the leap.

It may be weird to talk about Odell Beckham taking the leap, considering Jarvis Landry is the only player with more catches in his first two NFL seasons, but with a few tweaks and lucky breaks, OBJ could make a run at the title. The main thing that jumps out is Beckham's catch percentage. Beckham caught 70% of his targets in year one, a number that dropped to 60.8% in year two. That drop seems like inevitable growing pains stemming from a player transitioning from freshman phenom to an offensive focal point, who opposing defenses scheme around.

If Beckham can raise his catch percentage to 65 or higher, he'll be on his way to breaking the record. But he'll also need more targets. The good news is that those should come. His other receivers include Victor Cruz, a huge question mark at this point, and Sterling Shepard, a rookie in a league where most receivers need a year to get up to speed. The team also has little to offer in the way of a ground game and were 32nd in yards allowed. There may not be enough targets for Beckham to hit 144, but it'll be fun to watch him try.

Doug Baldwin is another very intriguing receiver who is essentially facing the exact opposite set of challenges as Beckham. He plays for the Seattle Seahawks, one of the most talented defensive teams in the league. He's also in an offense that ranked second in rushing attempts and has an army of talented, high-upside running backs ready to replace Marshawn Lynch.

But Baldwin had an amazing 2015. He caught 75.7% of his targets, the best catch percentage by any wide receiver with at least 100 targets in 2015. Is that sustainable? His career average is 67.2%, so you'd expect Baldwin to drop back a bit, but those career numbers were with a Russell Wilson who was still developing, not the Russell Wilson we saw in 2015.

That Wilson led the league in passer rating and raised his ANY/A by a full yard per attempt from 2014. He also had five straight games with three or more touchdowns and no interceptions. With the uncertainty at running back and Wilson's leap, maybe this is the year Pete Carroll unleashes Wilson as a passer, and Baldwin benefits from that.

But there's someone else who may actually be a better bet, and now that my fantasy draft is over, I can divulge his identity. Last year, Keenan Allen averaged 8.4 receptions per game, just 0.1 behind Jones and Brown. Before his injury that cost him the second half of the season, Allen had a 75.3% catch rate. He plays for the Chargers, a mediocre team with a great quarterback and a pretty woeful running game. Is it that crazy to think that Allen, rather than Jones or Brown, ends up being the one who makes a run at 145 this year?