From a straightforward football perspective, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers singing Josh McCown makes perfect sense.
McCown’s former coach in Chicago, Lovie Smith, is now with Tampa. The Bucs also needed a quarterback. Although Mike Glennon showed promise in his rookie year, they had no one else on the depth chart after releasing Josh Freeman.
But, from a fantasy perspective, the move doesn’t make much of an impact from any aspect.
First off, McCown may not even get the starting job over Glennon, or anyone the Bucs may draft, for that matter. Tampa Bay has the No. 7 overall pick in the NFL draft, and some mocks have a maximum of two of the big three quarterbacks (Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles) falling past at least the Oakland Raiders at No. 5.
An interview with Pro Football Talk Live, McCown said he would be comfortable with the Bucs brining in someone new, or choosing to go with Glennon.
“When I’m here and when I’m done here I want to look back and whether its Mike Glennon or the seventh pick of the draft this year and say, ‘Man those guys are better players because they played with me. Because I was able to help them.’ And if that means that at some point in their career that they take over or that they’ve pushed me and pushed past me then if that makes our team better, I’m all for it. Because I want our team to be good,” McCown said in the interview. “It excites me, so I don’t fear that. You know if I was younger maybe that would make me feel a little bit different, but at this stage of my career I don’t fear that. I’m excited about my opportunity and we’ll welcome any additions that we can to make this team better.”
It's also unfair to compare any quarterback stats under Mark Trestman to a non-Trestman guy. Trestman is a master at getting the most out of his quarterbacks, and could even make Brandon Weeden look passable.
Even if McCown is the starter in Week 1, not much about should excite fantasy owners. Despite the hype surrounding him from his short starting stint with the Bears this season, his record was only 3-2 under center.
His 66.5 percent completion percentage was impressive, but that doesn’t matter in fantasy.
In five starts this season, McCown only averaged 2.2 touchdowns per game, compared to other mid-range fantasy quarterbacks such as Ben Roethlisberger who averaged 1.75 touchdowns per game in 16 starts, or Andy Dalton, who averaged a little over two touchdowns per game.
Glennon also only averaged 20 less yards per game in his starts than McCown, which is hardly anything in fantasy terms.
McCown only threw one interception all season, so he’s gotten better at protecting the ball. But, it’s a small sample size and it's almost impossible to expect him to keep that rate up. In 2011, McCown started two games and threw four interceptions and in 2007 for the Oakland Raiders, he started nine games and threw 11 picks.
For his career, McCown has an interception rate (the percentage of attempted passes that result in interceptions) of 3.7 percent, compared to Glennon’s 2.2 percent from his rookie year, according to Pro-Football-Reference.
The difference in sample size could effect that, but it is still too early to say that McCown has solved all of his problems as a quarterback. There is a reason he hasn’t been a consistent starter in the league.
If McCown gets the starting spot, don’t expect him to immediately effect the play of others on the field, either.
Tampa Bay wide receiver Mike Williams could be a late-round fantasy pick in drafts this summer, but only because he was injured for most of 2013 and will go relatively unnoticed. He hasn’t played since Oct. 24, but before he was injured, Williams had four games of four or more receptions. Look for him to be a stretch flex play no matter who is playing quarterback.
Mainly, fantasy owners are going to want to know what’s going to happen with Vincent Jackson, who has had career years in Tampa. In 2013, he had 1,224 yards and seven touchdowns with Freeman and Glennon throwing to him.
Those numbers will stay about the same if McCown is behind center. Brandon Marshall, McCown’s primary receiving target in Chicago, averaged 89.75 yards per game with McCown throwing to him this season, compared to 77 with Jay Cutler throwing to him. Marshall also had the same number of touchdowns under each quarterback, with a higher per-game average with Cutler as quarterback.
In terms of fantasy value, that was really only a difference of one fantasy point per game in the yardage department for standard leagues for Marshall when he was being thrown to by McCown rather than Cutler.
Like Marshall, Jackson is going to get his numbers, no matter who is throwing to him. Even with Freeman (who turned out to be a total headcase) throwing to him, he had a 154-yard game in Week 1 and 77 yards in Week 2. That won’t change if it’s Glennon, McCown or even a rookie throwing to him.
The only position that could see a decline in fantasy production with McCown as quarterback could be the tight end position for the Bucs.
Timothy Wright had a respectable 2013 season for the Bucs, picking up 571 yards and five touchdowns. After only getting two targets in his first three games, Wright came alive with Glennon under center, recording six games of five or more catches starting with the Week 4 game against the Arizona Cardinals.
In Chicago, Martellus Bennett’s production took a slight hit under McCown. With Culter playing quarterback, Bennett had six games averaging more than 10 yards per catch, but just four under McCown in more games.
However, Bennett struggled with injuries in the latter part of the season, so it’s tough to tell how much of his production was due to injury and how much of it was McCown looking away from his tight end.
Finally, Doug Martin’s value should stay the same if McCown starts. McCown isn’t the type of quarterback who will throw it 40 times in one game just to win. Martin is also looking to rebound after appearing in just six games in 2013. However, in those six games, he had only one rushing touchdown, but that speaks more to Tampa’s offensive line and his running ability than who is playing quarterback.
Matt Forte’s carries actually increased with McCown playing, besides the Week 16 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, but that was because the Bears ended up losing 54-11 and they were behind for the entire game.
Lovie Smith’s desire to bring in McCown is perfectly logical, but so far, McCown doesn’t show that he deserves to be anything more than a fantasy backup, a role that just as easily could be filled by Glennon or a rookie in Tampa Bay with higher upside.