2022 Finding ‘The Next Deebo’ (Cincinnati vs. Baltimore) -- March Madness Tourney
Same Intro each day: We all know what the phrase ‘next Deebo’ means – a player who works at one position primarily but takes on a second position (in-game) beyond just a random 1-2-3 carries or targets…that they become a real dual-threat option for their team, and thus a great producer for Fantasy Football.
Before there was ‘Deebo’ (midway through the 2021 season), there was ‘Cordarrelle’ as the breakout WR who started also taking a good workload at RB…so much so he became the team’s lead RB, but then got all but dropped on his WR aspect.
Before ‘Cordarrelle’ there was Curtis Samuel trying to breakthrough as a ‘nails’ WR in 2020, but also a guy taking 3-5 carries a game in CMC’s absence and looking like he might make the turn – but then he went to Washington in free agency, got hurt, and barely played/impacted in 2021.
Before Samuel there was everyone looking for the ‘next Tyreek’. We might forget that Tyreek started out as a low target WR taking 1-2 carries a game, and then taking every carry for a 50+ yard TD…then he was converted over from random WR/RB to main WR, and they stopped pushing him in the running game the past two years (definitely don’t get that guy the ball more, whatever you do).
We’ve had some promising guys try to breakdown this ‘Deebo’ wall, but Cordarrelle really was the one who kicked in that door to start 2021 season (then ATL went away from it)…after the door was kicked in, then Deebo ran right through it 2nd-half of 2021 and became the ultimate/best dual threat of our lifetimes – so much so every analyst is running around saying certain players ‘can be their Deebo’, and you’re going to get sick of hearing about it they say it so much now. But credit to Deebo (really, credit to Kyle Shanahan) the ‘Deebo’ role is a thing now…I think some teams are going to copy because of its success, as they should…as they should’ve created it years ago. It’s the evolution of the game – players/weapons who you don’t know where they’re gonna lineup or what they’re going to do, and they’ll draw plenty of mismatches to expose.
With that in mind, we’re going to have a ‘next Deebo’ tournament/FFM daily series for the next few weeks during March Madness time.
I am going to nominate one player from each NFL team to be the possible ‘next Deebo’…the ‘their Deebo’ hopeful. I’ll explain why I choose that player, and why not others if there was a close option – and then like March Madness, we’ll pit two of them against each other/state the case and I’ll choose a winner…the one most likely to be used as ‘the next Deebo’ for the 2022 season.
We’ll go by division, matchups by 2021 record (so #1 v. #4, #2 v. #3 in the division), one matchup/winner declared each day into April until we have one AFC rep and one NFC rep and then we’ll declare a final ‘Super Bowl of Deebo’ winner.
Now, San Francisco has their own Deebo already…so he is not in this tournament. For the SF slot, there will be a play-in game between two current draft prospect options. Unsigned free agents will be an option for the team they were last on in 2021, so like a heavy Final Four favorite, but current free agent (as of this writing), Cordarrelle Patterson, will be an option for Atlanta. Got it? Good. Let’s go…
Today’s Matchup = AFC North: CIN vs. BAL
WR Ja’Marr Chase, CIN
vs.
WR Devin Duvernay, BAL
I started out thinking Tyler Boyd might be the best ‘Deebo’ option for the Bengals, but then you look at the time of the rise to power of the Bengals (from Week 15 on through the playoffs in 2021 season) and see Tyler Boyd with just one carry in the final 4 regular season games and just one carry in their 4 playoff games. Whereas Ja’Marr Chase took no carries in the final 4 games of the regular season (but did get 7 carries prior in the season to Boyd’s 1 in the same period) BUT Chase took 6 carries in four playoff games to end the season – Zac Taylor went with the better athlete in money time, so I will too.
It's possible Taylor doesn’t get Chase too ‘Deebo’ involved in the run game to keep him safe for everything else, but as the Deebo era rises, you wanna get the ball in the hands of your best weapons – and for Cincy, that’s Chase.
You think Devin Duvernay is a joke here in this contest? Did you know that Duvernay has run the ball 11 times in his two years in the NFL…for 120 yards, 10.9 yards per carry…seven first down runs on 11 career carries? He’s also been a top kick and punt returner in his two years as well. Duvernay is a hidden/wasted/underutilized gem by the Ravens.
Both WRs are around 6’0” tall, but Duvernay is 10 pounds thicker, a more compact runner. Duvernay might be better suited for this ‘Deebo’ work in the end, because you wanna leave Chase to stretch the field as a receiver, but the Ravens are a Lamar-centric, Lamar-in-the-spread offense…a weird mix of Lamar’s improvising combined with an old, stodgy offensive mindset existing around him…and I think they don’t fully see what they have in Duvernay, because they’re in love with Lamar, and Lamar is in love (touch count wise) with Andrews-Brown and himself…so by a default I’ll take Chase over DD, because at least Zac Taylor is trying to be with the modern era with his contemporaries McVay-Shanahan. I don’t trust John Harbaugh to adopt this new thinking.
WINNER = Ja’Marr Chase, who goes on to the Sweet 16 to the winner of tomorrow’s PIT-CLE matchup…the final 1st-round matchup before the Sweet 16 contests begin.
