Dynasty IDP Mysteries: Tyree Wilson

What does the future hold for the former No. 7 overall pick?

Fantasy managers dislike ambiguity. We prefer clear paths to snaps and production for our assets, and any situational murkiness can cause anxiety and loss of player value.

The Chargers drafted Junior Colson? Great! There’s not much other than oft-injured and aging Denzel Perryman in his way of full-time snaps. The Packers drafted Edgerrin Cooper in the second, and Tyrone Hopper in the third. Oh geez, that’s a wet blanket on Quay Walker’s dynasty outlook, right?

Free agency and the NFL Draft can create questions without immediate answers, and it’s unsettling when you’ve invested in a player (or players) who find themselves in ambiguous situations.

I wanted to use the post-NFL Draft portion of the offseason to dig into some of my biggest IDP questions for 2024 and beyond, and figure out how it translates for dynasty player value – knowing of course that situations change from year to year and that players actually can develop and get better, despite the old adage that the NFL is not a developmental league.

In this first article of a short series, I’m following Blue’s Clues along the Raiders defensive line. Specifically, is there hope for Tyree Wilson? And how should we value Malcolm Koonce?

First, let’s recognize from a situational perspective, we’re talking about the Raiders, a franchise founded in Oakland, relocated to Los Angeles, moved back to Oakland, and now settled in Las Vegas. The organization itself is often unpredictable and unorthodox. Witness the recent decision to outright give Maxx Crosby a $6 million raise for 2024 even though the star was firmly under contract for the next three seasons. Good business be damned; Crosby is clearly the boss of the building, bullying ownership into retaining Antonio Pierce as head coach and utilizing Christian Wilkins’ new contract as an argument for a big raise. You’ve got to keep the boss happy, after all.

And because it’s the Silver and Black we’re dealing with, Wilson (of course) endured chaos in year one.

---

2023 in Review

The Raiders entered the 2023 season with Crosby entrenched as the leader of the defense and arguably the top overall EDGE rusher in the league. The opposite side of the defensive line looked solid but ripe for a transition. Coming off a ho-hum 2022 was 33-year-old Chandler Jones, whose three-year, $51 million contract (with $32 million in guaranteed money) could only be rationalized within the “Patriots Way” enforced by Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler. Wilson, drafted with the No. 7 overall pick, was the anointed successor. Koonce, despite nice third-round draft capital, was mostly an afterthought after seeing just 116 defensive snaps over his first two seasons.

Things got weird in September. Jones was publicly exhibiting odd behavior and was released at the end of the month following a reported involuntary commitment to a hospital and a subsequent arrest for violation of a domestic violence temporary protective order. Some veterans serve as positive influences on rookies; Jones was not going to be that guy for Wilson.

A decent snap share probably wasn’t what the Vegas brass had in mind when it drafted Wilson in late April. Wilson’s senior season was cut short by an injury to his right foot in November 2022, and surgery to the foot included insertion of a screw to help healing and caused Wilson to miss the Senior Bowl, the NFL Combine, and training camp. Jones’ sad saga accelerated the Raiders’ timeframe for Wilson, and the rookie saw 32 snaps (50%) in Week 1.

The ultimate disruption occurred midway through the season following the famed team meeting that “broke” McDaniels. (Was he ever “right” to begin with?) Less than 24 hours after a loss to the Lions on Monday Night Football, as most of America celebrated Halloween by gorging on candy, Mark Davis was shedding bad weight and showing McDaniels and Ziegler the door.

For Wilson (and Koonce, to an extent) it was a tale of two seasons – not divided by the firing of McDaniels, but rather by the team’s week 13 bye.

---

Koonce Seizes Control on the Edge

To say Wilson's rookie season could have gone better would be an understatement. To say it was a disaster is too far the opposite. What’s clear is he was not good over the first 12 weeks of the season. Playing more than 40 percent of the defensive snaps (323 of 803), Wilson notched a sack and a half on just nine pressures. That’s a snap-to-pressure ratio you’d expect from a below-average nose tackle.

(Note: pressures and positional charting are via Pro Football Focus.)

Koonce, who more often than not was starting but playing fewer snaps than Wilson, was starting to come into his own during that same stretch with two sacks and 29 pressures on 296 snaps (36.9 percent). Fifteen of those pressures came during Weeks 9-12, the first four games of the post-McDaniels era.

Given the turmoil that Wilson endured during his rookie season, perhaps it’s fair to skip everything until Week 14. Coming off the bye, Pierce and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham seemed to decide they needed to abandon the existing game plan for Wilson, who was for the most part lining up outside the tackle. From Weeks 1-12, Wilson lined up on the edge on 302 snaps, saw 18 snaps as a 4 or 4i technique, and three snaps at defensive tackle.

From Weeks 14-18, Wilson was used in a much more versatile role, similar to his collegiate usage: four snaps at nose, 32 at defensive tackle, 61 at 4 or 4i, and 72 outside the tackle. Down the stretch, Wilson was also a high-effort lineman, getting credit for 15 of his 24 pressures and five of his eight quarterback hits.

Wilson and Graham addressed the late-season position move in a recent session with the media.

“Me bumping inside really just slowed down the thinking,” Wilson said. “[It] helped with my eyes and my hands because you don’t have much time to think. It’s on you quick so all you can do is react … when you work on that on the inside and move back outside everything slows back down.”

Graham said it’s his common practice to move rookie edge rushers inside as part of the growth process.

“I thought that was really critical to Tyree’s development,” he said. “That’s going to help him out on the edge.”

It is important to note that while Graham said, “moving the defensive end inside, that's always been a part for any rookie edge rusher,” he hadn’t done that to date as a defensive coordinator. Granted, Andrew Van Ginkel (Dolphins, 2019) and Azeez Ojulari (Giants, 2021) each check in at 30-35 pounds lighter than Wilson, and you have to go back to Avery Moss in 2017, when Graham was the defensive line coach for the Giants, to find a similar-size edge prospect that was used in a similar fashion to Wilson’s usage down the stretch. And in Moss’ only other year in the league, he was used in that same versatile role.

While Wilson was showing improvement as an inside-outside lineman, Koonce exploded over his final five games into a worthy complement to Crosby with six sacks on 23 pressures.

Both Crosby and Koonce boasted impressive backfield disruption, with scores (the sum of quarterback hits and tackles for loss, divided by defensive snaps, and multiplied by 100) in the top 15 among edge rushers playing 400 or more snaps. Wilson’s mark of 2.03 ranked 79th out of 86 qualifiers.

---

2024 and Beyond

It’s fair to wonder at this juncture how great a prospect Wilson actually was. Speaking on the Ross Tucker Football Podcast on May 15, Greg Cosell, one of the premier film analysts that NFL fans have access to, said this of Wilson as a draft prospect: “He was not really an edge player in terms of his physical and athletic traits, and they moved him inside. He’s just not twitchy enough to play on the outside.”

It’s not all bad for Wilson, as his strength as a collegian – the one-arm stab – worked well at times when Wilson had a runway off the edge.

Regardless, it’s clear that Koonce is pretty far ahead of Wilson at this point in their careers and will command the lion’s share of work opposite Crosby, a snap hog whose season snap total (4,746 over a five-year span) is the stuff of IDP EDGE legend.

Graham recently praised Koonce for his leadership with younger players, an important consideration for a franchise as it considers a player’s long-term standing. Also, Koonce’s rookie deal is set to expire at the close of the 2024 season. He’s a no-doubt extension candidate prior to the start of the season.

I think Koonce is being undervalued a bit, and I’d personally rather have him over the likes of Travon Walker, Joey Bosa, Josh Sweat, Andrew Van Ginkel, Tuli Tuipulotu, and Sam Hubbard, all listed ahead of Koonce in the IDP Best Ball ADP data. And I currently have him as my dynasty EDGE No. 33.

Though it is seeming like a longshot that Wilson will offer any fantasy lineup consideration in 2024 barring injury to Crosby, Koonce, or Wilkins, the second-year defensive lineman is probably a hold. And that’s really only due to the poor showing as a rookie. Any halfway decent return should be considered.

With Crosby and Koonce blocking his path at EDGE, and free agent signee Christian Wilkins serving as the new 3-tech, Wilson is looking like a developmental rotational lineman. He’s still a high-upside prospect, but he’ll struggle in this role to provide justification for a fantasy roster spot outside of dynasty taxi squads. And given long-term deals already in place for Crosby (three years) and Wilkins (four years), an extension for Koonce likely puts Wilson on the chopping block for most fantasy rosters.

---

Be sure to subscribe to The IDP Show on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.