NFL Fantasy News 2012

[HacheMan]

Best Case/Worst Case: QBs
With training camp less than two weeks away, the serious fantasy footballer has no doubt already pored through countless projections, profiles and predictions. Odds are, many of them were quite useful. But whereas projections, profiles and predictions strive to guess the most likely outcome, we all know a player’s season rarely follows a straight line.

With Best Case/Worst Case, we won’t predict the most likely outcome, but instead ask: What if everything goes right? What if it all goes wrong?

1. Aaron Rodgers
Best Case: Rodgers continues to make history his mistress, racking up more historic numbers during the regular season before finishing 2012 the way many thought he’d end 2011: as a two-time Super Bowl champion.
Worst Case: Greg Jennings gets old in a hurry, Jordy Nelson regresses and Randall Cobb doesn’t take the next step as Rodgers suffers his third concussion in three years. He passes for “just” 4,000 yards.

2. Cam Newton
Best Case: Coming off a rookie campaign that was literally historic, Newton makes like Dan Marino and takes the Panthers to the Super Bowl as a sophomore. Along the way, he posts numbers that make early-2000s Michael Vick blush.
Worst Case: Even Newton’s increased reliance on his legs can’t stop his inevitable rushing touchdown regression, while his passing numbers don’t take a step forward thanks to his receiver corps taking a step back.

3. Tom Brady
Best Case: Gisele nods approvingly as Wes Welker catches the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLVII, capping off Brady’s second consecutive 5,000-yard campaign in style.
Worst Case: Years of nagging injuries begin to take their toll while a more crowded receiver corps doesn’t equal a better receiver corps. Brady shows his first signs of football mortality as talk of flipping Ryan Mallett for future considerations suddenly dies down.

4. Drew Brees
Best Case: Brees makes the hand-wringing over his lost coach and offseason program look silly as he becomes the first player in NFL history to throw for over 5,000 yards three times.
Worst Case: Brees isn’t lost without Sean Payton, but uninspired, passing for less than 4,400 yards for just the second time since arriving in New Orleans.

5. Matthew Stafford
Best Case: Commanding the pocket like Kurt Warner in his prime, Stafford leads the league in every meaningful passing category as he becomes the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl since Ben Roethlisberger.
Worst Case: Questions about Stafford’s durability come out of hibernation after an early-season shoulder injury nags him well into December. The Lions finish third in the AFC North.

6. Michael Vick
Best Case: A career marred by pretty much anything you can think of finally reaches its feel-good crescendo, as Vick holds his lunch down on the game-winning drive of Super Bowl XLVII. He throws for 4,000 yards while narrowly missing his second 1,000-yard campaign on the ground.
Worst Case: 2011 was just the warm up for a season where Vick’s 32-year-old body completely breaks down, leaving many Eagles fans to wonder why the future wasn’t addressed more aggressively than Nick Foles.

7. Tony Romo
Best Case: Amani Toomer’s contrarian ramblings prove prophetic, as Romo not only posts his typically elite numbers, but rallies the Cowboys in the waning minutes of the NFC Championship Game. Dallas reaches its first Super Bowl since the Clinton Administration.
Worst Case: The schadenfreude over Romo’s Week 1 dagger pick in New York crashes Twitter, and privately seals owner Jerry Jones’ opinion of his franchise quarterback: we need to do better.

8. Eli Manning
Best Case: Eli finds the 67 yards he was missing in 2011, throwing for over 5,000 as he leads the Giants to the NFC’s No. 1 seed in the defense of their second title in five seasons.
Worst Case: Manning regresses along with Victor Cruz, and though he still throws for over 4,000 yards and 30 scores, he reminds everybody why it was once a question whether he was elite or not.

9. Peyton Manning
Best Case: The best neck surgery can buy doesn’t tense up in the blustery Rocky Mountain wind, as Manning throws for his customary 4,300 yards and 30 scores in turning the Broncos into a Super Bowl contender.
Worst Case: Flattened by John Abraham on the Georgia Dome’s carpet in Week 2, Manning’s faith in his neck doesn’t get a chance to be shaken: his career is ended on the spot.

10. Matt Ryan
Best Case: Ryan finally starts to elevate the play of those around him, breaking through the 4,500-yard and 30-touchdown barriers as he’s the primary reason Atlanta snaps its four-game playoff skid.
Worst Case: It becomes plainly apparent that Ryan is little more than a glorified game-manager, forcing Atlanta to revive its abandoned “ground-and-pound” philosophy in the offseason.

11. Philip Rivers
Best Case: The real Rivers — the one that posted a 16:6 TD:INT ratio over his final eight games last season — shows up, guiding the Bolts back to the playoffs, and fantasy owners back to the promised land.
Worst Case: Silva was right — Rivers’ 2011 wasn’t an aberration, but the beginning of the end of his peak. Robert Meachem proves woefully inadequate as a Vincent Jackson replacement.

12. Ben Roethlisberger
Best Case: Roethlisberger is actually helped — not hurt — by the arrival of Todd Haley’s sophisticated attack, and throws for a career-high 4,500 yards thanks in large part to the league’s best trio of young wideouts.
Worst Case: A frustrated Mike Wallace misses the majority of camp, and Ben and Haley’s relationship quickly frays as a Steelers offense lacking a legitimate ground game stalls out early.

13. Robert Griffin III
Best Case: With better wheels and a stronger arm, RGIII proves to be a mini-Cam Newton as a rookie, putting the Redskins back in contention even quicker than Dan Snyder dreamed possible.
Worst Case: Shaken by a host of early crushing hits on his slight frame, RGIII gets the yips, and is more Jimmy Clausen than Cam.

14. Jay Cutler
Best Case: Invigorated by the arrival of Brandon Marshall and departure of Mike Martz, Cutler puts it all together in his fourth season in the Windy City, taking the Bears back to the NFC Championship Game while producing like a fantasy QB1 for the first time since 2008.
Worst Case: Marshall is as temperamental as ever while Mike Tice and Jeremy Bates prove unprepared to coordinate an NFL offense. Talk-show callers are bringing up Cutler’s 2011 NFC Title Game injury on a daily basis by mid-October.

15. Carson Palmer
Best Case: Saved from new OC Greg Knapp’s run-heavy system by budding superstar Denarius Moore, Palmer is allowed to let it fly more than anyone predicted during his age-32 campaign. He produces at a high-end QB2 level.
Worst Case: Knapp pounds the ground into the stone age, while Palmer’s arm strength and mobility limitations are more glaring than ever. GM Reggie McKenzie cries himself to sleep every night thinking about the trade Hue Jackson made in October 2011.

16. Ryan Fitzpatrick
Best Case: Fitzpatrick starts hot like he did in 2010 and ‘11, only this time he stays hot, finally mastering Chan Gailey’s aggressive and creative system as he flirts with QB1 status.
Worst Case: No Bills wideout steps up opposite Stevie Johnson, while both Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller light it up on the ground. The Bills add quarterback competition in the offseason.

<!--RW-->17. Joe Flacco
Best Case: The self-proclaimed “Best Quarterback in Football” takes subtle steps forward for the fourth consecutive season, earning a lucrative long-term contract while winning at least one playoff game for the fifth straight year.
Worst Case: Baltimore’s young receivers don’t develop and OC Cam Cameron becomes so conservative he makes Pat Shurmur look like Dennis Kucinich, conspiring to cast Flacco’s Baltimore future into full-blown doubt.

18. Josh Freeman
Best Case: The real Freeman stands up and takes full advantage of new No. 1 receiver Vincent Jackson, throwing for 25 touchdowns and just shy of 4,000 yards despite the Bucs’ renewed commitment to the ground game.
Worst Case: Freeman posts better numbers under bright new OC Mike Sullivan, but only because his 2011 was so bad. His 85.0 quarterback rating and 20:15 TD:INT ratio leave the Bucs pondering his long-term future in Tampa.

19. Matt Schaub
Best Case: Schaub’s foot checks out as he appears in all 16 games for the third time in four seasons, throwing for 4,200 yards and 24 touchdowns in the process.
Worst Case: Another injury-plagued campaign forces Schaub to the sideline and the Texans to rely on Arian Foster more than ever. With visions of T.J. Yates’ playoff victory still dancing in GM Rick Smith’s head, Schaub is allowed to walk in the offseason.

20. Andrew Luck
Best Case: Luck makes the most of his surprisingly well-stocked cupboard, surpassing both the 3,500 yards and 18 touchdowns Sam Bradford threw for as a rookie.
Worst Case: Luck threatens Peyton Manning’s rookie interceptions record, proving even sure things need time to find sure footing.

21. Jake Locker
Best Case: Locker blows Matt Hasselbeck out of the water in the preseason before lighting things up on the reg in the regular season. Along with Chris Johnson, Kenny Britt, Kendall Wright and Jared Cook, he forms one of the league’s most impressive cores of young offensive talent.
Worst Case: Locker still starts games after losing his camp battle with Hasselbeck, but looks nothing like the energizing spark plug he was in 2011. The questions about his accuracy and decision-making that dogged him coming out of Washington resurface.

22. Christian Ponder
Best Case: Ponder’s added bulk translates to much improved durability, and the No. 12 pick of the 2011 draft looks every bit a future franchise signal caller as he throws for over 3,500 yards despite possessing one of the league's weaker receiver corps.
Worst Case: Adrian Peterson begins the year on the PUP list, Percy Harvin continues to pout about his contract and Matt Kalil doesn’t look NFL ready, leaving Ponder cold and alone in one of the NFL’s least-talented offenses.

23. Andy Dalton
Best Case: What arm strength issues? Thanks in large part to the beautiful music he makes with A.J. Green, Dalton eclipses 4,000 yards and assuages doubts that his rough play down the stretch last season was anything other than typical first-year growing pains.
Worst Case: Dalton underthrows Green on a host of early deep balls, forcing OC Jay Gruden to scale back his conservative scheme even further. Things are so bad by Week 11 that angry Bengals fans are wondering just how Cedric Benson could have been allowed to walk.

24. Sam Bradford
Best Case: Less is more for St. Louis’ third-year signal caller, who averages the fewest attempts of his career, but regains his confidence in a simplified scheme. He comes closer to 4,000 yards than 3,000.
Worst Case: The Rams’ offensive line again folds up like a dollar store tent, leaving Bradford running for his life, and the Rams searching for answers about the former No. 1 pick’s future.

25. Alex Smith
Best Case: Smith’s work with “quarterback whisperer” Tom House pays greater dividends than anyone thought possible, and along with San Francisco’s greatly improved receiver corps, accomplishes the previously unthinkable: make Smith a borderline QB1 in 12-14 team fantasy leagues.
Worst Case: Smith earns a promotion from game “manager” to “supervisor,” but again proves what’s been obvious for years: his arm is too weak to rest the fate of a franchise on.

26. Matt Flynn
Best Case: Flynn sews up his “competition” with Tarvaris Jackson and Russell Wilson by the second preseason game, and game-manages the Seahawks to a winning record in a division that’s much tougher than it was a year ago.
Worst Case: Pete Carroll goes full auteur/mad genius, naming third-round pick Wilson his Week 1 starter. Called on in Week 17 mop-up duty, Flynn throws for as third as many yards as he did in his star-making turn in Green Bay last season.

27. Matt Cassel
Best Case: Cassel proves to be the league’s premier game-manager, minimizing his mistakes while approaching the career-best 3,693 yards he threw for in 2008.
Worst Case: Cassel barely holds off Brady Quinn in the preseason before finally succumbing to him in Week 5. He’s unceremoniously released in March.

28. Mark Sanchez
Best Case: Sanchez finally puts his considerable physical talents to full use, improving his brutal 2011 6.4 YPA by nearly a full yard, while completing 60 percent of his passes for the first time. His 3,800 passing yards are the most by a Jet since Vinny Testaverde in 2000.
Worst Case: Sanchez is on the phone with Marion Barber when Santonio Holmes informs him he’s been benched in favor of Tim Tebow. The “Sanchize” mixes his Pepsi Max with bourbon at the club that evening.

29. Brandon Weeden
Best Case: Recalling a smash hit from his adolescence (and RGIII and Luck’s youth), Weeden proves age isn’t anything but a number, and provides reason for legitimate long-term optimism in Cleveland for the first time in the Randy Lerner era.
Worst Case: Like he was in baseball, Weeden quickly turns into a “nonspect,” displaying average everything as football “czar” Mike Holmgren feels the walls close in on his cravenly desperate decision to draft a 28-year-old quarterback.

30. Kevin Kolb
Best Case: With a full offseason under his belt, Kolb finally grasps the Cardinals offense, easing by John Skelton in training camp before earning himself some long-term stability in the fall.
Worst Case: Concussed in Arizona’s second preseason game, Kolb’s only regular season snaps come in mop-up duty for Skelton.

31. Matt Moore
Best Case: The winner of Miami’s three-headed camp competition, Moore picks up where he left off in 2011, completing well over 60 percent of his passes while averaging nearly 7.5 yards per attempt. He turns himself into a legitimate trade chip for the 2013 offseason.
Worst Case: Moore fails to convince new Dolphins coach Joe Philbin his strong finish to 2011 was anything other than an illusion, and is one of the league’s more surprising final cuts.

32. Blaine Gabbert
Best Case: Gabbert laughs at your clichés as he proves old dogs can learn new tricks by suddenly standing tall in the pocket en route to respectability and a modicum of long-term job security.
Worst Case: Gabbert is so bad even Jimmy Clausen is reduced to tweeting “Keep your head up, Blaine” after Chad Henne is given charge of an 0-5 team in Week 6. Gabbert’s last career pass is picked off by Brian Urlacher in Week 5.

 

[HacheMan]

Will Newton repeat 2011 success?

By Christopher Harris | ESPN.com

I remember sitting around in the ESPN cafeteria early in 2011 pondering the NFL draft. My colleagues and I had recently seen Jon Gruden's QB Camp featuring Cam Newton, who didn't exactly cover himself in glory on that program. Yet the Carolina Panthers were still believed to be locked in on Newton -- a Heisman winner who had the stench of collegiate scandal on him -- for the No. 1 overall pick.


I led the chorus: There was no question Newton had athletic talent to burn, but he had never run anything approximating a pro-style offense, had never really made a pro-level read, didn't understand complicated football terminology and had just one season of major college football starting experience. I said what many around our table were thinking. Had there ever been a No. 1 pick that so many people were so utterly convinced would be a bust?


Whoops. My bad.


The rest is NFL history. Newton became the first rookie to throw for 400-plus yards in his first pro start. His 854 passing yards through two games were the most amassed by any quarterback in league history, though that record was broken the same day by Tom Brady. By season's end, he became the first rookie to throw for 4,000 yards and broke the record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 14 (a record, held by Steve Grogan, that had stood for 35 years).


In fantasy football, Newton wound up with the same point total as Tom Brady, which tied him for third among all players behind only Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees.


If you were smart enough to draft Newton last year or, more likely, add him from the waiver wire after Week 1, your team was probably pretty good. It was the best fantasy season by a rookie quarterback in NFL history, and there's an argument to be made that it was one of the best by a rookie at any position. Historically speaking, I'd put Eric Dickerson circa 1983 at the top of the list -- 2,212 yards from scrimmage and 20 total TDs -- with Barry Sanders ('89), Fred Taylor ('98), Randy Moss ('98) and Clinton Portis ('02) in contention with Newton.


Now we have to decide what to do with Newton in 2012. After all, ESPN's Tim Hasselbeck made this argument to me earlier this week: While Brady and Brees are on the back nine, Newton is 23 years old. Can we really project a downturn for a guy who showed such unprecedented promise? Maybe he is just a different kind of player, one to whom conventional wisdom might not apply. Why shouldn't fantasy owners consider Newton with their first-round draft pick?


I'll take Tim's thoughts to their logical extension: If big improvement is in the offing, can't you make an argument for Newton at No. 1 overall?


That's what I'm here to figure out. If Newton shows major improvement on his historic 2011 season, he probably should be the No. 1 pick in fantasy drafts this year. But there's tons and tons of risk. What fantasy owners should do with Newton is probably their biggest, most interesting, most tantalizing question for 2012. I'm not sure where my conclusions will end up, so let's parse the data together and gauge the likelihood of a repeat performance, or better.


General rushing touchdown repeatability



I may rightly flagellate myself for whiffing on Big Cam last season, but one of my major preseason analysis pieces wound up looking pretty smart. I dug into the 2011 prospects of Michael Vick and concluded that he wasn't worth a first-round draft pick. Yes, a major component of that analysis was Vick's injury-prone career, but I also researched the likelihood that Vick's nine rushing touchdowns in 2010 would repeat in 2011 and noted that history taught us such a repeat would be exceedingly unlikely. Vick wound up with only one rushing score.

The foundation of that analysis was this chart:


Most Single-Season Rushing TDs by QBs Since 1978

<table><thead><tr><th> Season/Team </th><th> Player </th><th> Rush TDs </th><th> Next Season </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 2011 CAR </td><td> Cam Newton </td><td> 14 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1997 PIT </td><td> Kordell Stewart </td><td> 11 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 MIN </td><td> Daunte Culpepper </td><td> 10 </td><td> 4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2010 PHI </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 9 </td><td> 1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1980 CHI </td><td> Vince Evans </td><td> 8 </td><td> 3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1997 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 8 </td><td> 4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1999 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 8 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 8 </td><td> 1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2000 MIN </td><td> Daunte Culpepper </td><td> 7 </td><td> 5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2003 SF </td><td> Jeff Garcia </td><td> 7 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1981 DET </td><td> Eric Hipple </td><td> 7 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2000 PIT </td><td> Kordell Stewart </td><td> 7 </td><td> 5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1994 SF </td><td> Steve Young </td><td> 7 </td><td> 3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2006 TEN </td><td> Vince Young </td><td> 7 </td><td> 3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1988 PIT </td><td> Bubby Brister </td><td> 6 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1988 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 6 </td><td> 4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1991 DEN </td><td> John Elway </td><td> 6 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2000 PHI </td><td> Donovan McNabb </td><td> 6 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 PHI </td><td> Donovan McNabb </td><td> 6 </td><td> 3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1990 DET </td><td> Rodney Peete </td><td> 6 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2011 NYJ </td><td> Mark Sanchez </td><td> 6 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2010 DEN </td><td> Tim Tebow </td><td> 6 </td><td> 6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2011 DEN </td><td> Tim Tebow </td><td> 6 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2005 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 6 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2001 CAR </td><td> Chris Weinke </td><td> 6 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1998 SF </td><td> Steve Young </td><td> 6 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1978 SEA </td><td> Jim Zorn </td><td> 6 </td><td> 2 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Quarterbacks who had six touchdowns or more over the past 34 seasons averaged 2.1 touchdowns in their follow-up campaigns. Quarterbacks who had seven touchdowns or more averaged 2.5. Those who had eight touchdowns or more averaged 2.1. Perhaps most damning of all: Just last season, Tim Tebow became the first QB to ever rush for at least six TDs in consecutive seasons. Before then, no QB who'd rushed for six TDs or more had ever followed up with more than five.


It's fair to contend that Newton's prospects for being a first-round (or even No. 1 overall) fantasy pick hinge on whether he can come close to his 14 touchdowns of 2011. (I'll focus on whether Newton might be an exception to this historical rule in a moment.) After all, compare how Newton's fantasy points broke down last season to some other notable quarterbacks:


2011 Fantasy Points Breakdown, Notable QBs

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th> % from Passing </th><th> % from Rushing </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> Cam Newton </td><td> 59.1 </td><td> 40.3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Aaron Rodgers </td><td> 89.9 </td><td> 10.1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Drew Brees </td><td> 97.6 </td><td> 2.4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Tom Brady </td><td> 94.6 </td><td> 5.4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Matthew Stafford </td><td> 99.1 </td><td> 0.9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 76.6 </td><td> 23.4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Tim Tebow </td><td> 53.2 </td><td> 46.8 </td></tr></tbody></table>Note: Newton had two fantasy points from receiving (0.6 percent)



Newton is a more accomplished passer than Tebow, but seeing them so close in their percentage of fantasy points that came from rushing last season should give us pause. I'm receptive to the idea that Newton's passing could improve in his sophomore campaign (more on that in a moment), but it seems that we need Newton's rushing points to stay hearty for him to be worthy of first-round consideration. Lower his rushing touchdowns to five last season, and he still would have wound up as fantasy's No. 5 quarterback, but his VBD rank would have dropped from No. 6 (i.e., worthy of a first-round pick) to No. 14 (i.e., not worthy of a first-round pick).


But is Cam the exception to the QB rushing rule?


Quantifying Newton's beastliness



Comparing Newton to Vick isn't fair to either man. Vick is a normal-sized human being (6-foot, 215 pounds) with shiftiness that has never been matched at the quarterback position. Newton is 6-5 and 248 pounds' worth of linebacker-esque strength. If we look at the above list of signal-callers who registered the most single-season rushing touchdowns, there aren't too many guys who look like Big Cam. McNair weighed 235 pounds but was three inches shorter. McNabb is 240 pounds but is 6-2. Vince Young is the same height but 18 pounds lighter. Weinke was actually rather close (6-4, 232 pounds), but suffice to say he wasn't the athlete Newton is.


No, the only obvious comparative is Daunte Culpepper at 6-4, 264 pounds. In his day, Culpepper was a tantalizing threat, with 22 rushing scores from 2002-04, though Newton already has more 700-yard rushing seasons than Culpepper did in his entire career.


Even in his heyday, the Minnesota Vikings never used Culpepper quite the way the Panthers used Newton last season. Only six of Culpepper's 22 scores in that three-year window came from inside an opponent's 2-yard line. Last season, seven of Newton's 14 touchdowns came from inside the 2, the most ever for a QB. Culpepper had at least a few running backs -- Robert Smith and Moe Williams come to mind -- whom Vikings coaches used more frequently in goal-line situations. Meanwhile, for much of 2011, Newton was his own goal-line back. Of the Panthers' 20 carries from inside an opponent's 2, Newton had 11 and converted on seven, while Jonathan Stewart was 3-for-8 and DeAngelo Williams was 1-for-1. (The Panthers passed twice in this situation, both times for touchdowns.)


Before we contend that Carolina changed this strategy as the season progressed, we should realize that while, yes, Newton didn't have a rushing touchdown in any of the Panthers' final four games, nobody on the team had a carry from inside the 2 in that final month. I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that Newton wasn't still his team's goal-line back in December.


I believe that Newton was the Panthers' 2011 short-yardage runner in a way Culpepper never quite was for the 2002-04 Vikings, but this doesn't mean there haven't been other quarterbacks who saw the stars align to have them score many short touchdowns in a single season. Here are the biggest quarterbacks "vulture" seasons in the 16-game era:


Most TDs Inside 2-Yd Line, QBs Since 1978

<table><thead><tr><th> Season/Team </th><th> Player </th><th> TDs Inside 2 </th><th> RBs w/ TDs Inside 2 </th><th> Next Season </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 2011 CAR </td><td> Cam Newton </td><td> 7 </td><td> Stewart 3, D. Williams 1 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1994 SF </td><td> Steve Young </td><td> 6 </td><td> Floyd 5, Watters 2 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1997 PIT </td><td> Kordell Stewart </td><td> 6 </td><td> Bettis 4 </td><td> 2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1997 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 5 </td><td> George 1 </td><td> 1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1999 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 5 </td><td> George 2 </td><td> 0 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 MIN </td><td> Daunte Culpepper </td><td> 5 </td><td> M. Williams 7 </td><td> 2 </td></tr></tbody></table>Source: ESPN Stats & Information



Again, history doesn't appear to be on Newton's side. No quarterback who scored five or more touchdowns from inside an opponent's 2 in one season managed more than two the next. Yes, I emphasize, Newton is bigger than all these players except Culpepper, and his team used him more as a primary short-yardage runner than almost any quarterback in memory, at least for last season. But neither Stewart nor Williams is chopped liver, and the Panthers have added Mike Tolbert, a player who scored 12 times from inside an opponent's 2 in the past two seasons combined while playing for the San Diego Chargers.


All this is to say nothing of how likely or unlikely it is than an NFL offense happens to get stopped so close to an opponent's goal line. After running only seven plays from inside an opponent's 2 in 2010, the Panthers ran 22 last year. Before you attribute this to Newton injecting life into the offense, check out these squads:


Plays From Opponent's 2-Yd Line or Closer, Past 5 Years

<table><thead><tr><th> Team </th><th> 2011 </th><th> 2010 </th><th> 2009 </th><th> 2008 </th><th> 2007 </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> Buffalo Bills </td><td> 16 </td><td> 4 </td><td> 3 </td><td> 14 </td><td> 4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Chicago Bears </td><td> 8 </td><td> 20 </td><td> 27 </td><td> 22 </td><td> 9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Dallas Cowboys </td><td> 18 </td><td> 34 </td><td> 22 </td><td> 15 </td><td> 13 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Denver Broncos </td><td> 8 </td><td> 23 </td><td> 16 </td><td> 20 </td><td> 18 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Kansas City Chiefs </td><td> 8 </td><td> 24 </td><td> 13 </td><td> 23 </td><td> 6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Miami Dolphins </td><td> 25 </td><td> 8 </td><td> 26 </td><td> 10 </td><td> 18 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Philadelphia Eagles </td><td> 25 </td><td> 12 </td><td> 17 </td><td> 31 </td><td> 17 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Tampa Bay Buccaneers </td><td> 8 </td><td> 24 </td><td> 5 </td><td> 14 </td><td> 19 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Tennessee Titans </td><td> 6 </td><td> 22 </td><td> 15 </td><td> 20 </td><td> 11 </td></tr></tbody></table>Source: ESPN Stats & Information



That's a whole lot of variability. And get this: In 2011, 20 out of 32 teams saw their plays run from inside an opponent's 2 increase or decrease by at least 40 percent from the previous season. An offense getting close-in snaps isn't completely random, but it sure seems close. In other words, there's a significant chance that being the Panthers' goal-line back might not be as valuable in 2012 as he was in '11.


Rushing yards are safer



In summary, despite Newton's size and the Panthers' willingness to give him the rock on the goal line last season, I have severe doubts that Newton will even approach double-digit rushing touchdowns. It could happen, but it would buck an awful lot of NFL history. The good news, however, is that while I think Newton's ceiling might be lower than it looked last season, I believe his floor is safer than you might think. That's because of his rushing yards.


If history teaches us that quarterback rushing touchdowns and close-in rushing touchdowns are difficult to repeat, it shows us that running quarterbacks continue to run:


Most Single-Season Rush Yds by QBs, Since 1978

<table><thead><tr><th> Season </th><th> Player </th><th> Rush Yds </th><th> Next Season </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 2006 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 1,039 </td><td> DNP </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1990 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 942 </td><td> DNP </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2004 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 902 </td><td> 597 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 777 </td><td> 255 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2011 CAR </td><td> Cam Newton </td><td> 706 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2010 PHI </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 676 </td><td> 589 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1997 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 674 </td><td> 559 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2011 DEN </td><td> Tim Tebow </td><td> 660 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2000 PHI </td><td> Donovan McNabb </td><td> 629 </td><td> 482 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1988 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 624 </td><td> 621 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1989 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 621 </td><td> 942 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2002 MIN </td><td> Daunte Culpepper </td><td> 609 </td><td> 422 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2005 ATL </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 597 </td><td> 1039 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2011 PHI </td><td> Michael Vick </td><td> 589 </td><td> ? </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1998 TEN </td><td> Steve McNair </td><td> 559 </td><td> 337 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2006 TEN </td><td> Vince Young </td><td> 552 </td><td> 395 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1992 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 549 </td><td> 110 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1986 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 540 </td><td> 505 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1978 NE </td><td> Steve Grogan </td><td> 539 </td><td> 368 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1992 SF </td><td> Steve Young </td><td> 537 </td><td> 407 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2000 OAK </td><td> Rich Gannon </td><td> 529 </td><td> 231 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 1987 PHI </td><td> Randall Cunningham </td><td> 505 </td><td> 624 </td></tr></tbody></table>



On average, the quarterbacks who rushed for 500-plus yards since 1978 have amassed 499 rushing yards the following season. Heck, Newton just submitted the fifth-greatest rushing season by a quarterback in the modern era. While I guess in a worst-case scenario I can see him dropping a bit in rush yards, a decrease below 500 seems unlikely. That's at least 50 juicy fantasy points sitting on the table for potential owners in ESPN standard scoring. Vick should be in about the same neighborhood, but that's a sizable advantage over every other signal-caller. That's at least 12 passing touchdowns Newton can fall behind his position mates and still be comparable.


Is it all about the passing?



As we've seen, the likeliest scenario is that Newton's rushing touchdowns will abate -- but not disappear with a Vick-ian fizzle -- while his rushing yards remain steady. But is Cam ready to produce another 4,000-yard passing season? I tend to think not.


It's not fair to remove the first two games of Newton's NFL career, but it is fair to ask why things slowed down so much thereafter. Newton exceeded 300 yards passing in one more game and not at all in the season's final 12 contests. After the first four games of 2011, Newton averaged 222 yards passing. In that span, he threw 16 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Spread that passing performance out over an entire season, bump Newton down to five rushing touchdowns and give him 500 yards rushing and he goes from averaging 22 fantasy points per game to around 17. That still makes him a fantasy starter, but it takes him completely out of the mix for the first round of your draft. Heck, it probably knocks him to the late second or early third.


There are several reasons why this bleak passing outlook might not happen. Newton will have his first full NFL training camp. He'll be working with his Panthers coaches for a second season. He'll have promising third-year wideout Brandon LaFell, hopefully emerging opposite Steve Smith, and David Gettis returning from a torn ACL.


Also, there's Newton's 2011 game tape. He isn't some gimmick player who is always looking to run. I do think he had a proclivity to scramble later in the season, as his protection tended to worsen, but it's unfair to call him Tebow-esque. Not only does Newton have a cannon for an arm, but he is also willing to stand tall in the pocket and zing the ball into tight windows. No objective observer who watched him at Auburn would have believed he could transition as quickly as he did, but the fact is Newton looked like an NFL quarterback right away, which bodes well for continued improvement.


So why did his passing numbers slow after the season's first month? He threw some bad interceptions in key moments, and I felt the Panthers staff decided to rein him in. Through four games, Newton's average yards-at-the-catch (i.e., how far down the field his target is when he catches the ball) was 8.4, a rate which would have led the NFL. After those four contests, his average Y@C was 6.0, which would have tied him for 26th.


Also, the Panthers simply threw less, as Newton attempted a whopping average of 40.8 passes in a few shootouts early and averaged a more modest 29.5 attempts in the 12 games thereafter. I can't emphasize this enough: Last season, 29.5 attempts per game would have ranked 30th in the league.


Here are my deepest worries about Newton for 2012. Amid all the justifiable hype and reverence, Newton plays for a coaching staff that would just as soon pound opponents into submission as anything else. There's a reason Stewart, Williams and Tolbert are on this roster. The game plans we saw after Week 4 last season are pretty close to what coach Ron Rivera and offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski would like to run in 2012. They know Newton's arm affords them the opportunity to take shots, but in today's NFL, 30 attempts per game qualifies as conservative.


At 30 attempts per game, to get to 4,000 pass yards for the season Newton would have to average 8.3 yards per attempt, which would easily be top five. However, from Week 5 forward in 2011, he averaged 7.5 YPA, which would put him around 15th. Unless big plays are as plentiful as they were in Weeks 1 through 4 last season, or unless I'm wrong and Newton is set to become a higher-volume thrower than I expect, Newton's ceiling as a passer, at least yardage-wise, is close to 2011's output, and he is likely to come in under that number.


Conclusion



A season of 3,500 yards passing, 20 TDs, 15 INTs, 500 yards rushing and five rushing TDs would make Newton a no-doubt fantasy starter and probably close to a top-five fantasy quarterback. It just wouldn't warrant his selection in the first round of fantasy drafts (to say nothing of being No. 1 overall). The great thing about Newton is that I believe the above stat line is close to his floor, and heaven knows he has enough raw ability to exceed these numbers by leaps and bounds.


If there's a reason to take the chance on Newton with a late first-rounder, that's probably it: upside. History tells us he is not likely to produce another outlier season, but he wasn't supposed to be as good as he was in 2011 either. Nobody has ever put up numbers like Newton's at such a tender age. He may be more exception than rule, a possibility I'm not completely willing to discount.


There's also one final dynamic at play. To borrow a name from earlier in this article, it's the Daunte Culpepper Factor. In many ways, Culpepper is Newton's closest forebear, and as an NFL player, he was invincible right up until the point when he wasn't. No matter how big you are as a ball carrier in pro football, there's always someone who will cut you down to size. Newton can steamroll all the defensive players he wants, but there will assuredly come a time when he gets himself blindsided or undercut, and that doesn't always go well. Ask Culpepper. The guy seemed unstoppable until Chris Gamble hit his knees in 2005 and changed his career. Because of his playing style, Newton is probably as vulnerable to injury as any quarterback in the league, save maybe Vick.


Before doing any of this analysis, I put Newton fifth on my QB list and 22nd overall. Now I'm tempted to bump him up in my overall ranks to 16th or 17th, making him a mid-to-late second-round pick in 10-team leagues, simply because I'm so impressed by his lack of evident statistical downside. Even at 3,500 passing yards, he should be a no-brainer fantasy starter who can score rushing TDs in bunches. But if there's one storm cloud that could brew for Newton, it's the injuries.

 

[HacheMan]

C.J. Spiller's effect on Fred Jackson

Is a time-share looming in Buffalo, or will Jackson once again carry the load?

By Christopher Harris | ESPN.com


Will C.J. Spiller's emergence in December crush Fred Jackson's fantasy value in 2012?
Fred Jackson was on his way to a top-five RB fantasy season in 2011 before a broken right fibula ended his campaign in Week 11. To that point, his backup C.J. Spiller had mustered 3.1 offensive touches per game, thus offering absolutely no threat of a backfield platoon. Meanwhile, Jackson had averaged 93.4 rushing yards per game -- third in the NFL -- and had surpassed 40 yards receiving in half of his starts. He had, in fact, proven an exception to the rule that rushers who've reached age 30 can't succeed, but an asterisk must be attached to that note, because Jackson played two years in the Arena Football League and one in NFL Europe, and thus has less NFL-level wear-and-tear than most backs his age.


But once Jackson was injured, Spiller took over, and particularly in the fantasy playoffs earned a lot of friends. He scored a TD in four of six weeks and averaged 18.3 touches per game; in the final three contests of 2011, he scored 28, 19 and 16 fantasy points. On tape, we can finally see what the Buffalo Bills saw when they drafted him No. 9 overall in 2010: a quick perimeter player with breakaway speed. Now entering 2012, the question is how will the workload break down in the Bills' backfield?

Despite his age (now he's 31), I still prefer Jackson. He's a more complete player than Spiller has shown to be at this point in their respective careers, and at 6-foot-1, 215 pounds -- compared to Spiller's 5-11, 197 pounds -- Jackson is somewhat more suited for interior carries.
I think you see this partway proven by the fact that while Jackson was healthy last year, Spiller lined up a bunch at wide receiver. But the numbers also show a bias: According to Stats, LLC, 63 percent of Jackson's carries qualified either as "middle," "left" or "right" (as opposed to "left sideline" or "right sideline"), while for Spiller that number was 56 percent.
Each man catches it very well, and Spiller probably is more likely to take a long one to the house. But despite Jackson's disappointing broken leg in '11, I don't think it's fair to say that Spiller is a safer health bet. After all, part of the reason he wasn't used much to start the 2011 season was a balky knee. He had hamstring problems in his rookie season, and his time at Clemson also was marked by leg injuries.


This winter, the Bills scrapped the final year of Jackson's contract, essentially giving him a $3 million bonus. That's a nice gesture, but it's hardly a cap-altering deal, and gives the team flexibility to change its mind if Spiller's arrow continues to point way up; it won't cost the Bills any additional dollars to cut Jackson before the '13 or '14 portions of his new contract kick in.
And that makes sense, because in his limited action last season, Spiller did prove a devastating player in the open field. In that regard, he's simply too good not to use a bunch. You'll see some two-back sets this season, with one or both guys sent into pass patterns. Spiller, in particular, is a tough matchup as a receiver, because he's too fast for most one-on-one coverage. But Jackson's ability to make uncannily excellent split-second decisions in the box sets him apart. Spiller doesn't have that in his game yet. He didn't set up blocks as well in 2011, and was caught running backward on a few occasions late in the year.


Expecting Jackson to resume a top-five pace in 2012 is folly. Spiller finally proved in December of his second pro season that he "gets" the NFL game, and as such we're headed for some form of platoon in Buffalo. There will be weeks where Spiller's box score line looks heartier than Jackson's, especially weeks when the Bills fall behind, because Spiller can still split out wide and get looks as a nasty fourth receiver.
But if I'm taking bets on which guy is going to lead the team in rushing TDs, rushing carries and rushing yards, it's still the workmanlike, dangerous, instinctive, bigger Jackson. In my new ranks, I've got Jackson listed as my No. 15 RB (and No. 35 overall), while Spiller is listed as my No. 27 RB (and No. 65 overall).

 

[HacheMan]

Predicting Missed Games

Some will say accounting for injuries when compiling projections and/or rankings is important. Others will argue that it’s impossible and should be ignored. The general consensus seems to just pick out a few guys who seem to be fragile and demote them down the draftboard.

Today, I’m going to try and find some answers by continuing a project I started over at Pro Football Focus a few months back. In my previous studies, I simply looked at games missed based on each player’s slot on the depth chart. This time around, I’m analyzing historical Average Draft Position to see how well it correlates with missed games. This figures to provide us with a better methodology for predicting missed games.

Historical ADP provided by myfantasyleague.com

You’ll notice that the graphs shown for each position include two lines. One shows ‘Median’ and the other ‘Average’. An additional five players are added to the mix as we progress horizontally. The ‘Average’ is as straightforward as it sounds. The ‘Median’ shown for each quintet is really the average of the medians for each draft slot over the four years spanning 2008-to-2011. Had I simply used straight-up median, it would’ve calculated as 16.0 almost every time. I realize that’s a mouthful, so here’s an example:

Games played by four QBs drafted No. 1 from 2008-11 – Average: 11.5. Median = 15.0
Games played by four QBs drafted No. 2 from 2008-11 – Average: 15.3. Median = 16.0
Games played by four QBs drafted No. 3 from 2008-11 – Average: 15.3. Median = 16.0
Games played by four QBs drafted No. 4 from 2008-11 – Average: 16.0. Median = 16.0
Games played by four QBs drafted No. 5 from 2008-11 – Average: 10.5. Median = 11.0

The average of the 20-man sample is 13.7. The Median we are using is the average of the five medians shown (14.8).

Why do it this way? Although the ‘average’ may seem like the logical number to utilize for projecting missed games, outliers (a.k.a. early-season, long-term injuries) are rare. We don’t want to project missed games for the entire field with the full added weight of these unique, season-ending injuries. Instead, we want to limit their impact by looking at median, which, while not a perfect fix, gives us more reasonable projections.

Side Note: For what it’s worth, top statistical experts still can’t come to a consensus on how to handle outliers. Simply ignoring them is frowned upon for obvious reasons, but it goes without saying that they need to be addressed in some capacity. We’ve done that by using tiered median averages.

Quarterback

The quarterback position is very much hit-or-miss when it comes to missed games. You will notice a lot of occasions where a quarterback misses either 0-to-1 games or half the season.



Starting with our graph, we see a noticeable slope downward as we add more drafted players to the mix. The median* ‘games played’ for the first 15 or so quarterbacks sits comfortably in the 14.5-to-15 range. That’s technically a good sign for you, but considering that most leagues have between eight and 16 owners, you don’t really have much of an advantage here.

Once place this could help is later in the draft when you’re trying to decide on whether or not to grab a backup quarterback. Although there are always going to be the aforementioned outliers (Tom Brady in 2008, Peyton Manning in 2011), the odds are pretty good that your starting quarterback will make it through most of the season. Of our top 48 samples (top 12 quarterbacks over four seasons), there were 35 occasions (73 percent) where the quarterback missed no more than one game. And, in many of those cases, the missed game was due to resting in Week 17, which isn’t usually a factor in fantasy football. There were only seven occasions (15 percent) where the quarterback missed more than four games.

Projection: My baseline projection for games played by quarterbacks is going to be 15 games. Our median* through the first 15 quarterbacks is 14.9, which I’ll choose to round up so as to have a clean number for the projections. Obviously that median falls off as we progress into the 20s and 30s, but that will be addressed in the subjective part of the projections. For example, I won’t be assuming 15 games for quarterbacks who I feel will be removed for ineffectiveness (eg. Kevin Kolb vs. John Skelton) or as a result of the emergence of a young prospect (eg. Matt Moore vs. Ryan Tannehill). Those players would already be projected as missing more than one start, so I don’t need to worry too much about injury rate.

Running Back

Next, we’re taking a look at the most injury-prone of the four top fantasy positions: running back. Top backs touch the ball near 20 times each game and a good chunk of those touches include them running full speed into what is essentially a brick wall with legs. This, not surprisingly, leads to a higher injury rate than that of other positions.



The good news, however, is that the ‘Missed Games’ numbers probably aren’t as bad as you expected. In fact, the median* missed games for our top 45 backs is 14.0 games. The average through the top 10 (13.8) isn’t far off that mark and sits at 13.4 through the top 35.

Interestingly, the No. 1 overall running back has appeared in all 16 games three of the last four seasons (Adrian Peterson’s 12 in 2011 being the exception). In fact, of the 12 players selected in the top-three since 2008, none have missed more than Peterson’s four games and seven appeared in all 16 games. We also see a strong run in what would be the late first round. Including the 12 players selected in the six-to-eight range, we show each player appearing in 13-plus games and 10-of-12 missing no more than one game. I obviously picked out a very small sample there, but the point is to show that there is potential for reliability from your first-round running back.

Of course, we need to consider the potential for a long-term injury. No player averaging out as the fifth running back taken has made it past 14 games played since 2008. That was highlighted by Frank Gore missing five games in 2010 and Jamaal Charles sitting out 14 in 2011. DeAngelo Williams (2010) and Darren McFadden (2011) each enjoyed an ADP that ranked them ninth among running backs, but neither played more than seven games that season. Ryan Grant was the No. 11 running back in 2010, but went down for the season in the season opener.

Of our top 96 samples (top 24 backs over four seasons), there were 45 occasions (47 percent) where the running back missed no more than one game. As devastating as that may sound, just 12 backs (12.5 percent) missed more than six games and 20 (20.8 percent) missed more than four.

Projection: Very much like quarterback, the graph gives us a pretty strong indicator of where to go with this. Sticking right around two missed games through the top 50 or so backs, we’ll go with a baseline of 14 games played for a good chunk of our backs. Again, as we get deeper down the projections, we won’t assume the full 14 games for reserve backs and those who will be filling in for the starters when they are our nursing the injury we expect them to suffer.

Although your gut instinct here (assuming you agree with my math) will be to immediately remove one-eighth (two games) of each running backs projections, that’s not entirely the right way to go. It might be for players like Steven Jackson, LeSean McCoy, or Trent Richardson, who will be in line for a huge chunk of the workload. However, that is not the case for true committee attacks like those in Carolina and New Orleans. If DeAngelo Williams were to get injured, for example, Jonathan Stewart’s role would increase during those games. Assuming he were to then miss games later in the year, the overall impact wouldn’t be as severe as it would’ve been otherwise. Richardson, meanwhile, wouldn’t see as significant an increase in workload if Brandon Jackson were to go down with an injury, so missing two games would be more devastating to his overall production. The moral of the story: applying an injury factor across the board hurts workhorse backs more than those as part of a committee.

Wide Receiver

The third position we’ll look at today is wide receiver. Although tight ends could give them a run for their money, wide receivers are arguably the most reliable of the four positions. Despite the fact that each team’s starting receivers will usually play more snaps than the squad’s top running back, they see significantly fewer touches and, more importantly, take fewer hits.

Right off the bat, we see strong reliability from our top-five wide receivers (15.2 average, 15.6 median*). Digging deeper, we show a median* of 15.0 for our top 35 wideouts. That ‘35’ is an important number when you consider that most fantasy leagues require three starting wide receivers.

Of our top 48 samples (top 12 wide receivers over four seasons), there was only one instance where a wide out missed more than six games (Andre Johnson in 2011). In fact, if we go a step further and count our top 20 wideouts (a sample of 80 wide receivers), Johnson was the only instance where a receiver missed more than seven games. This means that a top 20 wide receiver in terms of ADP has a 98.7 percent of appearing in nine or more games for his team.

Although we do see a consistent downward trend as we work our way through the draft slots, there isn’t a massive drop-off until we get to right around wide receiver 50.Here we see a drop of about one full game. These are players impacted, of course, by some injuries, but also by a lack of effectiveness or skill. This is the subjective portion of the projections where we will need to make our best educated guess as to which players will retain a relevant role all year along, as opposed to those who will be demoted to the bench or waiver wire.

Projection: The baseline for our wide receivers will be 15 games played, or one missed game. Although we’ve seen the top-selected wide receivers show enough durability that we could even go as high as 15.5 games, the mark quickly dives down to the 15.0 range and sticks there until well deep into the draft pool. As always, injury fill-ins and part-time No. 4/5 receivers will project out lower than 15 games.

Tight Ends

As foreshadowed earlier, a case could be made that tight end provides us with the most reliable production in terms of games played.

Despite a rough 2010 season in which the top-three tight ends off the board combined to appear in only 21 of a possible 48 games, we see a strong 15.1 median* among the top-five since 2008. That median sticks all the way through the top 30 tight ends, giving us our only position that doesn’t progressively decline as we work our way down ADP.

We see a sharp increase, actually, from the top five/ten tight ends to the top 15. The reason for this is the aforementioned injuries that plagued the position in 2010.

Of our top 48 samples (top 12 tight ends over four seasons), there were 35 occasions (73 percent) where the tight end missed no more than one game. There were only four occasions where a top-12 tight end missed more than six games (Chris Cooley and Owen Daniels – 2009, Dallas Clark and Jermichael Finley – 2010). This past season was a strong one in terms of tight end durability. Of the top 12 tight ends, eight appeared in all 16 games and two more suited up for 15 games. Antonio Gates (13 games) and Dallas Clark (11) were the exceptions.

Projection: Our numbers are driven down a bit by a freaky 2010 season, but with the way tight ends are being used more and more in the receiving game, going with a baseline of 15 games played is the best route to go. Unlike the other positions, we can also feel very confident about projecting 15 games played all the way through the top 30-plus tight ends.

Final Baselines

Quarterback: 15 games played
Running Back: 14 games played
Wide Receiver: 15 games played
Tight End: 15 games played

*This is simply a reminder that, as laid out in the intro, the ‘Median’ here is really the average of the medians of each draft slot since 2008.

 

[HacheMan]

When to draft Trent Richardson?

Browns' rookie has opportunity on his side, but inexperience surrounds him

By AJ Mass | ESPN.com

How high should rookie Trent Richardson be drafted in fantasy leagues?
Shortly after the Cleveland Browns drafted Trent Richardson with the third overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft, Jim Brown was quoted as saying he thought the running back was "ordinary" and that he saw nothing outstanding about him.


While you don't have to agree with the Hall of Fame legend's assessment, you would do well to understand well before you select Richardson in your fantasy football draft that the odds of the rookie doing something extraordinary are not that great.


Deciding to hang your hat on a newcomer to the NFL -- even one who rushed for 1,679 yards and scored 24 total touchdowns in his final season at Alabama -- is an incredible risk. Why? Because in order to be considered worthy of being a top-10 running back selection you need to be counted on for about 80 yards per game and a touchdown approximately every other game.


Over the past several seasons, you can see that's pretty much where the bar has been residing:


RBs to average 80 or more yards rushing per game
Minimum 10 games played, Since 2005


2011: 9
2010: 7
2009: 9
2008: 9
2007: 10
2006: 11
2005: 11


But regardless of how good Richardson might be, it is a pretty rare occurrence for a rookie running back to reach this plateau. Since 1995, only 14 rookies have managed to accomplish the feat, and not a one has pulled it off in any of the past three seasons. That group of "slow starters" includes a bevy of backs taken in the first round, such as Knowshon Moreno, Donald Brown, Beanie Wells, C.J. Spiller, Ryan Mathews, Jahvid Best and Richardson's former Crimson Tide teammate, Mark Ingram.


<table><thead><tr><th> Player </th><th> Team </th><th> Games </th><th> Rush Yds </th><th> TD </th><th> YPG </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> Chris Johnson </td><td> 2008 TEN </td><td> 15 </td><td> 1,228 </td><td> 9 </td><td> 81.9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Steve Slaton </td><td> 2008 HOU </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,282 </td><td> 9 </td><td> 80.1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Marshawn Lynch </td><td> 2007 BUF </td><td> 13 </td><td> 1,115 </td><td> 7 </td><td> 85.8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Adrian Peterson </td><td> 2007 MIN </td><td> 14 </td><td> 1,341 </td><td> 12 </td><td> 95.8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Cadillac Williams </td><td> 2005 TB </td><td> 14 </td><td> 1,178 </td><td> 6 </td><td> 84.1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Clinton Portis </td><td> 2002 DEN </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,508 </td><td> 15 </td><td> 94.3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Anthony Thomas </td><td> 2001 CHI </td><td> 14 </td><td> 1,183 </td><td> 7 </td><td> 84.5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Mike Anderson </td><td> 2000 DEN </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,487 </td><td> 15 </td><td> 92.9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Jamal Lewis </td><td> 2000 BAL </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,364 </td><td> 6 </td><td> 85.3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Edgerrin James </td><td> 1999 IND </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,553 </td><td> 13 </td><td> 97.1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Olandis Gary </td><td> 1999 DEN </td><td> 12 </td><td> 1,159 </td><td> 7 </td><td> 96.9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Fred Taylor </td><td> 1998 JAC </td><td> 15 </td><td> 1,223 </td><td> 14 </td><td> 81.5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Eddie George </td><td> 1996 HOU </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,368 </td><td> 8 </td><td> 85.5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> Curtis Martin </td><td> 1995 NE </td><td> 16 </td><td> 1,487 </td><td> 14 </td><td> 92.9 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Now let's throw another monkey wrench into the mix: Rookie Brandon Weeden is likely to start the majority of games at quarterback for the Browns. So while there likely isn't much in the way of competition for Richardson to get most of the carries with leftover parts such as Montario Hardesty, Brandon Jackson and Chris Ogbonnaya as his only rivals for the rock, there's also not a lot of experience in that huddle.


Mistakes are bound to be made.


Traditionally, Cleveland hasn't exactly been the birthplace of breakout backs. Before Jamal Lewis met our "80-10" benchmark in 2007 (in his eighth year in the league, mind you), you have to go back all the way to Mike Pruitt in 1979 to find another Browns runner to reach that goal. Even with the team's three-year "hiatus" in the 1990s, that's not exactly a stellar track record.


Now nobody is saying that Richardson is going to be a complete bust, and certainly with Brad Childress as the team's new offensive coordinator -- the same man who coached Adrian Peterson when he broke on the scene in 2007 -- there's reason for optimism. Richardson should not only get a ton of handoffs, but will almost certainly be worked into the passing mix as well. He'll be in there on nearly every down.


That said, playing in a division with three of the returning top-10 defenses against the run certainly makes the margin for error a lot smaller than had Richardson been drafted elsewhere. The Cleveland offensive line has just two members with more than three years of NFL experience (Alex Mack and Joe Thomas) and supplemental draft pick Josh Gordon may not be completely ready to step into the wide receiver mix out of the gate.


In short, the Cleveland Browns are looking awfully green on offense, which makes me quite yellow when it comes to selecting Richardson any higher than the No. 15-17 running back off the board. Unless you're in a keeper league in which, much like Cleveland, you're already planning ahead for the future, you really can't afford to pick him any sooner.

 

[HacheMan]

Kenny Britt risky, but has lots of upside

Eric Karabell

It's easy to love Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt. As anyone who saw Britt's 225-yard, three-touchdown extravaganza against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 7 of 2010 with mouth agape can attest, the Rutgers product can dominate a game. Britt also started off 2011 quickly, with 271 receiving yards and three touchdowns through two weeks, and one of those performances came against the Baltimore Ravens. The guy has skills.


It's also easy to not love Britt, however. Since embarrassing the Eagles, the Titans have played 25 regular-season games. Britt has suited up for seven of them. We know the guy can play, but we don't know if the guy can play enough, and Tuesday's surprising news that Britt is recovering from yet another knee surgery doesn't make the situation any clearer.

<offer> </offer>

I've chosen Britt in a few drafts already, mocks and otherwise, though not as one of my starting wide receivers and no earlier than the seventh round. Based on sheer ability, acquiring Britt at that spot of a draft, after securing a starting group of running backs and wide receivers, is wonderful. Then again, how much of Britt are we going to see in 2012? Perhaps it's folly to assume we'll get 16 games, even though Britt did that as a rookie in 2009, but can we get half a season? Britt's upside is immense. The situation reminds me somewhat of Oakland Raiders running back Darren McFadden; you know he's going to miss games, but you'd likely need to use a second-round pick on him. Britt in Round 7 . . . sign me up!

In Britt's case, it's not one knee that has given him troubles, but each knee. Britt wrecked his right knee in Week 3 last season, tearing his ACL and MCL. It happened in September, which is ample time for a complete return in 2012. In fact, Britt reportedly was running and cutting and doing all of the things needed to effectively play wide receiver at the Titans' organized team activities in June, and he told reporters, "I guarantee I will be back and better than I've been before." Well, that's what we like to hear!


Britt had follow-up arthroscopic surgery on the right knee in mid-May. This didn't scare me much, however. He was running a few weeks later, and September remained far away. This week's news was that Britt had arthroscopic surgery on the left knee, for swelling, following minicamp at the end of June. Again, I can't say I'm running away from him in drafts, though I fully acknowledge the risk. I'd like to see Britt perform in a preseason game or two -- those contests start up in three weeks, incidentally -- but these are minor knee procedures. There's a reason it wasn't public knowledge for weeks.


Yes, Britt's knees are worrisome, but this is about risk versus reward, and fantasy is about value. Hey, at least he's stayed out of legal trouble, which was a legit concern heading into last season. Britt isn't going among the top 10 wide receivers in drafts, though he has that upside. This is what scares me about McFadden, frankly. Britt was the 28th wide receiver chosen in ESPN Fantasy's mock draft this week. I thought about grabbing him two rounds earlier.


As ESPN.com AFC South blogger Paul Kuharsky notes, the timetable for Britt's return remains problematic, but this summer's news shouldn't be overrated, either. The Titans open the season Sept. 9 against the New England Patriots, a defense that had serious issues containing wide receivers -- elite ones or not -- last season, as its secondary was brutal. I don't think it's improved much, to be blunt.
When Britt suits up for that game, it's likely few fantasy owners will have him active, but they ought to consider it. I will. By Week 2, Britt could be hurt again, or leading the league in receiving yards. I'm no doctor, but I don't think anyone knows whether Britt can remain healthy. Let's be clear, though: Nobody is safe in fantasy football, from Peyton Manning to Tom Brady to Adrian Peterson to Andre Johnson.


I'll continue selecting Britt when appropriate, not relying on him for 16 games worth of awesomeness, but hoping for periods of success, and fully expecting at some point for the tantalizing combination of health and upside to produce elite numbers. It's irrelevant to look at his season paces, but this would have been a 1,200-yard receiver in 2011. He caught nine touchdowns in 10 games. He's capable of this in 2012 or, as Kuharsky notes, Britt might not be back to 100 percent until 2013. If it's Round 7, I'll take that chance.


It's worth noting that the Titans selected Kendall Wright with the 20th selection in the 2012 draft, and the team claims he'll be heavily involved in the offense right away. Well, I'm generally avoiding rookies at the spot in drafts, unless it's a running back like Trent Richardson with a clear path for playing time. Wright doesn't have that, and even if Britt misses September, the rookie from Baylor is hardly a lock for stardom.
For one, I expect running back Chris Johnson to bounce back and be worthy of first-round selection, adjusting the offense's focus a tad. Second, the quarterback situation is less than ideal. Matt Hasselbeck is 36 and performed poorly much of the second half of 2011. Jake Locker is athletic but not accurate, and hasn't started a game. You overlook these factors with Britt, who had the three-touchdown game with Kerry Collins quarterbacking and had to deal with Vince Young in 2009, but not with a rookie.


Ultimately, I don't see fantasy owners talking much about the Titans' passing game, but I see sleepers. Britt has top-10 potential. Tight end Jared Cook has the size and speed to emerge, which he probably did the final weeks of last season. He could be top 10. While Wright gets overdrafted in fantasy, few will look at veteran Nate Washington, he of the 1,023 receiving yards and eight scores last year. It wouldn't have happened with a healthy Britt, but Washington is starting. Damian Williams is also in the picture for the slot, battling with Wright. This isn't an elite passing offense, but fantasy owners should take notice.

 

[HacheMan]

Three Players to Watch in Camp
The following article is a guest post by Frank DuPont, author of Game Plan: A Radical Approach to Decision Making in the NFL. You can also follow Frank on Twitter.



I'm a big believer in the idea that you should continue to update your beliefs as you obtain new information. For that reason, I think July is a great month for fantasy preparation that is backward looking, while August is the month that I spend most of my time looking forward. You can't really replace the opportunity that you have to go through draft guides in July, but you also have to keep in mind that when training camps start you have to update your thinking.



Training camps are an important time for fantasy seasons because a few key things happen during camp. The two biggest things that I watch for during camp are injuries and what the coaches tell us about their players. It sounds obvious to say that we should be paying attention to camp developments, but a lot of fantasy owners don't do a very good job of staying on top of what's happening. Every year we'll see things happen in August that present opportunity for the fantasy owners that make adjustments to their draft strategy (see Arian Foster in 2010).



With that in mind, I thought I would discuss three guys that I will be watching closely during camps this year. These are guys that I don't know for sure if I'll be targeting. I only know that they're interesting and I'm going to take all of the time that I can to fully form my opinions about them.



Stephen Hill – Current ADP: Undrafted



At the top of the list is Jets rookie WR Stephen Hill. At 6'4", 215 pounds, and with a 4.36 40 yard dash, Hill is the kind of player who you could see finishing up a fantasy Sunday with 3 catches for 150 yards and 3 touchdowns. That might be wishful thinking, but the real reason I'm interested to see how Hill handles training camp is because I think he might have more opportunity this year than his current ADP suggests. He's not even cracking the top 65 among WRs. Given that Hill is probably going to start for the Jets, I think that's crazy. But since success is usually equal to talent plus opportunity, let's start by looking at Hill's potential opportunity.



Consider that in 2010, Braylon Edwards was targeted 6.3 times per game for the Jets. His spot was filled in 2011 by Plaxico Burress, who was targeted 6 times per game.



Maybe it's also worth looking at some other rookie target numbers in order to calibrate our expectations for Hill. Torrey Smith was a 2nd round pick for Baltimore last year and he was targeted about 6.3 times per game. Greg Little was also a 2nd round pick and he was targeted 7.5 times per game.



I've thrown out some information on targets because that information is important for setting our expectation. If Hill were targeted as often as former Jets Plaxico Burress and Braylon Edwards, or targeted less than last year's 2nd round picks Torrey Smith and Greg Little, he might see 6 targets per game.



What could we expect then of Hill if he were targeted 6 times per game? It might help to look at some comparable players. First, Hill is roughly similar in size and speed to Kenny Britt. Britt averaged 9.4 yards per target in his rookie season while catching passes from Vince Young and Kerry Collins (neither of whom completed 60% of their throws). Hill is also similar in size and speed to Braylon Edwards, who averaged 8.9 yards per target when catching passes from Mark Sanchez in 2010. Hill shares with Edwards the knock of having bad hands, so Edwards' yards per target number is somewhat useful.



If we use 6 targets per game and then multiply that by a little better than 9 yards per target, we can get to a 900 yard season pace for Hill. That would be good for a wide receiver that isn't even cracking the top 65 among WRs right now.



I've looked at potential target and yards per target numbers in order to give you some sense as to the range of upside that we might expect from Hill if he has a good camp. But that's an important "if". We still have to pay attention to what Hill does in August. If we hear that he isn't picking up the offense, or is being outplayed by other receivers, then we have to lower our expectations. But if it looks like Hill is going to emerge from training camp as the Jets' 2nd starting receiver, then he represents a very good risk/reward opportunity. Because Hill is basically going undrafted right now, there is zero potential downside if you take him as your last bench WR. It's actually impossible to regret your pick if you take him that late. But I don't spend my time looking around for players whose upside might be 900 yards. There is some chance, and I'm not saying it's a large chance, but there is some chance that Hill's speed and size could allow him to turn in some very big games. He's exactly the kind of player I pay attention to in August.



Mark Ingram – Current ADP: RB38



One of my favorite things to do in fantasy football is jump on the formerly hot player that everyone has given up on. Remember how everyone gave up on Darren McFadden and C.J. Spiller and then it turned out that they were as talented as initially expected? I think Mark Ingram might also fit into this category.



It may be worth recalling that Ingram was the only back taken in the first round of the NFL draft last year. He isn't as fast as Spiller or McFadden, but he was talented enough to win a Heisman trophy. However, because of Ingram's lack of speed, I think most of his value comes from playing in the Saints offense, which generates a lot of carries for running backs inside the 5 yard line.



The following table shows the Saints' rank among NFL teams for carries inside the 5 since Drew Brees has been the quarterback. Note that they ranked in the top 7 in attempts every year until 2012.



<table class="tableizer-table"><tbody><tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Season</th><th>Plays Inside 5</th><th>Runs Inside 5</th><th>Run %</th><th>NFL Rank (Runs Inside 5)</th><th>Rush TD</th><th>TD Rate</th></tr><tr><td>2006</td><td>54</td><td>33</td><td>61%</td><td>3</td><td>10</td><td>30%</td></tr><tr><td>2007</td><td>60</td><td>28</td><td>47%</td><td>5</td><td>9</td><td>32%</td></tr><tr><td>2008</td><td>41</td><td>27</td><td>66%</td><td>6</td><td>15</td><td>56%</td></tr><tr><td>2009</td><td>39</td><td>28</td><td>72%</td><td>6</td><td>12</td><td>43%</td></tr><tr><td>2010</td><td>45</td><td>25</td><td>56%</td><td>7</td><td>7</td><td>28%</td></tr><tr><td>2011</td><td>45</td><td>19</td><td>42%</td><td>17</td><td>6</td><td>32%</td></tr></tbody></table>


When I look at that table I see a team that gets near the goal line a lot and likes to run when they do get close. Then, in 2010 a rash of running back injuries disrupted their efficiency inside the 5 and they posted their worst touchdown rate in that part of the field in five years. They followed that up by drafting a former Heisman Trophy winner (Ingram) known for his power and balance. Then Ingram got hurt and the Saints called fewer runs inside the 5 than they had in the past 6 years.



Some of my analysis above fits in the category of getting creative with data. But I do tend to look at team moves as a way of figuring out what the team is thinking. When the Saints moved up in the draft to take Ingram in 2011, I took that to mean that they wanted to improve their running game. Ingram got hurt and the Saints were led in rushing by the 181 pound Darren Sproles.



Ingram is coming off of a season where he was limited by injuries and he's also had a few offseason surgeries (although he now claims to be 100%). But those issues are fine right now because we're looking for opportunities where we can pay attention during camp and see if there is any new information that helps us decide on Ingram. Ideally Ingram will be healthy and will move into the role that Pierre Thomas occupied in 2008 and 2009. But the key thing is that even if Ingram has a very good camp and looks like he's in line for a good amount of opportunity, his ADP may stay unnaturally depressed because a lot of fantasy owners were burned by him last year. That's where the opportunity comes from and that's the reason we're going to be paying attention during camp.



Jared Cook – Current ADP: TE14



Jared Cook is currently being drafted 14th among tight ends, which is also about where he finished in total yards at the position. But a player like Cook is always worth paying attention to because he's such a physical specimen. Cook is about 250 pounds and runs the 40 yard dash in under 4.50 seconds.



While Cook finished 14th among TEs in yards last year, he actually finished behind only one other tight end in yards per target. Rob Gronkowski was the only tight end with 70 or more targets to finish with more yards per target than Cook.



The following table shows the leading tight ends in terms of yards per target (minimum 70 targets).



<table style="width: 413px;" class="tableizer-table"><tbody><tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Name</th><th width="60">Targets</th><th width="29">Rec</th><th width="63">YDS</th><th width="40">TD</th><th width="54">Y/R</th><th width="81">Y/T</th></tr><tr><td>R.Gronkowski</td><td width="60">124</td><td width="29">90</td><td width="63">1327</td><td width="40">17</td><td width="54">14.74</td><td width="81">10.70</td></tr><tr><td>Jared Cook</td><td width="60">81</td><td width="29">49</td><td width="63">762</td><td width="40">3</td><td width="54">15.55 </td><td width="81">9.41</td></tr><tr><td>F.Davis</td><td width="60">88</td><td width="29">59</td><td width="63">793</td><td width="40">3</td><td width="54">13.44</td><td width="81">9.01</td></tr><tr><td>A.Gates</td><td width="60">88</td><td width="29">64</td><td width="63">778</td><td width="40">7</td><td width="54">12.16</td><td width="81">8.84</td></tr><tr><td>J.Graham</td><td width="60">149</td><td width="29">99</td><td width="63">1314</td><td width="40">11</td><td width="54">13.27</td><td width="81">8.82</td></tr><tr><td>H.Miller</td><td width="60">74</td><td width="29">51</td><td width="63">631</td><td width="40">2</td><td width="54">12.37</td><td width="81">8.53</td></tr><tr><td>B.Celek</td><td width="60">97</td><td width="29">62</td><td width="63">811</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">13.08</td><td width="81">8.36</td></tr><tr><td>V.Davis</td><td width="60">95</td><td width="29">67</td><td width="63">794</td><td width="40">6</td><td width="54">11.85</td><td width="81">8.36</td></tr><tr><td>J.Finley</td><td width="60">92</td><td width="29">55</td><td width="63">767</td><td width="40">8</td><td width="54">13.95</td><td width="81">8.34</td></tr><tr><td>A.Hernandez</td><td width="60">113</td><td width="29">79</td><td width="63">911</td><td width="40">7</td><td width="54">11.53</td><td width="81">8.06</td></tr><tr><td>O.Daniels</td><td width="60">84</td><td width="29">54</td><td width="63">677</td><td width="40">3</td><td width="54">12.54</td><td width="81">8.06</td></tr><tr><td>J.Witten</td><td width="60">117</td><td width="29">79</td><td width="63">942</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">11.92</td><td width="81">8.05</td></tr><tr><td>T.Gonzalez</td><td width="60">116</td><td width="29">80</td><td width="63">875</td><td width="40">7</td><td width="54">10.94</td><td width="81">7.54</td></tr><tr><td>D.Keller</td><td width="60">115</td><td width="29">65</td><td width="63">815</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">12.54</td><td width="81">7.09</td></tr><tr><td>J.Gresham</td><td width="60">92</td><td width="29">56</td><td width="63">599</td><td width="40">6</td><td width="54">10.70</td><td width="81">6.51</td></tr><tr><td>K.Winslow</td><td width="60">121</td><td width="29">75</td><td width="63">769</td><td width="40">2</td><td width="54">10.25</td><td width="81">6.36</td></tr><tr><td>B.Pettigrew</td><td width="60">126</td><td width="29">83</td><td width="63">777</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">9.36</td><td width="81">6.17</td></tr><tr><td>G.Olsen</td><td width="60">89</td><td width="29">45</td><td width="63">542</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">12.04</td><td width="81">6.09</td></tr><tr><td>E.Dickson</td><td width="60">89</td><td width="29">54</td><td width="63">528</td><td width="40">5</td><td width="54">9.78</td><td width="81">5.93</td></tr><tr><td>B.Watson</td><td width="60">71</td><td width="29">37</td><td width="63">410</td><td width="40">2</td><td width="54">11.08</td><td width="81">5.77</td></tr><tr><td>M.Lewis</td><td width="60">85</td><td width="29">39</td><td width="63">460</td><td width="40">0</td><td width="54">11.79</td><td width="81">5.41</td></tr></tbody></table>


Another way to think about an efficient pass catcher is that they have probably earned more opportunity. It's also the case that the situation with the receivers in Tennessee might make Cook a more attractive option in that offense as well. Based on recent reports, Kenny Britt has had three knee surgeries over the past year and some are speculating that he might not be ready for the start of the season.



Cook fits into the group that we'll want to pay attention to during training camp because we want to see what the coaches say about his role in the offense. We also want to see what happens with the other Tennessee pass catchers, and whether the Titans only other big pass catcher is available for the start of the season.



If you draft Cook at his current ADP of TE14, you really can't get hurt. But we may get more information during the preseason that will give us an even better read on Cook. We know he's a physical beast and he was extremely efficient with targets last year. If you combine those two things with a potential increased role in the offense, you would have a formula for a breakout player. That's why we pay attention in August.

 

[HacheMan]

Pre-Camp Dynasty Buys
The NFL news cycle picks up again with the opening of training camps later this month, which means Dynasty rookie drafts are soon to follow. The astute Dynasty owner has long realized this is the perfect time of the year to capitalize on the inflated value of rookie picks from the late-first through the third round.

Now that draftniks have created a year-long cottage industry, there is even greater opportunity to steal potential breakout players with NFL experience at the cost of a few shined-up draft picks. As draft “experts” populate Twitter with their favorite mid-round sleepers and steals, it’s instructive to remember that the hit rate for rookie picks 6-35 will never reach reliability. Without the benefit of training camp or exhibition action -- much less regular-season film -- the majority of rookie picks come down to luck rather than drafting acumen.

Where was the Denarius Moore love last offseason when draft analysts were hyping Bilal Powell, Jacquizz Rodgers, Johnny White and even undrafted free agents such as Chad Spann or Darren Evans? It’s not that those who analyze the draft for a living aren’t good at what they do. It’s that the nature of mid-rounds picks is akin to a carnival game. The fix is in ahead of time with more misses than hits while still making it hard to judge the difficulty. It always has been. Use that to your advantage by targeting players that have put undeniable talent on NFL game film yet still have room to grow fantasy value.

These are the new leads. “These are the Glengarry leads. And, to you, they’re gold.” On to the list.

1. Matt Ryan / Julio Jones, Falcons - This time a year ago we were hoping the blowout playoff loss to the Packers would jolt the coaching staff into realizing the Falcons can’t compete with the NFL’s elite until they open up the offense. After the hiring of coordinator Dirk Koetter, we finally have tangible evidence that the offense will skew more heavily toward the pass.

In addition to implementing more vertical routes with an emphasis on getting the ball to receivers on the move, Koetter plans to cater the offense to Ryan’s greatest strength -- the no-huddle formation -- after unimaginative former OC Mike Mularkey had “hit a wall” with the quarterback’s development. Only Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford and Tony Romo threw more touchdown passes than Ryan’s 29 last season. That number should only increase with Michael Turner’s offensive impact on the wane and Ryan’s come-and-go arm strength “much-improved from the first four years.”

Jones is the best kind of Dynasty investment. When a player already boasts freakishly explosive physical ability and a commitment to excellence, he becomes can’t-miss once the organization starts telegraphing their big plans for the upcoming season. When they interviewed Koetter back in January, the Falcons brass was convinced he would concentrate on getting the ball in Jones’ hands. Ryan expects a “great year” from the game’s most dynamic post-catch runner, and Roddy White confirms his role will be reduced while Jones is highlighted. I’m packaging draft picks and young talent to make a serious run at Julia before August.

2. Ryan Mathews, Chargers - Rotoworld already had the Mathews angle covered in May when I ranked the potential every-down workhorse No. 2 among re-draft backs and Evan Silva followed suit with a detailed breakdown of his 2012 outlook. A month later, NFL Films analyst Greg Cosell told Silva that Mathews could be a “top-five guy” as Norv Turner’s foundation back.

How great is the impact of Mike Tolbert’s departure? As @FantasyFbPundit points out, Tolbert’s snap rate was 44 percent in the 13 games the two back suited up togethe. Mathews still managed a top-seven fantasy finish while becoming one of just 10 backs to average 20+ carries plus targets per game. Those in PPR formats would be wise to note that Mathews and Tolbert each finished in the top-10 in targets per game last season. The price for Mathews is higher now than it was two months ago but not as high as it’s going to climb by mid-season. Strike now before he’s off the table altogether.

3. Randall Cobb, Packers - It’s not unusual for an elite fantasy receiver to begin his career as a dynamic return specialist. Look no further than Steve Smith, Percy Harvin or even borderline Hall of Famer Tim Brown. A Harvin-like talent with eye-opening RAC skills (Julio Jones was the only full-time receiver with a greater YAC per reception average last season), Cobb is Aaron Rodgers’ long-term slot receiver in the league’s most finely-tuned passing attack.

After advising Twitter followers to bombard Cobb owners with trade offers over the summer, I made waves by stating that I’d flip Antonio Brown straight-up for the former Kentucky star. I stand by that assessment. Cobb has the advantage in talent, quarterback and play-caller. It’s not a question of whether Cobb will arrive as a fantasy star, but when.

4. Darren McFadden, Raiders - One of my long-held fantasy football philosophies is that injuries at running back are common enough that you have to place a high value on the ones who score the most points when they are in the lineup. Trying to ascertain which running backs suffer fluke injuries and which backs are wearing down physically to the point where they become injury prone is an inexact science. Rotoworld’s Frank DuPont a/k/a @FantasyDouche recently coined the term “injury agnostic” to describe the windmill-tilting that is injury prediction. Explaining “recency bias,” DuPont points out that Matthew Stafford, universally declared injury-prone last summer, is now valued without risk. “It’s got to be 100 percent in our head,” Dupont muses.

Now that Adrian Peterson is recovering from a shredded knee, McFadden may be his rightful heir as the game’s most talented back. No running back -- not even Darren Sproles -- has been more efficient as a receiver the past three years. One NFL coach told CBS Sports’ Pat Kirwin early last season that he “might rather have McFadden than any other back in the NFL.” Then-coach Hue Jackson went a step further, proclaiming his star as “one of the best players in the league, period. … I’ll take my guy over anyone. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, against anyone.”

McFadden’s high ceiling and high floor when he does play ensure that he’s a top-tier fantasy back. Go get him while the getting is good.

5. Brandon Lloyd, Patriots - Looking for this year’s “Steve Smith Career Renaissance Award” winner? The last time Lloyd enjoyed both a decent quarterback and a creative play-caller, he finished the season as fantasy’s top receiver. Reunited with that play-caller, Lloyd gives the best passer of his career the sorely-needed field-stretcher (horizontally as well as vertically) vacant since Randy Moss wrote his ticket out of town.

Already “assimilating himself into the fabric of the offense” and making sweet music with Tom Brady in offseason practices, Lloyd is the ideal trade target for a contender who annually flips late-first round picks for a shot at a weekly advantage over the competition.

<!--RW-->6. Michael Vick / Jeremy Maclin, Eagles - Don’t get caught up the debate over Vick’s standing among NFL signal-callers. Whether he’s top-5, top-10 or top-15, the rifle arm and crazy legs ensure that Vick remains one of the league’s most electric performers every time he steps foot on the field. From a fantasy perspective, though, it’s his surrounding talent that makes the difference between mid-range QB1 to the highest ceiling in the game. As a I pointed out in May, my fantasy sports philosophy essentially boils down to targeting the player with the highest upside in the a best-case scenario. Vick was averaging nearly 10 points per week more than the next-closest quarterback down the stretch run two years ago. That’s the holy grail of fantasy in a nutshell.

Eagles beat reporters issued, in unison, a “breakout alert” for a noticeably stronger Maclin this spring. They weren’t alone. Vick and former Eagles scout Daniel Jeremiah are both predicting a “huge year” for Maclin. One trusted national source has confirmed to Rotoworld privately that Maclin was a beast in offseason practices. On pace for 90 receptions and over 1,200 yards before shoulder and hamstring injuries limited him to 19 catches and 253 yards in the second half, Maclin is a prime candidate to crash the top-10 fantasy receivers in 2012. Keep in mind the 19th overall pick in the 2009 draft is just two months older than A.J. Green.

7. Mike Wallace, Steelers - Antonio Brown may be a superior route runner, but there’s no comparison between the top two Steelers receivers in terms of pure talent. Brown fashioned an impressive second-half while capitalizing on single coverage. Wallace is first in yards per reception and fourth in touchdown rate in the entire NFL over the past ten years while hauling in 42 percent of the team’s receiving scores in 2010 and 36 percent last season. Despite facing bracket coverage, Wallace hasn’t finished out of the top-10 fantasy receivers since entering the starting lineup. Don’t mistake the wide-receiver pecking order in Pittsburgh; Wallace is the one with the unique talent.

8. Andre Johnson, Texans - I was recently asked on Twitter if Johnson qualifies as a “buy” considering his age and late injury history. Despite the twin hamstring injuries last year, Johnson was still getting open at will in the playoffs, racking up 13 catches and 201 yards on 24 targets in two games.

Still viewed by none other than esteemed NFL Films analyst Greg Cosell as the league’s top receiver, Johnson is a Hall of Fame talent with 2-3 elite fantasy seasons left under his belt. The age and injury concerns have lowered Johnson’s value to the point where he’s an affordable acquisition for contending owners seeking that final piece to put them over the top in 2012. If your first-round draft selection isn’t in the top three or four picks, flip it for a player who can add put the trophy on the mantle over the next few years.

9. Jake Locker, Titans - After rewatching Locker’s rookie-season relief appearances, Rotoworld matchups guru Evan Silva compared the athletic dual threat to a young Donovan McNabb. Locker boasts every necessarily physical tool in spades while possessing natural playmaking ability.

What has me just as excited in Dynasty formats, though, is the plethora of young talent surfacing in Tennessee’s offense. Chris Johnson’s 4.8 YPC average in the final nine games was right in line with his career mark, Kenny Britt is a legit No. 1 receiver, Jared Cook is a freakishly athletic tight end and Kendall Wright falls in line with Percy Harvin as the model for the dangerous new-age slot receiver. Offensive coordinator Chris Palmer is expected to implement a wide-open, “explosive” offense with more multi-receiver sets.

10. Dez Bryant, Cowboys - From the outside looking in it certainly appears the initial reaction to Bryant’s first-ever arrest has brought more hand-wringing than Marshawn Lynch’s third arrest. Widely respected Dallas Morning News scribe Rick Gosselin, who does have access to high-placed sources, is calling for a team-issued suspension while noting that Bryant “puts himself on a pedestal above his team in uniform and out.” As NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal points out, on the other hand, disciplining Bryant could be tricky for the NFL and the Cowboys.

My opinion on Bryant’s Dynasty outlook hasn’t changed since last year. I still view him as a clueless kid ignorant of basic adult responsibilities rather than a bad seed of Brandon Marshall proportions. Offseason reports suggest Bryant has shown tangible improvement on the field while finally transforming his body into freakish football shape. One reliable source has confirmed to Rotoworld that Bryant has indeed honed his route running and chemistry with Tony Romo as the light switch has flipped on. By October, the misdemeanor arrest will be fading in the rear-view mirror.

More trade targets: Percy Harvin, Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, C.J. Spiller, Aaron Hernandez, Jonathan Stewart, Denarius Moore, Jahvid Best, Kyle Rudolph

 

[HacheMan]

Arrested Developments
For some NFL players, free time is "the devil's play."

During the last few months, no less than six skill players have run afoul of the law. Some are repeat offenders, some have character issues and others just like to puff the magic dragon too much.

Either way, this is a new NFL under judge, jury and executioner Roger Goodell. The “bad boy” image is no longer tolerated, leading to the possibilities of suspensions and probations. Fantasy owners need to wrap their heads around the risks and fallout:

MARSHAWN LYNCH
Arrested for: Driving Under the Influence
Current average draft position (ADP): 18.9

Background: Although this is Lynch’s first substance abuse offense, it’s certainly not the first time he’s been in hot water. His driver’s license was revoked in 2008 when he struck a woman with his car outside a Buffalo bar. He was hit with a three-game suspension in 2009 after getting arrested on a misdemeanor weapons charge. And this time, Lynch reportedly nearly crashed into two other cars with his Econoline van before getting pulled over.

We don’t have an estimate on the length of suspension, but it’s only logical that it will be at least three games -- and possibly significantly more. Beast Mode likes to have fun, but it’s not the kind of fun Goodell gets down with. Expect a message to be sent here. The previous incidents and near-crashes are definitely “aggravating circumstances,” which will allow the commish to bring the hammer at some point during the season -- even if he has to wait until Lynch’s case is settled.

Fallout: Enter Robert Turbin and Leon Washington as the in-house options. Turbin is a fourth-round rookie that was the WAC’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2011. He’s a power back at 5’10/222, but also ran a solid 4.50 at the combine. Our own draft analyst Josh Norris has drawn comparisons to Marion Barber and these highlights show why. Turbin isn’t likely to carry a full workload while Lynch is suspended, but a committee role that includes the goal-line work is a strong bet. Washington, a natural scatback that has averaged just 2.5 carries per game as a Seahawk, projects as the third-down runner and outside threat.

As long as the Seahawks don’t look outside the organization (Cedric Benson, Ryan Grant, Sammy Morris?), Turbin is the best bet here. His ADP should start rising into the high-flier range immediately.

DEZ BRYANT
Arrested for: Misdemeanor domestic violence
Current ADP: 42.1

Background: Bryant has been saddled with a bad reputation for as long as he’s been in the NFL. However, most of his transgressions have been of the childish nature. This is his first career arrest. Still, the details here don’t bode well.

Bryant allegedly slapped his mother with a baseball cap and pulled her shirt and hair. Yes, this is the same mother that served 18 months in jail during Dez’s childhood for crack cocaine. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland made headlines around the 2010 draft by asking Bryant if his mother was a prostitute. Extenuating circumstances? Maybe. This 911 call, in which Angela says her son "tried to kill me," certainly won’t sit well with Goodell.

Fallout: If Bryant does end up suspended, it figures to be a very short one because he's a first-time offender. He’s still a major breakout candidate as the most talented receiver in an explosive offense. Is there more risk now that he has one strike against the Personal Conduct Policy? Certainly. Is it worth the risk? Definitely. We haven’t moved Bryant down the rankings at all in our Draft Guide.

ADRIAN PETERSON
Arrested for: Resisting arrest
Current ADP: 16.7

Background: Peterson is known as one of the NFL’s good guys, never coming close to getting in trouble and always showing a unique work ethic. That’s why it was strange when he got into an argument with cops at a Houston club over leaving the premises. No matter who is telling the truth in this incident, don’t expect it to go anywhere. The charge is so minor and Peterson is so vehement in his innocence that the district attorney might just drop the case.

Fallout: There’s nothing to see here. I won’t be drafting Peterson because of the reasons outlined here, but this “arrest” may not even count as an official incident in the Personal Conduct Policy. It’s a non-issue for potential owners.

MIKEL LESHOURE
Arrested for: Marijuana possession -- twice
Current ADP: 95.0

Background: Leshoure tested positive for marijuana while at Illinois. On February 18 of this year, he was popped for marijuana possession. On March 12, he was pulled over by police and tried to escape a charge by eating his weed a la Super Troopers. That obviously didn’t work.

Leshoure has already been suspended for the first two games of the 2012 by the NFL.

Fallout: The suspension could be a blessing in disguise for Leshoure. He’s coming off an Achilles’ tear, one of the worst injuries a running back can have. Any extra time for recovery will be a positive. In a best-case scenario, Leshoure returns in Week 3 and takes over a power-back role in a committee that will also feature Jahvid Best and Kevin Smith. That 95.0 ADP feels way too high.

DION LEWIS
Arrested for: Felony count of falsely reporting a fire and misdemeanor reckless endangerment.
Current ADP: 186.5

Background: Lewis was a guest at the Hampton Inn in Albany. He reportedly returned to the hotel intoxicated and found himself locked out. So Lewis banged on the doors and pulled the fire alarm. Oops.

Fallout: Lewis was in line to serve as LeSean McCoy’s primary backup and handcuff. And as a first-time offender, he’ll likely avoid any league discipline. But he was already going to be pushed by seventh-round rookie Bryce Brown/Chris Polk in camp and has lost the kick returner job to Damaris Johnson. Lewis needs a good camp and those looking for a McCoy handcuff should be monitoring the situation closely.

JUSTIN BLACKMON
Arrested for: Driving Under the Influence
Current ADP: 113.7

Background: Blackmon picked up a DUI while at Oklahoma State and then was booked with a 0.24 BAC on June 3. He has since apologized, saying he’s giving up drinking “for right now.” Since the case is still pending, league discipline remains a possibility. We can’t rule out a short suspension, but the most likely result will be Blackmon joining the league’s substance abuse program.

Fallout: Although this incident won’t result in a long suspension, another alcohol-related incident for Blackmon certainly would bring a ban. Therefore, the Jags are trying to protect themselves by writing some unique language into his rookie contract. In other words, Blackmon might miss the beginning of training camp. That’s not good for a guy trying to mesh with a skittish second-year quarterback.

 

[HacheMan]

Chris Johnson is the top fantasy RB

The Titans' running back should be drafted behind only Aaron Rodgers


By KC Joyner | ESPN Insider

One of the biggest questions for every fantasy football owner this year is how much value should be placed on Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson. Will he be closer to the level of play that earned him the moniker "CJ2K," or more like the early 2011 season running back fantasy owners mocked with the moniker "CJ0K"?


Many of those owners are understandably displaying a bit of trepidation in banking on a player who cost their team victories last season. That hesitance could cause Johnson's stock to drop in some draft rooms, leaving him available as late as the end of the first round in a 10-team league.


The truth of the matter is that Johnson is worthy of being drafted at any spot in a draft other than the very first pick (which should be reserved for Aaron Rodgers).
<offer>To understand why Johnson is so valuable, let's look at the factors that caused him to falter early last year.


It all started with the rushing offense installed by new offensive coordinator Chris Palmer. Palmer has had some rushing play-calling success in his NFL career (his 1998 Jacksonville Jaguars squad had top-10 rankings in a number of important ground game categories) but Palmer's scheme early last year didn't make much use of the counter element.


This is important because Mike Heimerdinger, Johnson's former offensive coordinator (who passed away in September after a nearly year-long battle with a rare form of cancer), was a master at finding ways to use counter elements. Heimerdinger even went so far as to place counter fakes into plays where counter fakes are almost never used (something that was detailed in this 2010 Insider article).


The end of that article summed up the Johnson-Heimerdinger combination by noting that because Johnson is such an elite athlete, he almost certainly would be a success even in the most basic play-calling system in the league. But his pairing with Heimerdinger was a lot like Earl Campbell working with Bum Phillips. Phillips knew how to best use Campbell, and that was a key to Campbell becoming an all-time great.


The lockout gave Palmer little time to work with Johnson or the Titans' run blockers last season, which led to play calling that wasn't counter-oriented, especially during the first three weeks of the season.


The change in playcalling was compounded by very poor run blocking, as the Titans gave their ball carriers a good blocking situation (which is very loosely defined as not allowing the defense to do anything to disrupt a rush attempt) only 29 percent of the time in those three contests. That is an incredibly low mark, as the season-ending league worst mark in that category is usually just under 40 percent.
</offer>
When those two factors were combined, Johnson didn't react well at all. He seemed to run with less enthusiasm, and frankly looked at times as if he wasn't happy about having to run behind a standard blocking scheme. As a result, he tallied four, six and seven fantasy points in those first three weeks.


Things started to improve Week 4 against Cleveland, as Palmer began using some of the Heimerdinger counter plays, but the poor run blocking was still an issue through the halfway point of the season. This led to Johnson posting a midseason 6.0-yard mark in the good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA) metric that gauges how productive a ball carrier is when given good blocking. In past years, Johnson had always rated in the 8- to 9-yard range in that metric (a total that typically ranks at or near the top of the league).


By about Week 10, the Titans had fully integrated Heimerdinger's counter elements back into the offense and the team's run blocking was much improved (they had a 43.3 percent good blocking rate over the final eight games of the year).


As noted in my draft guide, Johnson ran with additional energy after these changes (he was finally back to the offense he liked) and it led to his posting a 9.2 GBYPA in Weeks 10-17. This also led to a huge increase in fantasy productivity, as Johnson went from racking up 57 points in the first eight games of the year to notching 100 points in the the last eight games.


That late-season surge could be enough on its own to lead to the idea that Johnson can get back to something close to his 2009 CJ2K form, but there is another factor that makes this even more likely: Johnson's offseason mental approach seemingly has gone through a change for the better.


This was detailed in a June article that said, among other things, that Johnson has added eight to nine pounds of muscle to his frame and has made improvements to his diet. There is also a report that Johnson has been running harder in offseason workouts and is taking an expanded leadership role on the team.


Johnson is a gifted back who is determined to get his elite reputation back, and this year he'll be running in an offensive system that once again is going to be tailored to his skill set. The only negatives for him are a tough schedule (my draft guide rates the Titans as facing the third-toughest set of run defenses) and the possibility that the Titans will throw the ball more this season. However, the addition of guard Steve Hutchinson helps offset the former and Johnson's pass-catching abilities (194 receptions in four NFL seasons) offsets the latter.


When the positive factors listed above are combined with the fact that every top-flight fantasy running back prospect has at least one significant question mark, it means that Johnson should have a big season. He is the best fantasy football running back prospect in 2012.

 

[HacheMan]

Will Green-Ellis' TDs keep coming?

A move to a less-potent offense, potential time-share pose concerns


By James Quintong | ESPN.com

After bursting on the scene with 1,008 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2010 for the New England Patriots, BenJarvus Green-Ellis fell to earth a bit in 2011 with 667 yards but still scored 11 touchdowns. Those 24 rushing touchdowns over the past two seasons are as many as LeSean McCoy and Adrian Peterson, and more than fantasy superstars such as Maurice Jones-Drew and Ray Rice. (Arian Foster has the most rushing TDs over the past two seasons with 26.)


Of those 24 touchdowns in the past two seasons, 18 came from inside the 5-yard line. So there's a good chance the Law Firm won't be matching those stats now that he's moved to the Cincinnati Bengals, which hasn't had a running back reach double digits in touchdowns since Rudi Johnson scored 12 each season from 2004-06. As noted in our draft kit profile of Green-Ellis, the Patriots had 36 rushing attempts inside the 5 last season, compared to just 17 for the Bengals, so the opportunities were there in New England. And by the end of the season, the goal-line chances were practically the only thing Green-Ellis was getting. In the final six games of the regular season, he had just 45 carries for 126 yards and six touchdowns.


Interestingly, the Bengals' primary back last season, Cedric Benson, scored six touchdowns all season while posting his third straight 1,000-yard season. However, the Bengals opted not to bring him back, instead replacing him with Green-Ellis. Despite the 1,000-yard seasons, Benson was hardly anything to get excited about from a fantasy standpoint. During his tenure in Cincinnati, he would be good for 15-20 carries per game, with 50-70 rushing yards and the occasional touchdown, while doing very little receiving the ball.

Green-Ellis' game is very similar to Benson's: Mostly straight ahead with some power, not a lot of speed or elusiveness, and mostly a non-factor in the passing game. While Green-Ellis averaged 4.4 yards per carry during that 2011 breakout campaign, he was down to 3.7 last season. Meanwhile, Benson has averaged 3.8 yards per carry over the past three 1,000-yard seasons. Looking at last season's final fantasy stats, Green-Ellis finished 23rd among running backs with 138 fantasy points (ESPN standard scoring); Benson finished 24th with 137. So the net results were about the same, even if the manner in which they got their stats was somewhat different. And, in effect, the Bengals upgraded one whole fantasy point in production.


It's not out of the question to believe Green-Ellis could up put very similar stats to Benson's with similar touches, given the state of the team's offense. First off, the Bengals' rank in offensive yards was the same (20th) in both the four-win 2010 and the nine-win 2011 campaigns. In fact, the 2010 team scored more touchdowns (34-31). So even if the Andy Dalton-A.J. Green combo continues to develop, it's hard to think there will be many more scoring opportunities for Green-Ellis overall, but he appears to be the guy to finish off those goal-line chances ahead of holdover back Bernard Scott.


Speaking of Scott, there's a chance he'll get more looks than before with Green-Ellis in the fold, especially after setting career bests with 112 carries, 380 yards and three TDs last season; however, his yards per carry tumbled to 3.4, after averaging 4.6 his first two NFL campaigns. Even if he gets more carries, he doesn't appear to be a threat to steal scores. Plus, he hasn't done much catching the ball (29 receptions for 165 yards in his three-year career), although in recent years, the Bengals haven't utilized the running back in the passing game that much.


Green-Ellis knows how to finish at the goal line, and at least for now will carry a good portion of the Bengals' rushing load. Sure, scoring touchdowns will still shape his fantasy value, but if he can hold off Scott, he can get stats by sheer volume. Give him 15-18 carries a week, he'll likely get about 60 yards per game, and throw in 6-7 touchdowns, you've got a passable No. 2 running back or, optimally, very solid flex option.

 

[HacheMan]

2012 Fantasy Football Mock Draft 3

12-team PPR league with standard scoring

By Christopher Harris | ESPN.com
Updated: July 20, 2012, 12:08 PM ET

For anyone seeking a little extra love for point-per-reception leagues, this one is for you. On July 17, 12 of the Worldwide Leader's finest gathered online for a mock draft for a PPR league -- a format in which standard fantasy scoring applies, except players receive a point every time they catch a pass -- and I'm here to pick through its bones.


Before we survey the picks, it's significant to note how the scoring differences in PPR leagues can change player evaluations. Here's how 2011 turned out in terms of Value-Based Drafting in PPR leagues:


<table><thead><tr><th> Rk </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos </th><th> Standard
VBD rank </th><th></th><th> Rk </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos </th><th> Standard
VBD rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> Ray Rice </td><td> RB </td><td> 1 </td><td></td><td> 21 </td><td> Larry Fitzgerald </td><td> WR </td><td> 28 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> LeSean McCoy </td><td> RB </td><td> 3 </td><td></td><td> 22 </td><td> Chris Johnson </td><td> RB </td><td> 30 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> Aaron Rodgers </td><td> QB </td><td> 2 </td><td></td><td> 23 </td><td> Steven Jackson </td><td> RB </td><td> 21 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> Calvin Johnson </td><td> WR </td><td> 9 </td><td></td><td> 24 </td><td> Steve Smith </td><td> WR </td><td> 32 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> Drew Brees </td><td> QB </td><td> 4 </td><td></td><td> 25 </td><td> Matt Forte </td><td> RB </td><td> 29 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> Maurice Jones-Drew </td><td> RB </td><td> 5 </td><td></td><td> 26 </td><td> Percy Harvin </td><td> WR </td><td> 39 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> Arian Foster </td><td> RB </td><td> 8 </td><td></td><td> 27 </td><td> Reggie Bush </td><td> RB </td><td> 23 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> Wes Welker </td><td> WR </td><td> 15 </td><td></td><td> 28 </td><td> Michael Bush </td><td> RB </td><td> 20 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> Cam Newton </td><td> QB </td><td> 6 </td><td> </td><td> 29 </td><td> Fred Jackson </td><td> RB </td><td> 25 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> Tom Brady </td><td> QB </td><td> 7 </td><td></td><td> 30 </td><td> Adrian Peterson </td><td> RB </td><td> 16 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> Rob Gronkowski </td><td> TE </td><td> 11 </td><td></td><td> 31 </td><td> Eli Manning </td><td> QB </td><td> 24 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> Darren Sproles </td><td> RB </td><td> 17 </td><td></td><td> 32 </td><td> Mike Tolbert </td><td> RB </td><td> 44 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 13 </td><td> Matthew Stafford </td><td> QB </td><td> 10 </td><td></td><td> 33 </td><td> Marques Colston </td><td> WR </td><td> 47 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 14 </td><td> Victor Cruz </td><td> WR </td><td> 18 </td><td></td><td> 34 </td><td> Mike Wallace </td><td> WR </td><td> 40 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 15 </td><td> Jordy Nelson </td><td> WR </td><td> 14 </td><td></td><td> 35 </td><td> Tony Romo </td><td> QB </td><td> 31 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 16 </td><td> Jimmy Graham </td><td> TE </td><td> 22 </td><td></td><td> 36 </td><td> Brandon Marshall </td><td> WR </td><td> 50 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 17 </td><td> Marshawn Lynch </td><td> RB </td><td> 13 </td><td></td><td> 37 </td><td> Hakeem Nicks </td><td> WR </td><td> 48 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 18 </td><td> Roddy White </td><td> WR </td><td> 35 </td><td></td><td> 38 </td><td> Matt Ryan </td><td> QB </td><td> 33 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 19 </td><td> Ryan Mathews </td><td> RB </td><td> 19 </td><td></td><td> 39 </td><td> Ahmad Bradshaw </td><td> RB </td><td> 37 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 20 </td><td> Michael Turner </td><td> RB </td><td> 12 </td><td></td><td> 40 </td><td> Jonathan Stewart </td><td> RB </td><td> 46 </td></tr></tbody></table>



As you can see, just because we award a point for every catch doesn't mean wideouts automatically dominate the fantasy landscape. Above you'll find 18 running backs listed, to go with 12 wide receivers, eight quarterbacks and two tight ends. That doesn't mean you must go RB early in your PPR league. It's just something to keep in mind as we proceed. It's also worth noting a few cases in which VBD value changes significantly when we go from standard to PPR scoring. For instance, Michael Turner's 2011 season drops from 12th to 20th overall when receptions matter (this makes sense, considering he had only 17 catches last season), while Roddy White jumps from 35th to 18th (he caught 100 passes). OK, let's get to the mock. The participants: KC Joyner, Eric Karabell, AJ Mass, Tristan Cockcroft, Keith Lipscomb, Stephania Bell, Brian Gramling, James Quintong, Shawn Cwalinski, Jim McCormick, Matthew Berry and yours truly.


(Click here if you would like to see rosters by team.)


ROUND 1

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 1 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Aaron Rodgers, GB </td><td> QB1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 2 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Arian Foster, Hou </td><td> RB1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 3 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Ray Rice, Bal </td><td> RB2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 4 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> LeSean McCoy, Phi </td><td> RB3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 5 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Calvin Johnson, Det </td><td> WR1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 6 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Drew Brees, NO </td><td> QB2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 7 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Chris Johnson, Ten </td><td> RB4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 8 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Wes Welker, NE </td><td> WR2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 9 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Ryan Mathews, SD </td><td> RB5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 10 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Tom Brady, NE </td><td> QB3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 11 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Maurice Jones-Drew, Jac </td><td> RB6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 12 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Matt Forte, Chi </td><td> RB7 </td></tr></tbody></table>




Surprise, Surprise: Joyner said "phooey!" to my '11 VBD charts and opted for the relative safety of Rodgers, who I'm guessing won't have too many receptions in '12, first overall. … Fancy Stat of the Round: CJ2K finished 51st in raw fantasy points last season, but he's averaged 48.5 grabs per season in his NFL career and the Titans are talking about passing more. … Tittering to the Bank: Berry has to worry about an MJD contract holdout, but with the No. 11 overall pick, he got the NFL rushing champ and a guy who's averaged 43.3 catches per season since Fred Taylor left Jacksonville. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: McCormick: "Sure, I wanted Mathews! But who cares! With Brady, my team just got a whole lot more handsome!" … My Pick: I had my eye on Forte once CJ2K was off the board. My ideal (if unrealistic) wraparound would have been Mathews and Forte, two players with skills in common.


ROUND 2

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 13 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Darren Sproles, NO </td><td> RB8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 14 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Jimmy Graham, NO </td><td> TE1 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 15 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Larry Fitzgerald, Ari </td><td> WR3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 16 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Rob Gronkowski, NE </td><td> TE2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 17 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Fred Jackson, Buf </td><td> RB9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 18 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Andre Johnson, Hou </td><td> WR4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 19 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Greg Jennings, GB </td><td> WR5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 20 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Trent Richardson, Cle </td><td> RB10 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 21 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Roddy White, Atl </td><td> WR6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 22 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Jamaal Charles, KC </td><td> RB11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 23 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Marshawn Lynch, Sea </td><td> RB12 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 24 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> DeMarco Murray, Dal </td><td> RB13 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: Karabell selected Lynch about five hours after it became known that the Seahawks RB had been arrested on a charge of driving under the influence. I had expected Lynch's free fall to last longer, but if and when he plays, he could be a big-time bargain for Eric. … Fancy Stat of the Round: Fred Jackson led the NFL in average yards after the catch with 12.8. Arian Foster and Jonathan Stewart were the only other players who reached double digits. … Tittering to the Bank: It's absolutely defensible to draft Graham ahead of Gronkowski, as Berry did here. Nevertheless, I have to believe Cwalinski did a happy little fist pump seeing the Patriots stud sitting there at No. 16. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Gramling: "All right, Andre Johnson! You've missed 12 games the past two years! Here's my grandma's healthy hamstring recipe: two parts baking soda, one part stretching!" … My Pick: In the early rounds of a deeper league, if it's a close decision between different positions, I tend to go RB. Sproles nearly became the first RB in the 2000s to score 100-plus fantasy points with more receptions (86) than carries (87). He also led all RBs in targets last season with 111. I view him as a No. 1 RB in PPR leagues, and my starting backfield is set.


ROUND 3

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 25 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Darren McFadden, Oak </td><td> RB14 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 26 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Mike Wallace, Pit </td><td> WR7 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 27 </td><td> Mass </td><td> A.J. Green, Cin </td><td> WR8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 28 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Matthew Stafford, Det </td><td> QB4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 29 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Adrian Peterson, Min </td><td> RB15 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 30 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Roy Helu, Wsh </td><td> RB16 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 31 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Steven Jackson, StL </td><td> RB17 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 32 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Frank Gore, SF </td><td> RB18 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 33 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Cam Newton, Car </td><td> QB5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 34 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Brandon Marshall, Chi </td><td> WR9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 35 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Michael Vick, Phi </td><td> QB6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 36 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Julio Jones, Atl </td><td> WR10 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: Peterson is the 15th RB selected. Depending on your perspective on "All Day" this season, that's a surprise because either (A) Lipscomb is relying on a guy who tore an ACL on Dec. 24, 2011, to be a fantasy starter, which is crazy; or (B) Lipscomb just suckered the league into giving him the most talented RB in the NFL -- who has vowed to play Week 1 -- for a mid-third-round pick, which is crazy. … Fancy Stat of the Round: In '10, Wallace averaged 14.7 yards at the catch (i.e., how far down the field he was when he caught his average reception), which was No. 5 in the NFL. In '11, Wallace averaged 9.6 Y@C, which was 37th. So while he's still a scary deep threat, Wallace proved he could make plays all over the field. … Tittering to the Bank: In standard scoring leagues, Marshall has finished between ninth and 13th in fantasy points among WRs for five consecutive years. Considering he's averaged nearly 95 catches per season during that time, he's worth even more in PPR leagues. McCormick is thrilled to get him No. 9 among WRs here. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Bell: "Mike Shanahan, so help me, if you start Tim Hightower over Helu in Week 1, I'm sticking pins in my russet-faced voodoo doll with the miniature coach's headset!" … My Pick: Especially after writing this story about Newton, I really hoped he'd fall to me. Technically, Hakeem Nicks was next on my WR list, but when time came to pull the trigger, I balked at his broken foot. Instead, I took the mammoth upside of Jones, who led all qualified WRs in average yards after the catch in his rookie year.


ROUND 4

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 37 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Percy Harvin, Min </td><td> WR11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 38 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Hakeem Nicks, NYG </td><td> WR12 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 39 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Ahmad Bradshaw, NYG </td><td> RB19 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 40 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Marques Colston, NO </td><td> WR13 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 41 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Steve Smith, Car </td><td> WR14 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 42 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Antonio Gates, SD </td><td> TE3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 43 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Jordy Nelson, GB </td><td> WR15 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 44 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Victor Cruz, NYG </td><td> WR16 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 45 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Jason Witten, Dal </td><td> TE4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 46 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Michael Turner, Atl </td><td> RB20 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 47 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Miles Austin, Dal </td><td> WR17 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 48 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Dez Bryant, Dal </td><td> WR18 </td></tr></tbody></table>




Surprise, Surprise: Turner inspires wildly differing opinions. This is a guy who rushed for 1,340 yards last season and has double-digit TDs in each of the past four seasons. So what if he doesn't catch the ball? That's Mass' theory here, scooping up "The Burner" as the 20th RB selected. That's either unbelievable value or foolish, when potential pass-catchers such as Reggie Bush, Jahvid Best and Jonathan Stewart are on the board. … Fancy Stat of the Round: It's a mistake to think Nelson's stellar '11 was only the result of big plays. He tied for sixth among NFL WRs in targets inside an opponent's 10; he caught five of 10 such targets for TDs. … Tittering to the Bank: Quintong grabbed Smith, who finished seventh among WRs in my PPR VBD ranks last season, as the No. 14 WR drafted. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Lipscomb: "That's right, Harris! I'm drafting every dang player you've red-flagged as overvalued!" … My Pick: Taking RBs early and waiting for WRs worked very well, in my estimation. I particularly wanted Harvin. A reason to like him (beyond his 87 catches last season): Harvin ranked seventh among wide receivers with 18 red zone targets in '11 and caught 11 of them, yet converted only two of those for TDs. That unlucky average could level out in '12.


ROUND 5

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 49 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Brandon Lloyd, NE </td><td> WR19 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 50 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Reggie Bush, Mia </td><td> RB21 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 51 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Dwayne Bowe, KC </td><td> WR20 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 52 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Jahvid Best, Det </td><td> RB22 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 53 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Jeremy Maclin, Phi </td><td> WR21 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 54 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Jonathan Stewart, Car </td><td> RB23 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 55 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Vincent Jackson, TB </td><td> WR22 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 56 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Eric Decker, Den </td><td> WR23 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 57 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Doug Martin, TB </td><td> RB24 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 58 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Demaryius Thomas, Den </td><td> WR24 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 59 </td><td> Berry </td><td> BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Cin </td><td> RB25 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 60 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Eli Manning, NYG </td><td> QB7 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: Even if he still had his goal-line caddie job in New England, Green-Ellis might be a bit overdrafted in a PPR league at No. 59, considering he has 26 career catches in four pro seasons. In Cincinnati, with Bernard Scott almost certain to play heavy snaps? Yikes. But Berry hadn't drafted a RB since Round 1 and wanted to lock up some TDs, with very little on the board behind BJGE. … Fancy Stat of the Round: Stewart quietly became one of the more dangerous receiving RBs in football last season. He had 47 catches to DeAngelo Williams' 16, and he averaged 11 yards after the catch (third in the NFL) and 8.8 yards per catch (eighth among RBs). We'll see whether Carolina's addition of Mike Tolbert changes J-Stew's usage pattern. … Tittering to the Bank: Karabell added Bush as a most formidable flex; in PPR leagues, I'd rank Bush as my No. 17 RB, and here he goes 21st. Sure, he's a big injury risk, but name me the running backs who aren't. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Cockcroft: "Yeah! Jahvid Best and his 4.4 catch-per-game career average! Woohoo! Now Jahvid, if you could please just encase yourself in this bubble wrap!" … My Pick: I have Manning pegged as a clear fourth-rounder in 12-team drafts, so getting him at the bottom of the fifth is pure value. To me, Manning looks like the No. 7 QB in all leagues, and if I don't get one of my preferred guys early, I'm happy to grab his 4,000-plus yards and 30-ish TDs.


ROUND 6

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 61 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Steve Johnson, Buf </td><td> WR25 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 62 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Antonio Brown, Pit </td><td> WR26 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 63 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> James Starks, GB </td><td> RB26 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 64 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Isaac Redman, Pit </td><td> RB27 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 65 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Tony Romo, Dal </td><td> QB8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 66 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Willis McGahee, Den </td><td> RB28 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 67 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Tony Gonzalez, Atl </td><td> TE5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 68 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Matt Ryan, Atl </td><td> QB9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 69 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Vernon Davis, SF </td><td> TE6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 70 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Aaron Hernandez, NE </td><td> TE7 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 71 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Ben Tate, Hou </td><td> RB29 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 72 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Jermichael Finley, GB </td><td> TE8 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: Bell upended the TE apple cart, grabbing Gonzalez ahead of guys such as Davis, Hernandez and Finley, each of whom also went in this round. It's probably splitting hairs, but I prefer the younger guys. Gonzo has averaged 3 yards after the catch over the past two seasons, the lowest mark of any NFL TE. Still, he runs great routes and has amazing hands, so his floor is pretty darned high. … Fancy Stat of the Round: Tate looked like an Arian Foster clone rushing the ball in '11, but not catching it. Foster saw 72 targets in 13 games, while Tate saw 19 targets in 15 games. I'm not saying Tate isn't the most valuable handcuff in fantasy (Karabell did the handcuffing here), but it's not fait accompli that he'd be just as valuable as an injured Foster in a PPR league. … Tittering to the Bank: Sure, Finley had 11 drops last season, but he deserves to be higher than the No. 8 TE off the board. Joyner did well selecting Finley a full 27 picks after Jason Witten; I actually have Finley rated higher than Witten. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Cwalinski: "No, you Pittsburgh Steelers! You will not add another RB in training camp! Bad! Bad!" … My Pick: I was torn over whether to take a tight end. When you've got the wraparound, you know the best guys will be gone by your next pick, but I felt I could produce more consistency with a top WR option at my flex. Stevie fits that bill. Eighty catches, 1,000 yards and high-single-digit TDs seem awfully safe for him.


ROUND 7

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 73 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> DeSean Jackson, Phi </td><td> WR27 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 74 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Kenny Britt, Ten </td><td> WR28 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 75 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Peyton Manning, Den </td><td> QB10 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 76 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Robert Meachem, SD </td><td> WR29 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 77 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Toby Gerhart, Min </td><td> RB30 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 78 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Lance Moore, NO </td><td> WR30 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 79 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Philip Rivers, SD </td><td> QB11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 80 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Shonn Greene, NYJ </td><td> RB31 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 81 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Torrey Smith, Bal </td><td> WR31 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 82 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Donald Brown, Ind </td><td> RB32 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 83 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Beanie Wells, Ari </td><td> RB33 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 84 </td><td> Harris </td><td> C.J. Spiller, Buf </td><td> RB34 </td></tr></tbody></table>




Surprise, Surprise: Hey, it's pick No. 82, so I'm not freaked out about it, but McCormick taking Brown ahead of a TD maker (Wells) and a pass-catcher (Spiller) qualifies as a head-scratcher at this point, if only because the Colts don't figure to be good on offense. Also, Brown has 11, 20 and 16 catches in his three pro seasons. But at least he doesn't have much stellar backfield competition. … Fancy Stat of the Round: Meachem's 60 targets tied him for 74th among WRs last season, and he's never caught more than 45 passes in a season. That means either he was buried in a deep receiving corps in New Orleans or he isn't very good. … Tittering to the Bank: The duo of Cockcroft and Gramling waited for their signal-callers, and were rewarded with Peyton Manning and Rivers, two QBs who easily have merited second-round consideration in past seasons. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Joyner: "Say it with me now! DeSean Jackson getting paid is a good thing! DeSean Jackson getting paid is a good thing! DeSean Jackson getting paid is a good thing!" … My Pick: After writing this story about Spiller, I'd talked myself into wanting him pretty badly in a PPR league. I believe 50 catches is an absolute floor for him in '12.
ROUND 8

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 85 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Peyton Hillis, KC </td><td> RB35 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 86 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Pierre Garcon, Wsh </td><td> WR32 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 87 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Fred Davis, Wsh </td><td> TE9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 88 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Darrius Heyward-Bey, Oak </td><td> WR33 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 89 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Brandon Pettigrew, Det </td><td> TE10 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 90 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Denarius Moore, Oak </td><td> WR34 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 91 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Michael Bush, Chi </td><td> RB36 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 92 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Stevan Ridley, NE </td><td> RB37 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 93 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> DeAngelo Williams, Car </td><td> RB38 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 94 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Lamar Miller, Mia </td><td> RB39 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 95 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Reggie Wayne, Ind </td><td> WR35 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 96 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Mark Ingram, NO </td><td> RB40 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 9

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 97 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Felix Jones, Dal </td><td> RB41 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 98 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Ben Roethlisberger, Pit </td><td> QB12 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 99 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Jacob Tamme, Den </td><td> TE11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 100 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Michael Crabtree, SF </td><td> WR36 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 101 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Jared Cook, Ten </td><td> TE12 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 102 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Anquan Boldin, Bal </td><td> WR37 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 103 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> David Wilson, NYG </td><td> RB42 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 104 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Santonio Holmes, NYJ </td><td> WR38 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 105 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Sidney Rice, Sea </td><td> WR39 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 106 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Ryan Williams, Ari </td><td> RB43 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 107 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Pierre Thomas, NO </td><td> RB44 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 108 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Titus Young, Det </td><td> WR40 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 10

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 109 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Robert Griffin III, Wsh </td><td> QB13 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 110 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Matt Schaub, Hou </td><td> QB14 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 111 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Ronnie Hillman, Den </td><td> RB45 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 112 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Tim Hightower, Wsh </td><td> RB46 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 113 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Mike Goodson, Oak </td><td> RB47 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 114 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Justin Blackmon, Jac </td><td> WR41 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 115 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Mario Manningham, SF </td><td> WR42 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 116 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Malcom Floyd, SD </td><td> WR43 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 117 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Daniel Thomas, Mia </td><td> RB48 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 118 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Rueben Randle, NYG </td><td> WR44 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 119 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Mike Tolbert, Car </td><td> RB49 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 120 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> 49ers D/ST </td><td> D/ST1 </td></tr></tbody></table>




Surprise, Surprise: If you'd told me there'd be a single mock draft this summer in which DeAngelo Williams went one pick in front of Lamar Miller, I'd have said you were nuts. Mass has a good feeling about Miller (who has a shoulder issue), although it'll probably take an injury to Reggie Bush or Daniel Thomas for him to be more than a speed-gadget guy in '12. He's a few rounds too early here for my tastes. … Fancy Stat of these Rounds: In the past three years, no rookie RB has finished higher than 18th in fantasy points, and only three (Knowshon Moreno, Jahvid Best and LeGarrette Blount) have finished higher than 30th. In that same span, eight rookie WRs have finished in their positional top 30. Translation: The three rookie WRs drafted in these rounds probably have a better shot at immediate impact than the three rookie RBs. … Tittering to the Bank: Gramling grabbing Denarius Moore probably doesn't count as a coup; even at his best, Moore doesn't figure to be a high-volume receiver, and Carson Palmer looks to be on his last legs. But can Moore be a DeSean Jackson-like home run hitter? I think he can. … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Joyner and Cockcroft, in perfect synchrony: "Remember when Mark Ingram and Daniel Thomas seemed kinda awesome? Remember when their respective ADPs were 64 and 78 in their rookie seasons? Whoops!" … My Picks: Apparently I was flashing back to Mock Draft 1, in which I selected both Hillis and Young. Each of those guys is going to be on a lot of my teams this fall. I took Griffin for tradeable upside.


ROUND 11

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 121 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Shane Vereen, NE </td><td> RB50 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 122 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> LeGarrette Blount, TB </td><td> RB51 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 123 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Andy Dalton, Cin </td><td> QB15 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 124 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Danny Amendola, StL </td><td> WR45 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 125 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Jay Cutler, Chi </td><td> QB16 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 126 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Laurent Robinson, Jac </td><td> WR46 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 127 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Texans D/ST </td><td> D/ST2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 128 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Alex Smith, SF </td><td> QB17 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 129 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Mikel Leshoure, Det </td><td> RB52 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 130 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Randy Moss, SF </td><td> WR47 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 131 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Mike Williams, TB </td><td> WR48 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 132 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Owen Daniels, Hou </td><td> TE13 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 12

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 133 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Brian Quick, StL </td><td> WR49 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 134 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Randall Cobb, GB </td><td> WR50 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 135 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Jacquizz Rodgers, Atl </td><td> RB53 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 136 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Greg Little, Cle </td><td> WR51 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 137 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> LaMichael James, SF </td><td> RB54 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 138 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Joe Flacco, Bal </td><td> QB18 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 139 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Bernard Scott, Cin </td><td> RB55 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 140 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Brandon LaFell, Car </td><td> WR52 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 141 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Bears D/ST </td><td> D/ST3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 142 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Giants D/ST </td><td> D/ST4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 143 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Davone Bess, Mia </td><td> WR53 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 144 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Carson Palmer, Oak </td><td> QB19 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 13

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 145 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Nate Washington, Ten </td><td> WR54 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 146 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Ravens D/ST </td><td> D/ST5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 147 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Rashard Mendenhall, Pit </td><td> RB56 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 148 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Josh Freeman, TB </td><td> QB20 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 149 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Austin Collie, Ind </td><td> WR55 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 150 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Kevin Smith, Det </td><td> RB57 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 151 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Nate Burleson, Det </td><td> WR56 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 152 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Michael Floyd, Ari </td><td> WR57 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 153 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Santana Moss, Wsh </td><td> WR58 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 154 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Rashad Jennings, Jac </td><td> RB58 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 155 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Robert Turbin, Sea </td><td> RB59 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 156 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Kendall Wright, Ten </td><td> WR59 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: If we're throwing guys at the wall and seeing who sticks, you can do a lot worse than Bell did taking Scott at No. 139 overall. An 80-pick difference between Green-Ellis and Scott seems wacky, especially in a PPR league. Of the RBs drafted in these three rounds, I feel safest saying Scott could lead his team in fantasy points. … Fancy Stat of these Rounds: Here go the defenses in earnest. Care to examine the six highest-ranked fantasy D/STs entering last season and where they finished? The Steelers were ranked No. 1, and they finished 10th in fantasy points. The next five highest-drafted units in order were: Packers (finished 14th), Eagles (6th), Jets (7th), Ravens (3rd) and Patriots (19th). Just in case you wonder why I advocate waiting to take your D. … Tittering to the Bank: In light of Marshawn Lynch's pending legal troubles, the fact that Berry got Turbin at No. 155 overall looks pretty smart. Of course, Turbin is a rookie, and those guys often don't work out, so Leon Washington probably should also go in 12-team leagues (he wasn't drafted here). … Presumed Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Mass: "Hey, Andy Dalton! If Harris says he has a stronger throwing arm than you do one more time, you have my permission to wing footballs at his face a la Marcia Brady!" … My Picks: What the … I took a tight end? Whee! I'd already dug my TE grave, but it turned out waiting an extra couple of rounds was smart, as no player at that position was drafted between Nos. 101 and 132. Daniels is "just another guy" at this point, but I've got lots of ammunition for a trade if I need one. Wright is one such bullet. I think he will have a strong rookie campaign.


ROUND 14

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 157 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Tim Tebow, NYJ </td><td> QB21 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 158 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Dion Lewis, Phi </td><td> RB60 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 159 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Brian Hartline, Mia </td><td> WR60 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 160 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Eagles D/ST </td><td> D/ST6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 161 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Steelers D/ST </td><td> D/ST7 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 162 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Isaiah Pead, StL </td><td> RB61 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 163 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Jets D/ST </td><td> D/ST8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 164 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Jason Snelling, Atl </td><td> RB62 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 165 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Jon Baldwin, KC </td><td> WR61 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 166 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Josh Gordon, Cle </td><td> WR62 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 167 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Brent Celek, Phi </td><td> TE14 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 168 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Stephen Gostkowski, NE </td><td> K1 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 15

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 169 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Leonard Hankerson, Wsh </td><td> WR63 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 170 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Ryan Fitzpatrick, Buf </td><td> QB22 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 171 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Vincent Brown, SD </td><td> WR64 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 172 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Kendall Hunter, SF </td><td> RB63 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 173 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Seahawks D/ST </td><td> D/ST9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 174 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Jermaine Gresham, Cin </td><td> TE15 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 175 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Greg Olsen, Car </td><td> TE16 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 176 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Dustin Keller, NYJ </td><td> TE17 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 177 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Mason Crosby, GB </td><td> K2 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 178 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Bills D/ST </td><td> D/ST10 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 179 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Lions D/ST </td><td> D/ST11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 180 </td><td> Harris </td><td> Falcons D/ST </td><td> D/ST12 </td></tr></tbody></table>

ROUND 16

<table><thead><tr><th> Pick </th><th> Overall </th><th> By </th><th> Player </th><th> Pos Rank </th></tr><tbody><tr class="last"><td> 1 </td><td> 181 </td><td> Harris </td><td> David Akers, SF </td><td> K3 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 2 </td><td> 182 </td><td> Berry </td><td> Sebastian Janikowski, Oak </td><td> K4 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 3 </td><td> 183 </td><td> McCormick </td><td> Matt Prater, Den </td><td> K5 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 4 </td><td> 184 </td><td> Cwalinski </td><td> Matt Cassel, KC </td><td> QB23 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 5 </td><td> 185 </td><td> Quintong </td><td> Robbie Gould, Chi </td><td> K6 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 6 </td><td> 186 </td><td> Gramling </td><td> Garrett Hartley, NO </td><td> K7 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 7 </td><td> 187 </td><td> Bell </td><td> Rob Bironas, Ten </td><td> K8 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 8 </td><td> 188 </td><td> Lipscomb </td><td> Dan Bailey, Dal </td><td> K9 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 9 </td><td> 189 </td><td> Cockcroft </td><td> Alex Henery, Phi </td><td> K10 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 10 </td><td> 190 </td><td> Mass </td><td> Randy Bullock, Hou </td><td> K11 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 11 </td><td> 191 </td><td> Karabell </td><td> Matt Bryant, Atl </td><td> K12 </td></tr><tr class="last"><td> 12 </td><td> 192 </td><td> Joyner </td><td> Coby Fleener, Ind </td><td> TE18 </td></tr></tbody></table>



Surprise, Surprise: Stephen Gostkowski in the 14th. No. Just, no. … Fancy Stat of these Rounds: Akers had an extraordinary season as fantasy's top kicker in 2011, but there wasn't even one fantasy point per week separating the No. 2 (John Kasay) and No. 9 (Robbie Gould) fantasy bootsmen in '11. That's why our experts almost all wait until the final round to take a kicker. … Tittering to the Bank: Count me among those who think Chad Ochocinco is cooked and who consider Hartline an intriguing prospect. He's got the size and straight-ahead speed to be a legit outside receiver, although his route-running must get better. McCormick was able to get him late because Hartline had two catches or fewer in nine games last season. But there's a vacancy for a WR playmaker in Miami. … Spiteful Shout at a Computer Screen: Me: "Thankfully there are two defenses left I like a lot, the Bills and Lions. Man, there go the Bills! Man, there go the Lions!" … My Picks: This is the second consecutive 12-team mock in which I've drafted Tebow for a rainy day. And that rainy day likely will come in Week 6, when the Jets are 1-4. Say this about Tebow: There aren't too many other late-round lottery tickets who, if they suddenly start playing, are guaranteed fantasy starters.

 

[HacheMan]

Is Ben Tate being undersold?

After a productive 2011 as a reserve, Tate could further cut into Foster's touches

By Ken Daube | Special to ESPN.com

How much will Ben Tate cut into Arian Foster's workload?

It's not a surprise that most people missed it. Everyone was so focused on Arian Foster, last year's consensus No. 2 overall pick, that it was easy to overlook the production totals that Ben Tate amassed. If you are considering investing a very early pick on Foster, you should really be aware of the following information:


Since 2002, only one running back (Jamaal Charles, 2010) broke a higher percentage of his rushing attempts for 10 yards or more than Tate did last season. While the run blocking for the Houston Texans may play a key in the success of a running back in this metric, Foster managed 10 or more yards on only 11.5 percent of his carries. Ben Tate did so on 19.4 percent of his attempts. To give you an idea of why this is significant, let's look at the 12 games in which Foster and Tate played together.


During one of those 12 games, Tate left early due to an injury (Oct. 2 versus the Pittsburgh Steelers). When you compare their performance over the remaining 11 games, you'll find that despite having nearly twice as many carries in these games, Foster totaled only 29 rushes of 10 or more yards. During these same games, Tate racked up 23. When you consider the disparity in their total number of attempts during those games, for Foster to have been as productive as Tate in this metric, he would have needed to achieve an additional 17 of these types of runs. Looking at this statistic, it's not completely without merit to wonder if Tate is the more explosive of the two backs.


Normally when you see backs that break many long runs, you would expect them to have a greater tendency to be stopped behind the line of scrimmage or for no gain more frequently than those who are plodders. This is not the case for Tate. During those same games, Foster was stuffed 23 times to Tate's 10. Considering the difference in number of rushing attempts, these numbers are in line with achieving a very similar percentage.

The next area to analyze is how productive each running back is inside the opponent's 10-yard line, as this is obviously the most attractive area for running backs to be getting the ball since there is a greater chance for quick accumulation of fantasy points. While most will focus on touchdown percentage in this area, I will highlight first-down percentage, as that encapsulates not only crossing the goal line, but also securing a new set of downs for the player's team. Foster was given 27 attempts in this range last season and he converted 11 times, eight of which were touchdowns, for a first-down rate of 40.7 percent. Tate was given just eight such attempts; however, he converted five of them (including two touchdowns) for a 62.5 percent success rate.
As we look to the 2012 season, we need to project what we expect to change for the Houston Texans to better predict player performance. One might expect that the return of Matt Schaub will have a negative effect on the running game, as Schaub is a more prolific passer than T.J. Yates or Matt Leinart. This ignores the fact that in games in which Schaub was the starter in 2011, the Texans threw the ball 29.2 times per game. In those started by the backups, the Texans threw the ball 29.1 times per game. Expecting any measurable difference in rushing attempts based on who the quarterback is would be foolhardy at best.


Therefore, the only real difference we should be looking to project is how the split of carries will be handled for Foster and Tate. In the similar 11 games mentioned before, the split was 2-to-1 in favor of Foster. Obviously, if things stay the same, Foster should be the first overall selection in fantasy this year. However, I don't expect that split to stay the same.


For the first time, Tate will have a full offseason to prepare for the upcoming campaign (his first was cut short by injury, his second by the lockout). Additionally, the Texans' coaching staff now has a significant amount of NFL game film to assess Tate's overall impact. In my view, these two factors combined with how well Tate performed -- arguably better than Foster in the previously mentioned key areas -- will mean an increased role for Tate. While it's nothing more than an educated guess, I would project at least 40 percent of the 2012 rushing attempts to go to Tate this season, and as many as 50 percent. That would represent a 10-20 percent loss in fantasy points from rushing for Foster, which means he would lose 18-36 points based on last year's production.


Thinking of Foster as a safe pick this season could be disastrous. Ray Rice, LeSean McCoy and Maurice Jones-Drew are safer picks with similar upside. Tate's presence in the Texans' backfield is enough for me to move Foster down to the fourth running back. I suggest you do the same.

 

[HacheMan]

A Leap of Faith
Remember last year?



Everyone had their own explanation for Chris Johnson's career-worst season. Early on, Titans coaches went so far as to openly blame themselves for not getting him enough carries.

Look closer, and there were early signs of internal concern. C.J. began losing series of playing time to Javon Ringer as early as Week 2. After that game, Mike Munchak and position coach Jim Skipper summoned Johnson for a private meeting. “They just wanted to really know how I was feeling and things like that and I let them know I was good,” Johnson explained at the time. Days later, Munchak said that Johnson "ran hard" in practice, "which was good to see." We'll cover this more in a bit, but Munchak said those things because Johnson wasn't running hard in the games.

Several football analysts suggested Johnson's struggles were due to poor offensive line play, and there is at least a sliver of truth to that. Tennessee's front five struggled to open holes, particularly on the interior. Football Outsiders graded the Titans as the worst run-blocking unit in the league. Pro Football Focus had them 17th, albeit with a severely "negative" grade.

It should be noted that FO graded the Titans' line 31st in run blocking in 2010, and PFF had them dead last. Yet Johnson's stats dipped across the board. His yards-per-carry average dropped from 4.32 two seasons ago to 3.99. In his prime, Johnson was an elusive runner on top of possessing go-the-distance speed. He really shouldn't need dominant run blocking.

In late October, a new theory arose. Titan Insider reported that Johnson's conditioning level was poor when he arrived at team headquarters in early September, following a training-camp holdout. Beat reporter Terry McCormick's story claimed that Johnson's physical fitness "could be a factor" as to his early-season struggles.

Texans linebacker Brian Cushing had a different take. "If you hit him early, I think it kind of deters him a little bit," said Johnson's division rival. NFL Films guru Greg Cosell suggested Johnson had morphed into a "back that shies away from contact," while missing lateral moves and explosion.

It was around that point that Johnson lashed out at his critics and, less directly, his teammates. "Basically, if you are watching the game and you really can’t tell what is going on with the run game, then I would say you really don’t know football," he said. "I wouldn’t say I am the issue."

A week later, Johnson was benched for Ringer in the fourth quarter of the Titans' Week 8 game against Indianapolis. "The Chris Johnson that we’re used to seeing, I don’t know why we’re not seeing him," NFL Network's Sterling Sharpe said after the Colts game. "Usually, when he got one on one, he could make a guy miss and it was going to be electric. Now he’s just curling up in a ball and looking for the softest spot on the field to lay down." Sharpe works for NFL Network's Playbook program, watching All-22 coaches tape. And the eye in the sky tends not to lie.

More theories for Johnson's struggles popped up over the course of the season. Some blamed the lockout. Others a new offensive coordinator. Johnson's conditioning was an oft-broached topic, as was the line play. In November, people around the league were wondering whether the Titans might cut Johnson after the season. He was playing that badly. Some folks legitimately believe Johnson has entered a state of decline.

"Is he a step slower? Yeah, I'm sure he is," said Munchak in January. "I don't know how you would measure that exactly, but I'm sure he has (lost speed)."

As someone who is interested in fantasy football, I find myself almost rooting for Johnson. He is an every-down back, and those don't grow on trees anymore. We also all saw Johnson take the NFL by storm in 2008 and 2009. He was so much fun to watch. I would love to see that again.

And I want to have a feel for whether it might happen.
<!--RW-->

I already wrote up two of Johnson's 2011 games for previous Re-Watching pieces. Links to those less comprehensive reviews can be found here and here. To form a stronger opinion, I picked five more: Week 9 versus Cincinnati (18 touches), Week 12 versus Tampa Bay (24 touches), Week 13 at Buffalo (24 touches), Week 15 at Indianapolis (23 touches), and Week 17 at Houston (19).

Keep in mind that three of the five games could be described as favorable matchups. Tampa Bay finished dead last in the NFL in run defense. Buffalo was 28th, and Indy 29th. Cincy and Houston had top-ten run defenses. The Bucs and Bills games were Johnson's best box scores of the year.

On the O-Line Woes

I charted 90 carries in the five games. Defenses got backfield penetration on 36 occasions, a high total (40 percent) and confirmation that Tennessee's offensive line didn't execute enough as a run-blocking unit. The old Chris Johnson excelled at making the initial defender miss, though, and turning negative runs into long ones. 2011 Johnson rarely made the first man miss. And I don't think it was because he couldn't anymore. I think it was because he didn't care to.

Pathetic Pass Blocking

One concern rarely broached is Johnson's pass blocking. He doesn't need to be a sensational blocker if he's posing a dynamic running and receiving threat, but Johnson's blitz-pickup efficacy can affect his playing time. And it also provides a solid clue as to whether his heart was in it on a down-to-down basis. I found Johnson's pass blocking to be thoroughly pathetic in the five games.

Charting 31 opportunities, I credited Johnson with a measly six effective pass blocks. 13 times, Johnson appeared to take a pass-blocking stance but did not make contact with an oncoming defender. This occurred either because he had no interest in blocking, or a defender did not race directly at him. I charted Johnson with 12 unsuccessful pass blocks, meaning he did identify a blitzer but did not block him. Johnson's poor blocking contributed to three sacks in the five games.

The Titans knew Johnson was blocking poorly and consistently pulled him for Javon Ringer on passing downs. Ringer is barely a replacement-level talent as a ball carrier and receiver. I'm not sure he's going to last much longer in the league. But Ringer is a far better pass blocker than Johnson. OC Chris Palmer has extensive background in the run-and-shoot, and increasingly used four- and five-wide sets down the stretch last season. Tennessee is going to throw the ball an awful lot more in 2012, and it will need its tailback to be able to block. Or at least to be willing.

Running out of Bounds

I harkened back to Cosell's in-season comments calling Johnson an "avoid-contact runner" when viewing him run out of bounds in the five games, rather than turn upfield for additional yards. The tendency was especially evident in the Bengals and Bucs games. Johnson didn't want to get hit, so he'd use the sideline as a safety valve on plays to the perimeter. This goes hand in hand with the undeniable fact that Johnson refused to finish runs in 2011. It was a problem all year long.

What made Johnson so special during his first three NFL seasons was his ability to combine electrifying long speed and cuts with instinctive, fearless inside running and physicality at the end of runs. Johnson is 5-foot-11 and about 200 pounds. Coming out of East Carolina, many teams graded him as a future change-of-pace back. The long speed was great, but he took the league by storm because he was so good between the tackles, created space for himself regularly, and packed legitimate pop. He suddenly morphed into the league's least physical back in 2011.

Will Johnson Turn it Around?

Like Randy Moss after he was traded out of Oakland, and even Michael Vick when he got out of prison, Johnson has plenty of juice left in his tank. His 2011 problems had to do with effort. I can say this with supreme confidence after witnessing nearly all of his games between last year's in-season observations and subsequent offseason reviews. There certainly were flashes of it against the Bills and Bucs. Johnson still cuts on a dime and can outrace defensive backs when he feels up for it. Whether he turns his career back around and has a rebound season is entirely up to him.

Johnson's improved offseason commitment level has been widely billed as a promising sign -- an indication that he wants "it" again. Perhaps that is the case, or perhaps he'll revert to his on-field shell after the first big hit. As far as predictive analysis goes, spring puff pieces are hit or miss. Johnson was the subject of many.

The fact that Johnson quit last season -- in my opinion -- makes him a fantasy player I will likely look to avoid in 2012. You're just not going to find many running backs who can match his potential workload and god-given talent. Undoubtedly, it's an enticing combination.

But I think that, because Johnson showed the frightening capacity to flip his own off-switch, drafting him for your fantasy football team this year requires a leap of faith.

 

[HacheMan]

Be wary of the Panthers' Steve Smith

Eric Karabell

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is coming off a record-breaking rookie season, and now we have this important, breaking news as preseason games approach: The team traded an undisclosed draft pick to the Oakland Raiders for wide receiver Louis Murphy. Wow! And you thought Newton was a candidate for sophomore season regression?


OK, moving past the sarcasm for a minute, Murphy's acquisition doesn't figure to make a major impact in the fantasy football community, though it's certainly possible the speedster will perform well in training camp and earn the other starting nod across from veteran Steve Smith (more on him later). Murphy is a deep threat who showed signs of breaking out in each of his first two NFL seasons. He has averaged 15.2 yards per reception, a mark bettered by 28 qualified players last season, and he's produced multiple 70-yard plays, but durability -- and the team's quarterback play -- has been an issue. It's not likely that Newton alone can keep Murphy healthy, but if Smith were to get hurt Murphy can run a decent deep route.
Still, as of now Murphy will compete with Brandon LaFell and David Gettis for playing time, and as someone who likes LaFell to break out a bit this season and steal some of Smith's thunder, I don't think anything really changes in team hierarchy. However, and while this relatively minor trade for Murphy shouldn't be overrated, I do think this is a wise time to point out that Smith is likely to regress this season, which is why he's not among our top 10 wide receivers in the rankings. Upon further research I've moved Smith down a few spots in my rankings recently, though that shouldn't be confused as praise for Murphy.


Smith delivered six 100-yard games last season, five of them in the first eight weeks. His production was similarly tied to Newton's; I don't think Newton will fall apart statistically, as his pending drop in rushing touchdowns can partially be made up slingin' the pigskin, but I also don't expect him to have a better fantasy season. Whether NFL defenses caught up to him the final two months of the season or Newton was regressing to a more reasonable mean, he's barely a top-5 fantasy quarterback for me. For a more detailed analysis of Newton's value and expectations, check out what colleague Christopher Harris wrote.


As for Smith, I'm willing to mostly overlook the fact he's 33 years old, but his touchdown upside is dependent on big plays, and it's a dangerous game to play simply expecting big plays. Smith is not likely to see many red zone looks; if anything, the taller LaFell would seem to be in a good spot to draw Newton's attention near the goal line, should, you know, Newton decide to not run the football in for all the short touchdowns.



The Panthers also picked up the wide-bodied Mike Tolbert from the San Diego Chargers, and he is certainly a red zone threat for both running and receiving the football. Put simply, Smith didn't have a whole lot of competition last season, and Newton looked his way most of the time in the first few months. The next fellow on the team in receiving yards was LaFell, nearly 800 yards behind. Laugh at the Murphy impact, but Newton has more weapons than he did last season.


For standard drafts, Smith is a relatively safe fourth-rounder, and I'd consider LaFell is one of the players to think about late on draft day, perhaps your fifth or sixth wide receiver. The third-year product from LSU is young, fast, can jump and posted strong numbers in yards after the catch last season. I doubt Newton adds to his passing yards this season but I expect LaFell, Gettis, Murphy and Tolbert to each cut into Smith's targets a bit. Sure, it's a bit of a catch-22; we want Smith to get a reasonable No. 2 option to deflect attention, but we can spin that negatively as well. Such is the business.

 

[HacheMan]

Cruz, Nelson top-10 WR options

By Brian Gramling | ESPN.com

Are 2011 breakouts Victor Cruz and Jordy Nelson candidates to crash back to earth?

Barring a major injury to themselves or their Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks, the answer here is a definitive no.


When assessing whether or not a receiver can repeat surprising numbers, the factors most important to consider are age, health, quarterback, fellow WR teammates and offensive system from one year to the next. Both of these players get a high score in all of these categories.


Cruz is 25 with no health concerns and has already established a rapport with Eli Manning, an elite NFL quarterback squarely in his prime at age 31. He and Hakeem Nicks are options 1 and 1A, separated by just two targets in 2012 (Nicks 133, Cruz 131). Kevin Gilbride enters his fifth season as New York's offensive coordinator in a complicated passing system that Manning continues to perfect each season. Both Manning and Gilbride praised Cruz in OTAs and the team plans to also feature the slot man as an outside receiver in 2-WR sets with Nicks. Although Cruz has the skill set to thrive on the outside, he's still at his best in the slot. Also, Manning is most comfortable when he has three-wide to choose from. According to ESPN Stats and Information, Manning attempted 445 passes out of 3-WR formations in 2011, the second-highest number in the NFL.
Although Cruz started last season with two dud games (0 and 17 yards receiving), he finished with a flourish. Manning targeted Cruz 73 times from Weeks 10-17 of the 2011 season, which ranked seventh in the entire league. In his final 10 regular-season games, Cruz racked up 1,138 receiving yards and six touchdowns. One factor that could work against Cruz is the shaky health of Nicks. Although Cruz performed admirably (six receptions, 91 yards) in his one game without him in 2011, it's imperative that Nicks remains healthy, because Cruz is much more comfortable and effective in the slot than he is at split end. Nicks underwent an operation on his broken foot (a non-contact injury while he ran a pass route) in late May, and has suffered significant knee, ankle and toe ailments since donning the Giants uniform in 2009.


Some may look at Cruz's touchdowns as being fluky because only one was less than 20 yards, while the others were a tough-to-duplicate 99, 74, 74, 72, 68, 28, 25 and 24 yards. However, a lot of that had to do with Manning's inefficiency in the red zone, as his QB rating was a paltry 75.9, which ranked 27th in the NFL, behind even Blaine Gabbert (76.3). Nicks outscored Cruz 5-1 in the red zone, but caught just two more passes inside the 20 than Cruz did, so it's not like Manning completely ignored Cruz when the Giants approached the end zone.


Yards after the catch (YAC) is another statistic that shows how great Cruz was. His 603 YAC ranked second among all NFL wideouts (Wes Welker had 751), showing that not only can he fly, he can also break tackles and catches balls in stride thanks to a smart and accurate quarterback. Cruz tied for the league lead with 17 receptions of 25-plus yards, and gained an average of 7.3 "extra" yards per grab, with 11.4 yards at the catch (15th in NFL) and 18.7 yards per catch (third in NFL). Cruz is a top-10 fantasy wideout no matter how you slice it, and will be the jewel of keeper-league owners savvy enough to have taken a flier on him in 2011.


In terms of Jordy Nelson, let's again examine the year-to-year factors. Nelson is 27 years old with a durable, rock-solid frame of 6-foot-3, 217 pounds. He catches passes from the league's best signal-caller, 28-year-old Aaron Rodgers, who just had arguably the best quarterback season in the history of the NFL (122.5 rating, 45 TD, 6 INT). Packers head coach Mike McCarthy is an offensive guru whose team has ranked 8th, 2nd, 8th, 7th, 5th and 3rd in passing offense in his six seasons as Green Bay's head coach. Although the team has a new offensive coordinator, that man is Tom Clements, the quarterbacks coach who has worked with Rodgers since 2006 and won't mess with this high-powered offense.


Like Cruz, Nelson is a 1A option with teammate Greg Jennings well established as the No. 1 target of Rodgers. Although Nelson had eight or more targets just twice in 2011 (compared to seven such games for Jennings) Nelson still had seven games of 90-plus yards receiving, while Jennings had a pedestrian four. It is worth noting that Nelson had his two best performances (6-115-2 and 9-162-3) with Jennings sitting out with a knee injury.


While a player that finished tied for 50th in overall targets is hardly ever a top-10 fantasy receiver, Nelson could be the exception. About the only thing new in Green Bay's pass-happy offense is that Nelson will be lined up in a variety of different formations, which can only increase his value. This is especially true in PPR leagues, as Nelson's catches are sure to rise as he lines up more in the slot.

It was remarkable how in sync Nelson became with Aaron Rodgers last season. ESPN Stats and Information revealed that the pair connected on 75.6 percent of their pass attempts, which was the third-highest success rate among any QB/WR duo in the league with a minimum of 50 attempts, trailing only Christian Ponder-Percy Harvin (78.7 percent) and Drew Brees-Marques Colston (77.7 percent). What's even more remarkable about Nelson's gaudy percentage is that, according to ESPN Insider KC Joyner, more than half of Nelson's targets were of the vertical variety (10-plus yards downfield), as Nelson led the NFL in yards per vertical target (19.9). To put this number into perspective, only four other players averaged as much as 15 yards per vertical target: Wes Welker 18.9, James Jones 17.0, Victor Cruz 16.1 and Mike Wallace 15.3. Nelson's average reception occurred more than 12 yards down the field, the ninth-highest average in the league.


Fantasy owners look to Nelson's touchdowns and say he can't possibly score 15 more times. I agree with that logic, since only 10 players caught at least 15 TDs in a season from 2000-10. However, seven of those guys caught at least 10 TDs the following season as well, with just Muhsin Muhammad (4 in 2005), Braylon Edwards (3 in 2008) and Dwayne Bowe (5 in 2011) suffering huge drop-offs. Much of this had to do with their multiple subpar quarterbacks chucking the pigskin. Muhammad had Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman in his 2005 huddle, Edwards went through a revolving door of Derek Anderson, Ken Dorsey, Brady Quinn and Bruce Gradkowski in 2008, while Bowe caught passes from Matt Cassel, Tyler Palko and Orton last year. Aaron Rodgers is certainly head and shoulders above any of these signal-callers, and has as much job security as anybody in football.


In addition to Nelson's incredible catch percentage with Rodgers, Nelson plays for a team that led the league in red-zone pass frequency, attempting a pass more than 70 percent of the time in goal-to-go situations in 2011. Nelson scored five times in these situations last season. He may not be the fastest receiver out there, but his 18.6 yards per catch (fifth in the NFL) and 418 YAC (eighth in league) show how tough he is to bring down, and how precisely he runs his routes. His 16 grabs of 25-plus yards were just one shy of the league lead, and were a big reason he finished second among all wide receivers in fantasy points in ESPN standard scoring leagues. Nelson is unlikely to be the second-best fantasy wideout for a second straight year, but as is the case with Cruz, he's a top-10 caliber receiver in 2012.

 

[HacheMan]

100 things you should know

Throw away everything you learned last year. Fantasy has a new set of rules.


By Matthew Berry | ESPN The Magazine

This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Aug. 6 Fantasy Football issue. Subscribe today!
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DROP YOUR CHEAT SHEET. The clock has ticked down on your second-round pick, leaving you mere moments to decide between two very different running back profiles. Who do you choose?


Player A: Over the past two years, among backs with at least 300 carries, he has the highest yards-per-carry average in the NFL (5.27). And in a league with so many running backs by committee, he is the unquestioned lead back, having averaged 19 touches per game last season. He's a touchdown machine, scoring in more than half his games, and he's a tough tackle too: His 5.4 yards per carry last season was better than the averages of Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster. Since he came into the league four years ago, no running back has a higher yards-per-catch average (10.3). Plus, he had only one fumble all of last year. In 2011, Peterson averaged 16.3 fantasy points per game in the games he finished. Our guy: 16.7.


<ipadpagebreak><ipadmediacollection2></ipadmediacollection2></ipadpagebreak>Player B: He entered the league with a lot of hype -- he was the first back taken in the 2008 NFL draft -- but is it justified? Last year, he didn't get the ball much at the goal line (eight carries inside an opponent's 10-yard line) or anywhere else on the field (24 percent of his team's rushing attempts). Even one of his big calling cards, his pass-catching ability, took a hit, as his receptions and yards per reception (19 catches for 154 yards, 8.1 average) hit career lows in 2011. He seems to have an aversion to the end zone, scoring just four touchdowns last season (plus one receiving TD) and wasn't even a top-30 fantasy running back. After his team hired a new coach, the front office went out and traded for another rusher. Not exactly a vote of confidence.

Time's up. Which player do you want? You want Player A, right? And you're avoiding Player B, correct? I mean, it should be clear that when you go into your draft, you definitely want to target Player A, Darren McFadden. And <ipadpagebreak> make sure you don't get stuck with Player B...who is also Darren McFadden.</ipadpagebreak>


Gotcha.
Both of these McFadden profiles are, in fact, factual. I also intentionally made them wildly misleading to prove a point: Facts, when used selectively, are nothing but opinion. We all twist truths -- every fantasy analyst, every political pundit, every pop culture critic, every voice on every ESPN debate-style show. We can talk up or talk down just about anybody to strengthen our argument and shape your opinion. We just have to choose the right stats for the job.


Want me to talk about an injury-risk QB who hasn't played all 16 games for two straight seasons and now has to worry about a scaled-back offense (second-fewest pass attempts of his career last season)? Because I just described Aaron Rodgers.
Or perhaps you need me to talk up a promising young QB who's on the cusp of being the next big thing, having averaged 280 yards passing and 19 points in every full game he played last year. Because I just sold you Chad Henne.


As you prepare for a predraft stat bombardment of red zone targets, yards after contact, attempted air yards against five or more rushers, new offensive schemes, rumors of this guy being in the best shape of his life while this other guy is in the doghouse, average draft position and blah-blah-blah, it's vital that you understand just one thing: It's impossible -- and I mean impossible -- to get a complete statistical overview of a player. Potential value changes with every game, play, personnel grouping and scheme. So to make sense of the chaos and make a smart decision on a player, you must first figure out who you trust and who you don't and then make your own call. Because that's all any of us are doing: taking small pieces of the big picture and making a call.


<ipadpagebreak><ipadmediacollection3></ipadmediacollection3></ipadpagebreak>Every statement that follows is 100 percent accurate. Some are about football players, some are about teams and some are about tendencies. And not one of the following 100 facts tells the whole story.


1. Over the first eight games of 2011, Cam Newton averaged 299 passing yards per game, fifth best in the NFL.


2. His 8.34 yards per attempt in those games was also fifth best.


3. Over the final eight games, Newton averaged 207 passing yards a game, 18th over that time.


4. Newton's 7.21 yards per attempt over the season's second half was 14th best in the NFL and worse than, among others, Matt Moore's average.


5. Quarterbacks who averaged more passing yards per game than Newton in <ipadpagebreak> the second half of the season: John Skelton, Mark Sanchez and Alex Smith.</ipadpagebreak>


6. Since 1991, 21 quarterbacks have rushed for at least six touchdowns in a season, but only one has rushed for at least six touchdowns two years in a row: Tim Tebow (six in 2010 and 2011).


7. The Panthers have DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart and Mike Tolbert on their roster.


8. Peyton Manning has played 111 games indoors.


9. In those games, he has 230 touchdowns (6.2 TD percent) and 97 interceptions (2.6 INT percent).


10. Peyton Manning has played 97 games outdoors.


11. In those games, he has 169 touchdowns (4.9 TD percent) and 101 interceptions (2.9 INT percent).


12. Assuming he plays all 16 games this season for the Broncos, Peyton Manning will play 15 games outdoors.


13. In his last eight starts last season, Carson Palmer was fifth in passing yards, seventh in completion percentage, ninth in completions, 10th in attempts, fourth in yards per attempt, tied for second in passing plays of more than 25 yards and tied for 12th in touchdown passes, and he had Denarius Moore and Darrius Heyward-Bey on the field at the same time in only five games.


14. Palmer was also tied for eighth in interceptions, and Oakland has a new offensive coordinator and head coach. But still, Palmer is ranked 20th among QBs on ESPN's draft board.


15. In the two years with Mike Shanahan as head coach, the Redskins have been in the top five in passing attempts each season.


<ipadpagebreak><ipadmediacollection4></ipadmediacollection4></ipadpagebreak>16. If you combined the stats of Donovan McNabb, Rex Grossman and John Beck over the past two years and made them one quarterback, that QB would have averaged 3,843 passing yards and 20 touchdowns.


17. In 41 games at Baylor, Robert Griffin III had 2,254 yards rushing and 33 touchdowns.


18. Understand this for the rest of the season in everything you read, hear and see from me: I am not rational when it comes to Robert Griffin III.


19. This offseason, Bills coach Chan Gailey revealed that Ryan Fitzpatrick played the final nine games with two cracked ribs.


20. Prior to that injury, Fitzpatrick averaged 248 passing yards and two touchdowns for 15 fantasy points a game. He also completed 67.7% of his passes.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>21. After that injury, he completed 58.2 percent of his passes.


22. Mark Sanchez had 84 overthrows last season, fourth most in the NFL.


23. Jets wideouts had 18 drops as a group, tied for seventh fewest in the NFL.


24. Tim Tebow is currently the "backup" quarterback for the Jets.


25. Since 2008, Ben Roethlisberger has been sacked an NFL-worst 168 times.


26. He has been sacked at least 40 times in three of the past four seasons.


27. Over the final five games last season, no quarterback had a higher QBR than & Philip Rivers (94.4).


28. Last season, Mike Tolbert and Vincent Jackson had 12 drops in 186 targets.

29. The rest of the Chargers had six drops in 354 targets.


30. Mike Tolbert and Vincent Jackson are no longer with San Diego.


31. Michael Vick missed (under- or overthrown passes) on only 14.8 percent of red zone attempts last season.


32. Among quarterbacks with at least 50 red zone attempts, the only one with a lower miss percentage was Drew Brees (13.7 percent).


33. Only seven of Josh Freeman's 22 interceptions were on under- or overthrown passes (31.8 percent).


34. There were only four quarterbacks last season with a lower percentage of interceptions due to missed throws: Aaron Rodgers, Joe Flacco, Tom Brady and Drew Brees.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>35. Before his 172-yard, two-TD game against the last-ranked Tampa Bay run defense in Week 17, Michael Turner averaged 56 rushing yards over his five previous games.


36. He had single-digit fantasy points in four of his final six games.


37. He scored only once from Week 12 to Week 16.


38. Six of Turner's 11 touchdowns last season came in just three games: Week 4 at Seattle, Week 6 vs. Carolina and the aforementioned Week 17 vs. Tampa Bay.


39. Turner had only six 100-yard games last season. Half of those were when Julio Jones was out.


40. Since Marvin Lewis took over as Bengals coach in 2003, his lead running backs have averaged 1,124 yards, eight touchdowns and 282 carries a season.


41. BenJarvus Green-Ellis has never had more than 229 carries in a season.


42. He has also never fumbled.


43. Those Bengals averages (1,124 yards and eight scores) combined with no fumbles and assuming no receiving yards would have been worth 160 fantasy points, or 15th among running backs, just 10 points out of the top 10.


44. Among running backs with at least 30 red zone carries last season, only Adrian Peterson, Arian Foster and Marshawn Lynch had a higher yards-per-carry average in the red zone than Green-Ellis (2.72).


45. Only five teams ran the ball in the red zone more than the Bengals last season.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>46. Green-Ellis had 11 and 13 touchdowns, respectively, the past two seasons, with all but one coming from the red zone.


47. He is currently going in the sixth round.


48. Over his final three years at Tennessee, new Rams head coach Jeff Fisher's teams had 6,518 rushing yards, fourth best in the NFL.


49. The Titans had 56 rushing touchdowns (second in the NFL), a 4.6-yards-per-carry average (third in the NFL) and 1,413 rushing attempts (eighth in the NFL).


50. Of course, the Titans also had Chris Johnson. But still, what are the Rams going to do, throw it?


51. Steven Jackson is just 29 years old and has missed only two games for the Rams in the past three seasons.


52. From 2006 to 2010, Frank Gore averaged 14 games played and 51 receptions a season.


53. Last season, Gore played all 16 games.


54. He had 17 receptions.


55. Over the past six seasons, Gore has averaged 254 rushes and 45.3 receptions a year.


56. The only player in NFL history to have seven seasons with at least 254 rushes and 45 receptions is LaDainian Tomlinson.


57. Frank Gore is not LaDainian Tomlinson.


58. Brandon Jacobs, LaMichael James and Kendall Hunter are not blocking backs.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>59. Over the second half of last season, Donald Brown had 492 rushing yards, 16th in the NFL and more than LeSean McCoy, C.J. Spiller, Frank Gore and Roy Helu had.


60. Last season, the first that both Arian Foster and Ben Tate were healthy, the Texans ran the ball 52.2 percent of the time, second most in the NFL.

61. Through Nov. 15 of last season (the last week Matt Schaub played), the Texans had 292 pass attempts, ninth fewest in the league.


62. Andre Johnson has missed 12 games the past two seasons.


63. Johnson has never had double-digit touchdowns in a season.


64. Jeremy Bates coached quarterbacks for the Broncos in 2007 and 2008.


65. In 2007 and 2008, with Jay Cutler as his quarterback, Brandon Marshall had 351 total targets, the most in the NFL and 31 more than second-place Larry Fitzgerald.


66. Marshall hasn't had fewer than 1,000 yards receiving since 2006, when he had 309.


67. In 2007, Marshall had 102 receptions for 1,325 yards and seven TDs, and in 2008, he had 104 receptions for 1,265 yards and six TDs. They were the two best seasons of his career.


68. Since 2007, Marshall has played with nine different quarterbacks.


69. His quarterback this season is Jay Cutler. And the Bears' quarterbacks coach is Jeremy Bates.


70. Dwayne Bowe had seven drops and seven interceptions on passes intended for him last season.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>71. The 14 combined drops/interceptions were tied for second most in the NFL.


72. Since 2008, there have been 20 receivers with more than 65 targets of at least 21 yards downfield. The only one not to drop a deep ball? Brandon Lloyd (88 targets).


73. Over the past two seasons, with Josh McDaniels as his head coach or primary offensive coordinator, Lloyd was the most targeted receiver on throws deeper than 20 yards downfield, with 73 such targets.


74. Calvin Johnson was second with 64.


75. Lloyd has done this with Kyle Orton, Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, A.J. Feeley and Kellen Clemens as his quarterbacks.


76. Lloyd's quarterback this year is Tom Brady. And his offensive coordinator is Josh McDaniels.


77. A.J. Green was fourth in the NFL last season with 12 receptions of at least 30 yards.


78. Of Green's 19 end zone targets, he caught only five (26 percent).


79. If his rate went up to, say, just 53 percent of caught end zone balls, Green would have finished with at least 174 fantasy points, seventh most and two more than Roddy White.


80. Roddy White led the NFL last season in third-down receptions for a first down.


81. The second-most third-down catches for a first down? Antonio Brown.


82. Starting with his Week 7 breakout game against Arizona (seven catches, 102 yards), Brown was 12th in the NFL in targets and tied for 17th in <ipadpagebreak> receptions, and he had the eighth-most receiving yards.</ipadpagebreak>


83. Over that same time frame, Mike Wallace was tied for 40th in targets, tied for 44th in receptions and 32nd in receiving yards.


84. Wallace did have more touchdowns than Brown over that time frame.


85. Four touchdowns to two.


86. Wallace is going, on average, four to five rounds ahead of Brown.


87. Last season, Torrey Smith was targeted at least 30 yards downfield 20 times. He caught just five of those balls, with two touchdowns.


88. Smith dropped only one pass (5 percent of targets, better than Calvin Johnson, Hakeem Nicks and DeSean Jackson).


89. Joe Flacco had 18 overthrows on deep balls.


90. From 2008 to 2010, Flacco averaged just nine overthrows, and he had just six in 2010.


91. The Packers wideout with the best receptions-per-target percentage last year: Randall Cobb.


92. Cobb caught 25 of his 31 targets (80.6 percent) and led Packers receivers with 7.5 yards after the catch.


93. He's currently going outside the top 160.


94. Since 2008, only Drew Brees has thrown more balls and completed more passes to a tight end than Peyton Manning.


95. Manning's 71.8 percent completion rate to tight ends is second among quarterbacks with at least 200 attempts to tight ends.


<ipadpagebreak></ipadpagebreak>96. Jacob Tamme, Manning's former teammate in Indianapolis, is now on the Broncos.


97. Among tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham were tied for first in end zone targets last season with 17. Third in the NFL with 15 end zone targets? Brandon Pettigrew.


98. Pettigrew dropped only one pass in the end zone, the same as Gronkowski, Graham and Jermichael Finley.


99. Had Pettigrew had the average completion percentage for a tight end in the end zone, that alone would have made him the eighth-best fantasy tight end last year.

100. Only Jimmy Graham had more games last season with five or more catches than...Tony Gonzalez.

Matthew Berry is the handsomest, kindest, smartest man in the world (according to his wife). Another good rule about "facts": Check the source.

 

[HacheMan]

<hgroup>Fantasy Insomnia!

It's time to forget everything you've ever read about finding a sleeper for your fantasy team

</hgroup><cite>By Bill Barnwell on <time>July 26, 2012</time></cite>
<cite><time></time></cite>
<cite><time>Fantasy football. Sleepers. Basically, after those three words you've either clicked away from this article in disgust or you've begun to foam at the mouth. The entire industry of fantasy sports analysis basically exists to identify and acquire sleepers. Literally, two out of every three questions to Matthew Berry at bars involve the word "sleeper" appearing somewhere within the sentence. That effort is not without merit, of course, since there are few greater things in life than being able to lord an unknown player you found for your fantasy team over your friends. It's basically a chance for millions of bros who otherwise despise hipsters to become one in a very distinct niche.
The problem with sleeper articles, though, is that they're usually pretty bad. Some wade into the shallow end and act like they're making bold decisions. Those are the sorts of lists that have players like Demaryius Thomas and Isaac Redman as sleepers. Those guys are only sleepers if you literally haven't considered the possibility of football between October of last season and your fantasy draft. Others will build their sleeper lists for 12-team leagues with standard scoring and neglect to give attention to the 16-team PPR league, or the league where you can flex your quarterback, or the league where you pick a 53-man roster and start them all each week. Every league is different, and with different rules comes different value.
That's where this article aims to help. Instead of producing a stock list of sleepers that you and everybody else in your league will see on 50 other websites before draft day, we at Grantland aim to bring you a list of sleepers fit for virtually any league imaginable. These players on the verge of breakouts might not all fit in your league, but you're almost guaranteed to find a sleeper for the league you play in (or wish you played in).
The Deepest of Deep Sleepers

Mario Fannin is — well, let me start from the beginning. Mario Fannin is a former backup running back at Auburn who, over four years, ran for 1,366 yards on 233 carries and caught 97 passes for 985 receiving yards. He's coming off of an ACL tear suffered in camp last year, he's somewhere around fifth on the depth chart, and he's an undrafted free agent who the Broncos can cut without any salary cap penalty. He has a better chance of being the best player in fantasy football than any other fifth-stringer in recent memory.
Why is that? Start with 125.5. That's Fannin's Speed Score, a stat I developed that combines a player's 40 time at the Combine and his weight in a formula that scales to 100 and provides the best representation of a player's athleticism. Over the past decade, it's correlated surprisingly well with running back success at the pro level.<sup id="reffoot1">1</sup> The previous record-holder was Brandon Jacobs, a mid-round pick who parlayed his mix of size (267 pounds) and speed (4.56 40-yard dash) into a nice career. At 231 pounds, Fannin ran his 40-yard dash in 4.31 seconds.<sup id="reffoot2">2</sup> Fannin's score doesn't by any means guarantee that he'll be a star, but it suggests that he has truly elite athleticism.
The other reason Fannin has a prayer of becoming a superstar? His skill set vis-à-vis the new quarterback that just arrived in town. At Auburn, Fannin carved out a role as a third-down back who was capable of catching passes out of the backfield and keeping his quarterbacks upright as a blocker. Guess who likes having guys like that alongside him in the backfield? Sorry, let me phrase it more appropriately: Guess who gets furiously angry when somebody who can't do that stuff is in the backfield alongside him? Why, it's Peyton Manning!
The current lead back in Denver is Willis McGahee, who is a below-average receiver without any reputation as a great pass blocker. He was a great fit for the Tim Tebow offense, which inflated his yards-per-carry average by nearly a full yard, but he's simply not a good fit in the Manning scheme. Behind him is Knowshon Moreno, who is a genuinely good receiver, but one who spent the entire season in John Fox's doghouse before tearing his ACL last November. After that, it's 2012 third-rounder Ronnie Hillman and a bunch of flotsam. Fannin is speedy enough to profile as a possible return man, which might be a way to keep him on the roster long enough for McGahee to lose his job. If Fannin does somehow wrangle the opportunity away from all those other backs, well, there's a slim — but better than expected — possibility that he might be very, very great.
Didn't We Learn Anything From Last Year?

One of the biggest breakout stars from last season was Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin, a Stanford product who went undrafted after only starting during one of his four years at school. He promptly went to the Seahawks and had a 51-catch season that saw him produce more receiving yards (788) than all but three other rookies. He had more receiving yards than five different wideouts taken in the second round of the draft, and after the Seahawks cut Mike Williams to open up a starting job for Baldwin last week, his future is bright.
That brings us to the case of Chris Owusu. Owusu played ahead of Baldwin in 2009 and alongside him in 2010, but the breakout year that one might have expected of a receiver playing with Andrew Luck during Owusu's senior campaign in 2011 never came. Owusu suffered three concussions over a 13-month period, which forced him off draft boards and pushed him all the way out of the draft despite the fact that he is a 196-pound man that ran a 4.36 40-yard dash at the Combine.<sup id="reffoot3">3</sup> Owusu caught on with the Niners, where he knows the playbook implemented by former Cardinal head coach Jim Harbaugh, and he was reportedly very impressive during minicamp. With first-round pick A.J. Jenkins struggling to gain a foothold and Randy Moss still a question mark, couldn't Owusu have a meaningful role in San Francisco as early as this season?<sup id="reffoot4">4</sup>
The Todd Haley Show

Todd Haley does not care about you, running back. He does not care if you are really talented. He does not care if you are paid an exorbitant amount of money. Todd Haley apparently takes great pleasure from rotating his running backs and making fantasy hearts cringe, based on his history as an offensive coordinator and head coach. In 2007, he let Edgerrin James run free for 3.8 yards per pop on 324 carries. Every year since has seen Haley rotate his backs, a plan that led him to bench James and give the incredible Jamaal Charles a smaller percentage of the workload than Thomas Jones. When Charles tore his ACL last season, Haley basically gave everyone a shot at running the football before he got fired.
This year, Haley's made his way to Pittsburgh as the offensive coordinator, where he inherits a running game in crisis. While the Steelers did draft offensive linemen with their first two picks in the draft, nominal starting halfback Rashard Mendenhall tore his knee up at the end of last season and will be alternately injured or ineffective during the 2012 campaign. He's bequeathed the job to backup Isaac Redman, but if Haley will bench the rich and successful, what's stopping him from benching Redman? That could open up an opportunity for Jonathan Dwyer, who had a 76-yard run against the Titans last year before breaking his foot. Dwyer's lost 20 pounds to get into the vaunted "best shape of his life," a move that could come in handy for a guy about to get his best chance at steady pro carries. The only downside is that Haley's guaranteed to take the job back from Dwyer eventually, no matter how well he plays.
One-and-Fun

Some running backs go through an early-career path that I link pretty closely to Ray Rice. It involves a player drafted in the first two rounds struggling mightily during his first year, almost always thanks to nagging injuries, before breaking out with more playing time and a healthier body during a big second season. Beyond Rice, there are players like Arian Foster, Rashard Mendenhall, Beanie Wells, and Ryan Mathews who followed a roughly similar track.
The obvious player who would fit into this role is Dolphins halfback Daniel Thomas, who was bothered by a hamstring injury for virtually his entire rookie season. Thomas is a versatile back who should be capable of catching passes out of the backfield if the team trusts him enough to stand up in pass protection, and while he's behind Reggie Bush on the depth chart, waiting for Reggie Bush to get injured is basically a national pastime. Thomas will get his chance, and as a post-hype sleeper, he's undervalued.
Please Stop Being So Tantalizing

I fell in love with Titans tight end Jared Cook before last season. Here are Cook's measurables from the Combine as compared to another prominent tight end:
<aside class="mod-inline content-box border-full full"><table class="alt-rows"><thead><tr><th>Player</th><th>Selection #</th><th>Height</th><th>Weight</th><th>40 Time</th><th>Vertical Leap</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr class="last"><td>Jared Cook</td><td>89</td><td>6-foot-5</td><td>245</td><td>4.49</td><td>41.0 inches</td></tr><tr class="last"><td>Player B</td><td>91</td><td>6-foot-5</td><td>247</td><td>4.82</td><td>27.5 inches</td></tr></tbody></table>
</aside>Player B is Jermichael Finley. Think about that for a second. Jared Cook makes Jermichael Finley's athleticism look pedestrian.
Instead of delivering a Finley-esque sophomore season, though, Cook was wildly erratic and spent weeks out of the Tennessee offense. When he did play, Cook did things like beat Ed Reed on a go route. Even worse, he was tantalizingly brilliant at the end of the season for the second year in a row. In 2010, Cook had 15 catches for 196 yards over the final three games of the year. He had 28 catches for 424 yards through the first 13 weeks of the 2011 season, but over the final three weeks, Cook caught 21 passes for 335 yards. Maybe he's just going to save his best stuff for the fantasy playoffs every year.
Interlude: Great Sleepers Throughout History

• Bret "Hitman" Hart in your 1990 WWF keeper league draft
• Noah Wyle in your 1993 ER keeper league draft
• Henry Rowengartner in your 1992 NL-only 5x5 redraft rotisserie league
• The drunk colonel's wife in your Battlestar Galactica 12th Cylon draft
• Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) in your "Surviving Reservoir Dogs" fantasy draft
Adventures in Obscurity

Here's a small list of players you might want to consider for your league that employs an extremely unlikely lineup spot or scoring system:
If your league has a spot for "personal punt protectors": Mr. Timothy Tebow, who will reportedly play that role for the Jets on punts this season. Imagine having Tim Tebow as your own personal protection agency in real life. He would protect you from … I don't know, silence and solitude, maybe. But he will be great this year in leagues that give bonuses for yardage on fake punts and blocks by quarterbacks.
If your league awards points for muscle tears: Giants tight end Martellus Bennett, who put 25 pounds of muscle on his frame this offseason to get up to 291 pounds. Bennett credits the massive weight gain to "rocking out" in the weight room. This wasn't the sort of rocking out Saves the Day advocated in "Shoulder to the Wheel," I bet.
If you get points in your league for people saying "He's still in the league???" and/or "Who does he play for now? THEM?!?": Buccaneers tight end Dallas Clark. This joke looked a lot better before Ichiro Suzuki got traded out of nowhere.
If your league gives out playoff bonuses for players appearing on ticket stubs: Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker, whose absence from recently delivered Patriots tickets inspired one of the dumbest brouhahas of the offseason on Monday. Were the Patriots getting back at Welker for refusing to sign a long-term deal under team-friendly terms? As it turns out, Welker's absence occurred because the Patriots sent the tickets to the printer six days before Welker signed his franchise tender. If the Patriots get a home playoff game, though, Welker will surely find his way onto a ticket stub for New England completists. And then, at the press conference announcing his contract extension next offseason, Welker can become the first athlete in the history of professional sports to say, "I really felt respected by the team once they put me on a game ticket."
If your league requires you to have one player on your team who serves as a meta-commentary on the flimsy pseudo-reality of fantasy football: Packers wide receiver Shaky Smithson.
If your league requires you to have one player on your team who is a Packers skill position player: Shaky Smithson.
If your league pool consists exclusively of players with names that sound like rejected fictional names for rappers Dave Chappelle would play on Chappelle's Show: Shaky Smithson.
The actual name of that guy whose freestyle ended with "Oops pow, surprise!" who got absolutely destroyed on the commentary track of the Chappelle's Show DVD: Shaky Smithson. Pretty sure of that.
Famous Sleeper Picks Through History That Went Wrong

• Chow in your Breaking Bad Season 5 draft from a couple of weeks ago
• Mudhoney in your 1992 grunge bands fantasy draft
• Dave Brass, the basketball-playing prison guard, in your Oz reality D-League dispersal draft
• Amil in your 2001 Roc-A-Fella Records draft
• Brian Dunkleman in your American Idol debut night draft
• Vacuums in your nature fantasy draft
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[HacheMan]

Where Forte, Tate should be drafted

Examining RBs who should be drafted higher or lower because of GBYPA

By KC Joyner | ESPN Insider

When it comes to building an effective rushing attack, many personnel people follow the philosophy of Al Davis, who believed that the key to ground productivity was stockpiling as many top-flight run-blockers as possible.


The numbers show Davis was right in many ways, as multiple studies I have done over the years indicate that no running back can consistently average 3 yards per carry on plays with bad run blocking (which is very loosely defined as when the offense allows the defense to do something to disrupt the rush attempt).


As effective as this approach is in NFL team building, when it comes to building a fantasy football team, fantasy owners need to take a different tack. Their concern isn't overall effectiveness but rather how often a back can break off a home run.


That ability is measured via the good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA) metric and top-flight productivity in this department should be pursued with vigor on draft day.


Five backs whose GBYPA marks indicate their draft-day value should be much higher include:


Matt Forte, Chicago Bears (ADP: No. 17)


It's probably a bit early to place too much stock in a player's average draft position (ADP), but Forte's current No. 17 rank in that category shows that he still seems to have some doubters.


The question is: What is there to doubt? Forte's 10.7 GBYPA ranked second among qualifying running backs and was the highest among backs with 70 or more good blocking rush attempts. That led to his scoring 156 fantasy points in the 11 games in which he was healthy, which is a mark that pro-rates out to 226 points over the course of a 16-game season. That mark would have placed him in the top five scorers in the running back category last year. Since his contract situation has been resolved and he was healthy enough to play in the Pro Bowl in January, there really is no reason Forte should fall out of the first round in any draft room.
<offer>Steven Jackson, St. Louis Rams (ADP: No. 33)


There are more than a few negative signs for Jackson. He's 29 years old, is now one of only 31 players to tally at least 2,500 rushes/receptions in a career and has talented rookie Isaiah Pead competing with him for workload volume.

While it's worth keeping all of those potential downsides in mind, don't forget that Jackson also posted an 8.7 GBYPA on 109 good blocking attempts last season. That total ranked second among ball carriers with at least 100 good blocking attempts. In addition, there are many reasons to think the Rams will still utilize Jackson as a bell cow.


Reggie Bush, Miami Dolphins (ADP: No. 53)


Bush's draft value is being stunted in part by the thought that he will never graduate to a true No. 1 RB, but he doesn't need to reach that level of rush/target volume to have high-end fantasy value.


Bush racked up 165 fantasy points last year despite tallying only 268 rushes/targets. By contrast, Steven Jackson managed to tally 318 rushes/targets but ended the season with 170 points, only five more than Bush.


So why wasn't the point disparity higher? It boils down to GBYPA. Bush and Jackson both had 8.7 GBYPA marks on roughly the same amount of good blocking rush attempts (109 for Jackson, 111 for Bush). This ability to break off long gainers means that Bush doesn't have to be a bell cow back to post big fantasy point totals.
Toby Gerhart, Minnesota Vikings (No. 105)


There is a very good chance Adrian Peterson will start the season on the PUP list despite his extraordinary efforts to be ready to go in Week 1.


If All Day is on that list, he will miss the first six weeks of the season and Gerhart will replace him in the lineup.


When he was asked to start for Peterson last year, Gerhart responded by posting a 9.3 GBYPA that was actually nearly 2 yards higher than Peterson's 7.5-yard mark in that category. He also had five straight double-digit point games. That type of potential value should have him rated a lot higher than his current No. 105 average selection spot in ESPN draft rooms.


Ben Tate, Houston Texans (ADP: No. 75)


In some ways, Tate looks to be in an untenable fantasy football situation since he is the backup to one of the league's best bell cow backs in Arian Foster.


That normally would give Tate handcuff value and not much more, but Tate was actually much more productive than Foster on a GBYPA basis (8.9 for Tate, 7.3 for Foster).


That type of productivity difference may be one reason the Texans gave Tate 11 or more carries in four of the games in which both he and Foster were healthy. Fantasy owners should consider him to be more than just a valuable handcuff.


On the flip side of this discussion, running backs with low GBYPA marks should have their draft-day value decreased.


Four candidates fitting this bill are:


Michael Bush, Bears (ADP: No. 87)


The Bears should have learned a lesson with Marion Barber, as his 5.3 GBYPA in 2010 was the second-lowest in the league and was an indicator he wasn't going to be an effective change-of-pace back for Forte. Bush's 6.8 GBYPA in 2011 ranked 40th in the league and shows he could be repeat Barber's disappointing performance.

Shonn Greene, New York Jets (ADP: No. 63)


The Jets ranked 10th in the league in good blocking rate (GBR, the number of times they gave ball carriers good blocking) but ranked 26th in the good blocking productivity (GBP) category (GBP combines GBYPA and GBR into a single metric that gauges a team's overall rushing game effectiveness).


The Jets' high GBR would have helped them rank in the top 10 in the GBP category had they possessed an explosive ground gainer, but Greene's 6.5 GBYPA was the lowest total in that category among ball carriers with at least 100 good blocking attempts. Since Tim Tebow could now potentially vulture goal-line attempts, it means Greene will now be a between-the-20s running back with very little ability to rack up a long touchdown run.


Daniel Thomas, Dolphins (ADP: No. 124)


Thomas' 6.4 GBYPA was the sixth-lowest in the league last year. Plus, Reggie Bush is now on record as saying he wants to win the rushing title. That could make carries more difficult to come by, and that is before factoring the impact of RB Lamar Miller, a rookie with blazing speed.


BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Cincinnati Bengals (ADP: No. 59)


Green-Ellis is a very reliable back who has never fumbled the ball in his NFL career, but his 6.0 GBYPA last year shows he is also the type of back who really isn't capable of breaking off long rushes with any consistency.
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[HacheMan]

When should you draft Redskins RBs?

Eric Karabell

Maybe it's just me, but every time I've gotten to the fourth or fifth round of a fantasy football draft over the past few months and noticed Washington Redskins running back Roy Helu sitting there just begging to be chosen, I pick someone else. It's not that I don't like Helu as someone capable of producing helpful fantasy statistics. The guy showed he could as a rookie in 2011.



It's basically all about coach Mike Shanahan. (Yep, I'm going to blame the coach.) I'd recount the myriad times Shanahan changed his mind about his prime running back in the past -- can anyone say Reuben Droughns? -- but what would be the point in reliving that pain? The goal is to avoid it again, and even if Helu is the next Arian Foster, well, I'll believe it when I see it, because the coach has proved that anything goes with his depth chart.


<offer>The anything in this case appears to be Tim Hightower, who was the team's running back last September and into October and performed well. Hightower produced double-digit fantasy points each of the first three weeks of the season, and his past bugaboo -- fumbles -- wasn't a problem, as he didn't fumble in 94 touches in 2011. Hightower totaled 399 rushing/receiving yards in five games and scored two touchdowns before tearing his left knee in Week 7, and he wasn't unnecessarily yo-yoed on the team's depth chart prior to that; he was unquestionably the starter.</offer>
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<offer>This is why it wouldn't be surprising if Hightower starts in Week 1. Washington media outlets have recently speculated on this. Say what you will about the potential result, but that would make choosing Helu in the fourth or fifth round of a fantasy draft look awfully foolish, no?


When reports of Hightower's promising health were announced, it became clear that he could be a factor this season. After all, he wasn't under contract and the team decided to re-sign him. I wouldn't call it a shame for Helu either. Hightower was productive early last season. I liked Hightower as a Cardinal, especially in point-per-reception leagues back in 2009, when he hauled in 63 receptions. Hightower wasn't used that way the following season or for Shanahan's Redskins last year, but the skills are there.


Helu helped fantasy owners get to their playoffs last season when he rushed for more than 100 yards in Weeks 12 through 14, averaging 17 fantasy points (standard scoring) in that span. Then he was hampered by toe and knee woes, and Shanahan turned to another rookie, sixth-rounder Evan Royster out of Penn State. Royster finished the season with consecutive 100-yard rushing games and 30 total fantasy points.


In a miserable 5-11 season, the Redskins' top rusher was Helu, with 640 rushing yards, but the bottom line is that Redskins running backs produced intriguing numbers in most weeks. Washington finished 25th in rushing yards as a team, but Hightower reached double digits in fantasy scoring the first three weeks, Helu accomplished it six times, and Royster did so twice. In Week 4, Ryan Torain -- you remember him, right? -- exploded for 135 rushing yards and a score at St. Louis. Something just doesn't add up, but a Redskins running back can and will be successful, even with a rookie quarterback who likes to run coming in. For now, I think that running back could be Hightower … and then Helu … and then Royster. (Hey, it's Shanahan!)


I'm still ranking Helu as the best of this group, but not nearly as high as I did a few months ago. Hightower isn't likely to play 16 games. For one, he is coming off a serious knee injury. It doesn't mean he won't be ready by September, but if we have reservations about Adrian Peterson and Jamaal Charles for their knee injuries, we must be concerned about Hightower. I'll make him a sleeper pick, not one of my first four running backs in a league.


The bigger story is that I just can't make Helu one of my top two running backs. I'd take Hightower around the 11th or 12th round if I have four other running backs to rely on. I might even spend a late pick on Royster. After all, despite this depth, the Redskins still chose running back Alfred Morris out of Florida Atlantic in the sixth round. Nothing surprises me anymore with Shanahan.
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