Tonight is the last night of my fantasy football season. Of the three leagues I am in, I am it the championship game in one, the 5th place game in a second and the 11th place game in a third. Sadly the one where I am in the 11th place game is the one where I actually spent money. Before that league's season kicked off, I did an pre draft analysis of who I picked and why and how those picks panned out. Now is as good a time as any to repost that preseason analysis and see just how good or bad I really did do. Here to start is what I wrote then (I will not make you go back and look it up, lol.)
Ray Rice RB, Baltimore – I would argue the best pick available at the #3 spot. It should be noted that I might not have been the only one with such reservations on the available running backs as the 4th pick ended up being Aaron Rodgers, leaving Johnson and Charles to fall to 5 and 6 respectively.
Felix Jones RB, Dallas – This may be a reach on my part, but his primary competition at running back is gone, and Jones, despite limited touches last year, still had 1300 yards from scrimmage in a back up role (850 rushing, 450 receiving). The only bad thing here is that my 1st and 2nd round picks have a bye on the same exact week.
Vincent Jackson WR, San Diego – Again a reach, but Jackson's problem last year was that he held out and didn't play most of the year in San Diego. Those contract issues have since been dealt with, his previous two full seasons he had over 120 catches and over 2200 receiving yards. So a 60 catch, 1000 yard season is certainly within his wheelhouse.
Brandon Lloyd WR, Denver – If ever there were a case to be made on how bad of a QB Alex Smith in San Francisco really is, it would be that he couldn't do anything with this guy. In his first year in Denver, with capable if not great wide receivers around him, he easily emerged as the best of the bunch, with 1448 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. The idea that this guy was available 10 picks into the 4th round boggles my mind. Again though I have a bye issue, as my first two wide recivers will also be sharing the same bye week. Our standard lineup is QB, RB, RB, TE, WR, WR, (RB/WR/TE), K, DEF, so there will definitely be weeks where I am rolling three running backs and weeks where I am rolling three wide receivers or even two tight ends, depending on how the season plays out.
Matt Schaub QB, Houston – By this time, 8 quarterbacks had come off the board (though Peyton Manning was still available) but I took what looked to be the safest bet of the remainder of them, a starter good for 4000 yards, throwing to some of the best players in the league at their position, including Andre Johnson, Arian Foster and Owen Daniels.
Fred Jackson RB, Buffalo – I was happy he was here, I still have the bye week issue to confront from my first two picks and I end up getting a starting running back who had over 1000 yards from scrimmage last year (927 rushing, 215 receiving). It should be noted that this was the round that the early adopters start hopping on picks that aren't all that important, as someone went out and drafted the Steeler defense in the 6th round. Please, do pick defenses and I will continue to scoop up value while you do so. While your at it, get yourself a kicker so I can get another good running back or wide receiver.
Owen Daniels TE, Houston – Not in love with this pick, but with Matt Schaub at QB I now double the points these two ring up. If I am going to get a second tier tight end like this, then far worse fates could happen than being able to double up on points. And the panic continued among the league owners, another two defenses get drafted in the 7th round (the draft is 15 rounds long) as well as the first kicker. A kicker, in the 7th round? All I can say to that is thank you.
Mike Thomas WR, Jacksonville – Again the odd picks among my league mates, 4 more defenses disappear as well as another kicker, meanwhile I am out getting a guy like Thomas, who has a very good chance to help me, not just once or twice but on a weekly basis. He had 820 yards receiving last year, which isn't phenomenal but for those of you playing in PPR leagues (points per reception, mine isn't but I am trying to help other people here) he was targeted 99 times last season, finished at #30 in receptions and his primary competition for catches, Mike Sims-Walker, is gone. You can do far worse at pick #80 in a draft than this, like a freaking kicker.
Kevin Kolb QB, Arizona – I'll admit I am not in love with this guy, he was drafted primarily to cover for Schaub during a bye week, but should Schaub get injured (and I am certainly not rooting for that) he is a starter with a top tier wide receiver to throw to in Larry Fitzgerald and Arizona has one of the easiest schedules in the NFL this year. While there are some publications putting Kolb in as a top 12 QB, I wouldn't go that far but as far as a serviceable backup, yes please.
Lee Evans WR, Baltimore – This is where I am definitely filling out bench spots, so I have no problems taking potential over strictly numbers here. Evans can still be a deep threat, even if his numbers in Buffalo do not necessarily show that. This is still a guy that just two years ago had 1000 yards receiving and while he isn't the youngest guy in the NFL, it is still only his 8th season in the league, far from a washed up point for wide receivers. And having Anquan Boldin opposite him is only going to help him get more single coverage this year. If he gets 800 yards receiving and 5-7 touchdowns then I think I have done good work here, if not than I vastly overrated him.
Danny Amendola WR, St Louis – My Lee Evans insurance policy, Amendola emerged as Sam Bradford's #1 option last year in his first year as the quarterback of the Rams. The 689 yards receiving aren't great, but again for you PPR kids out there, he did pull 89 catches, that is 89 points right there without even gaining a yard. Worse fates have befallen far greater franchises in the 11th round. As an added bonus, he also returns kicks and punts (for leagues that score in those categories), so his 2364 all purpose yards led the entire NFL last season.
Rashad Jennings RB, Jacksonville – All I can say is if you are reading this thinking I am the smartest guy in the room, this pick should give you pause as proof I didn't do all of my homework, Jennings is on the IR and will not be playing any time soon. I have already IR ed him and picked up Montario Hardesty to fill his roster spot.
Brandon Pettigrew TE, Detroit – A backup to Owens, Pettigrew had a good season last year, getting over 700 yards receiving. And let's not kid anyone, Daniels isn't a sure thing to keep from being injured, he was on the shelf for a significant portion of last season. Should both stay healthy then I might even be able to run two tight ends on weeks where I need to cover for players on byes. Not an ideal situation, but at least it gives me the option.
Shaun Suisham K, Pittsburgh – I told you I save my kickers and defenses for late. Suisham's numbers when stacked up against other kickers will not look all that impressive but remember he joined the Steelers half way through the season last year, before that he was sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. If you are buying into the notion that the Steelers have an explosive offense (I am, they led the league in plays of 20+ yards last season), then getting the kicker that is part of this offense isn't out of the question. As far as leg strength goes, he did nail a 52 yarder in the Steelers last preseason game and is 14-15 from 40-49 yards over the last three seasons.
St Louis Rams defense – This was based on three reasons, 1) the Rams made quite a few moves in the off season to improve this unit. It may not be the Bears circa 1995, but it will not be the Rams circa 2010 either, 2) The Rams offense is not the explosive sort that will put together three and four play scoring drives, most drives are going to be of the longer play variety which means the defense will not be on the field. The easiest way for your defense to not give up points is to not be on the field, and 3) the Rams play in the worst division in football. That right there means you have 5 games where they are guaranteed to play some shitty competition (they play San Francisco in Week 17, but most leagues have finished play by then), which can only help. Throw in dates with Washington, Cleveland and Cincinnati and half of there schedule (8 of the 16 fantasy weeks) is against very beatable competition.
And now the lowdown on how those picks panned out
This turned out to be the safest pick of the early ones, Rice lived up to his billing for the most part, Charles ended up with a season ending injury early on and Johnson was far from spectacular this season. Maybe I would have been better with Rodgers, who looks like he will win MVP of the league, but Rice was more than adequate as the third overall pick.
Let the disaster begin. I figured with Marion Barber and Tashard Choice out of the picture in Dallas, the running back job would be Jones's to lose. Well guess what? He lost it. His yards from scrimmage fell from 1250 to 719 and his touchdowns from 2 to 1.
I projected 60 catches and 1000 yards for Jackson. After 15 games he has 58 catches and 1077 yards.
Okay, well now I know why he was available in the 4th round, his numbers were roughly half that of last year. In fact he was so mediocre that he ended p getting traded to the St. Louis Rams, a black hole of offensive talent if ever there was one.
His numbers were good when he played, but the problem was that he didn't play enough, suffering a season ending injury and limiting the amount of time he was in my starting lineup (10 weeks). Add to that that my backup QB on draft day (Kevin Kolb, round 9) also got injured and I had two other replacements for Schaub also suffer season ending injuries (Jay Cutler (1 week), Matt Leinart (one week)) and the QB position was just awful this year.
Another guy that was playing well, just not long enough. Season ending injury (broken leg)cut short what would have been a very productive year (934 yards rushing, 442 yards receiving, 6 TDs in 10 games).
An okay selection that was made a tad less useful when Schaub went down with a season ending injury, thus ending my dreams of double points.
His numbers look far more like his rookie season than they look like from last year. Part of the problem would be that he ended up playing with a rookie quarterback at least part of the year, but when a #1 wide receiver is averaging slightly over just 3 catches a game (14 games, 43 catches) then this has to be labeled a bust pick.
See #5, Kolb got injured before I even had a chance to play him for the one week where he was going to be a bye week replacement.
Another bust pick, I didn't expect much from him at least, which is good because I didn't get much from him either. But did anyone expect just 4 catches for the year? Wow, that my friends, is the very definition of suck.
Another in a list of walking wounded, Amendola played just 4 games before suffering a season ending injury. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
Well at least he was hurt before I drafted him. I still hoped he might be able to contribute at some point, that point never came. Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts.
One of the few picks late that was actually decent, Pettigrew put up numbers comparable to last season.
It's a kicker, what do you expect. Ideally he could have been a little more accurate (21-28) or had a stronger leg (only one over 50 yards), but picking a kicker is always a crap shoot. Don't believe me? Consider this, the four best kickers in the league in terms of field goals came from the following teams, San Francisco, Dallas, Cincinnati and Washington.
On this one I admittedly dropped the ball, I thought the defense would be better and the team would have an easy time with their division opponents (6 games). I was wrong on both counts.
And that is post draft wrap kids. Some times it would seem I just don't know what the hell it is I am talking about.
No comments:
Post a Comment