Joe's note: Hey Guys - Looking back is always a great way to learn and look forward. Thank you to FFNinja for starting this thread. Let's make it our master thread for looking back at the year with the idea of how we can best look forward. List your specific and also your general things you learned from this past season. And please keep the idea not so much on debating the past, but you feel that you learned (or confirmed) from this past year and how it might help you going forward.
Thanks FF Ninja for starting this.
J
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From FF Ninja:
Here are a few surprising finishes:
QB1 Peyton - goes from QB6 to QB1. I know everyone will claim to have seen this coming, but I honestly didn't. It was just the second time in his career to finish QB1, and he did it by a HUGE margin despite Brees improving upon his totals that landed him QB1 last year. Remember when Favre finished QB6 for the Viking in 2009 and then broke down the next year? Well, that was enough to scare me off of Peyton at an ADP of QB3 for an old guy that finished QB6 the year before. Obviously a mistake in hindsight, but how could this have been predicted?
QB4 Luck - loses Arians and his deep game while acquiring Pep Hamilton and his short game. I like Luck but didn't expect big things from this offense. Like last year, he put up a lot of stats while trailing. Still not lighting the world on fire passing (6.7 ypa down from a meager 7.0 last year despite an increase from 54% to 60% in completion %) but his legs (377/4) made the difference between him (3822/23/9) and QB10 Romo (3828/31/10).
QB5 Dalton - wtf?
QB6 Rivers - seemed like an obvious bounceback candidate to me, but the lack of offensive line improvement in the offseason still made it tough to draft with confidence.
QB11 Foles - in just 10.5 games. Did anyone predict this? Will this continue or will Philly and/or Foles get figured out?
QB14 Brady - QB4 by ADP. This one seems easy and a lot of people predicted it - a lack of weapons -> lack of production. Also, he's getting older and hasn't thrown the deep ball well for several years.
QB15 Ryan - I always thought this guy was meh. Without elite surrounding talent everyone else got to see it, too.
RB5 Moreno - I'm sure this was shocking to some. John Fox pointlessly playing depth chart games before week 1 really made this trickier than it had to be. Everyone knew there were points to be had in this running game, but nobody could know for certain how it would pan out. I was a big Moreno proponent but the depth chart douchebaggery of Fox made me question my gut. Should we have all seen through this? I still drafted Moreno this year, but without confidence.
RB6 Lacy - after slipping in the draft, receives work horse touches and plenty of goal line work. GB obviously had to lean on him with Rodgers out (6 TDs in the 7 games Rodgers missed) which may have helped, but he was still a great play beforehand. The Packers traded back instead of drafting him and then took another RB two rounds later, so it was hard to be confident in their confidence in him. Then he looked pudgy in training camp. Hard to feel like we could've seen this coming based on anything logical, although I'm sure plenty of people had gut feelings due to liking his college tape.
RB10 F.Jackson - nope. Nobody can claim they saw this coming. Coach claimed they were going to run Spiller until he puked, they lost a pro bowl lineman, and Freddy just turned 32 coming off two leg injuries. Had Spiller not sustained the high ankle sprain, I don't think this season happens nearly to the same extent. And no, I didn't draft Spiller in any leagues.
RB12 Mathews - plenty of haters kept his value down despite a good rookie year and an excellent 2nd year. I feel like this one was obvious.
RB17 J.Bell - I knew he'd have an expanded role, but RB17 for a backup is huge. Obviously padded by 2 nice games while Bush was out, but still an impressive season for a backup. Did anyone know he'd have this big of a role?
L.Bell/Stacy - workload workload workload. Both flashed some talent, but really made their living off of high workloads. With the scarcity of talent in Pit, I guess Bell wasn't too surprising, but Stacy did have a lot of guys to compete with. Did anyone honestly draft Stacy with confidence or was he just a flyer?
RB28 Rice - I thought he'd lose touches to Pierce but didn't predict this kind of downfall. Did anyone see this coming and how?
RB30 Ridley - I like Blount so I had my concerns about Ridley but I didn't think he'd end up this badly. Was this foreseeable?
RB34 Trent - some will claim they saw it coming, and I'll admit I mostly avoided him, but I'm still shocked at this. I didn't think he'd be this bad, but should I have?
RB38 Miller - extremely hyped. I think it was somewhat foreseeable as the offensive line was never going to be good.
David Wilson - I avoided him, but didn't predict how poorly he and the Giants would look even when healthy. Did anyone predict this fall from uber-hyped grace?
WR1 Gordon - caught a lot of long TDs early in rookie year and then fizzled. Was highly targeted by bad QBs this year yet scored and posted big YPR. Was this legitimately predictable or only "seen" by optimistic dynasty owners?
WR7 Brown - I liked him as a value play but didn't expect this big of a year. Should this progression have been predicted? It was his second year in this offense and his first year as WR1. I feel like I should've targeted him more aggressively in hindsight.
WR8 Jeffery - I was kind of excited about Cutler having a good WR2, but I didn't think he'd be this good. Did anyone have enough faith in both Cutler and Jeffery to see this coming?
WR10 DeSean - he slipped from his early numbers, but still an impressive year from a little WR on a team that loves to run. Should this have been obvious to us?
WR29 Cruz - never drafted him, but didn't expect to see this kind of slip. What happened and how to predict this in the future?
WR44 Bowe - another guy I didn't draft, but didn't actually expect to be as bad as he was. Why so bad?
TE3 Thomas - I don't think this TD blip could've been predicted. Otherwise, a middle of the road TE1.
TE7 Clay - about the only other surprise worth mentioning. I was interested in Keller here before injury, so I guess I should've been interested in Clay to some extent. If Miami hadn't fired the OC, then this might've been a position to watch next year.
Any other shocking end of the year finishes I missed? Everyone always gets excited about looking forward to next year, but looking backwards is more important. We all missed the boat on multipe players - be it guys we overdrafted or guys we overlooked. I didn't bother with injuries as I don't think anyone could've predicted Julio's injury or the like. Although Doug Martin was having a pretty meh season before he got injured, so that might've been worth mentioning. I think that one should've been seen coming.
Thanks FF Ninja for starting this.
J
*******************************
From FF Ninja:
Here are a few surprising finishes:
QB1 Peyton - goes from QB6 to QB1. I know everyone will claim to have seen this coming, but I honestly didn't. It was just the second time in his career to finish QB1, and he did it by a HUGE margin despite Brees improving upon his totals that landed him QB1 last year. Remember when Favre finished QB6 for the Viking in 2009 and then broke down the next year? Well, that was enough to scare me off of Peyton at an ADP of QB3 for an old guy that finished QB6 the year before. Obviously a mistake in hindsight, but how could this have been predicted?
QB4 Luck - loses Arians and his deep game while acquiring Pep Hamilton and his short game. I like Luck but didn't expect big things from this offense. Like last year, he put up a lot of stats while trailing. Still not lighting the world on fire passing (6.7 ypa down from a meager 7.0 last year despite an increase from 54% to 60% in completion %) but his legs (377/4) made the difference between him (3822/23/9) and QB10 Romo (3828/31/10).
QB5 Dalton - wtf?
QB6 Rivers - seemed like an obvious bounceback candidate to me, but the lack of offensive line improvement in the offseason still made it tough to draft with confidence.
QB11 Foles - in just 10.5 games. Did anyone predict this? Will this continue or will Philly and/or Foles get figured out?
QB14 Brady - QB4 by ADP. This one seems easy and a lot of people predicted it - a lack of weapons -> lack of production. Also, he's getting older and hasn't thrown the deep ball well for several years.
QB15 Ryan - I always thought this guy was meh. Without elite surrounding talent everyone else got to see it, too.
RB5 Moreno - I'm sure this was shocking to some. John Fox pointlessly playing depth chart games before week 1 really made this trickier than it had to be. Everyone knew there were points to be had in this running game, but nobody could know for certain how it would pan out. I was a big Moreno proponent but the depth chart douchebaggery of Fox made me question my gut. Should we have all seen through this? I still drafted Moreno this year, but without confidence.
RB6 Lacy - after slipping in the draft, receives work horse touches and plenty of goal line work. GB obviously had to lean on him with Rodgers out (6 TDs in the 7 games Rodgers missed) which may have helped, but he was still a great play beforehand. The Packers traded back instead of drafting him and then took another RB two rounds later, so it was hard to be confident in their confidence in him. Then he looked pudgy in training camp. Hard to feel like we could've seen this coming based on anything logical, although I'm sure plenty of people had gut feelings due to liking his college tape.
RB10 F.Jackson - nope. Nobody can claim they saw this coming. Coach claimed they were going to run Spiller until he puked, they lost a pro bowl lineman, and Freddy just turned 32 coming off two leg injuries. Had Spiller not sustained the high ankle sprain, I don't think this season happens nearly to the same extent. And no, I didn't draft Spiller in any leagues.
RB12 Mathews - plenty of haters kept his value down despite a good rookie year and an excellent 2nd year. I feel like this one was obvious.
RB17 J.Bell - I knew he'd have an expanded role, but RB17 for a backup is huge. Obviously padded by 2 nice games while Bush was out, but still an impressive season for a backup. Did anyone know he'd have this big of a role?
L.Bell/Stacy - workload workload workload. Both flashed some talent, but really made their living off of high workloads. With the scarcity of talent in Pit, I guess Bell wasn't too surprising, but Stacy did have a lot of guys to compete with. Did anyone honestly draft Stacy with confidence or was he just a flyer?
RB28 Rice - I thought he'd lose touches to Pierce but didn't predict this kind of downfall. Did anyone see this coming and how?
RB30 Ridley - I like Blount so I had my concerns about Ridley but I didn't think he'd end up this badly. Was this foreseeable?
RB34 Trent - some will claim they saw it coming, and I'll admit I mostly avoided him, but I'm still shocked at this. I didn't think he'd be this bad, but should I have?
RB38 Miller - extremely hyped. I think it was somewhat foreseeable as the offensive line was never going to be good.
David Wilson - I avoided him, but didn't predict how poorly he and the Giants would look even when healthy. Did anyone predict this fall from uber-hyped grace?
WR1 Gordon - caught a lot of long TDs early in rookie year and then fizzled. Was highly targeted by bad QBs this year yet scored and posted big YPR. Was this legitimately predictable or only "seen" by optimistic dynasty owners?
WR7 Brown - I liked him as a value play but didn't expect this big of a year. Should this progression have been predicted? It was his second year in this offense and his first year as WR1. I feel like I should've targeted him more aggressively in hindsight.
WR8 Jeffery - I was kind of excited about Cutler having a good WR2, but I didn't think he'd be this good. Did anyone have enough faith in both Cutler and Jeffery to see this coming?
WR10 DeSean - he slipped from his early numbers, but still an impressive year from a little WR on a team that loves to run. Should this have been obvious to us?
WR29 Cruz - never drafted him, but didn't expect to see this kind of slip. What happened and how to predict this in the future?
WR44 Bowe - another guy I didn't draft, but didn't actually expect to be as bad as he was. Why so bad?
TE3 Thomas - I don't think this TD blip could've been predicted. Otherwise, a middle of the road TE1.
TE7 Clay - about the only other surprise worth mentioning. I was interested in Keller here before injury, so I guess I should've been interested in Clay to some extent. If Miami hadn't fired the OC, then this might've been a position to watch next year.
Any other shocking end of the year finishes I missed? Everyone always gets excited about looking forward to next year, but looking backwards is more important. We all missed the boat on multipe players - be it guys we overdrafted or guys we overlooked. I didn't bother with injuries as I don't think anyone could've predicted Julio's injury or the like. Although Doug Martin was having a pretty meh season before he got injured, so that might've been worth mentioning. I think that one should've been seen coming.
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