Quaterbacks
Kaepernick (QB7), Wilson (QB9), and RG3 (QB11) all have too much hype for guys on teams that finished 30, 31, and 32 in pass attempts last year. Silliness.
Stafford (QB8) is being drafted at his ceiling. He's not going to repeat 40 TDs again, much less get 700 attempts.
Running Backs
FWIW, I agree with your pick of ADP. I love to watch him play, but I'm not betting on him this year.
Ray Rice (RB4) will not see nearly as many receptions in a Caldwell offense as he did in Cameron's offense. He also has a RB behind him who is probably a better pure runner than he is. I expect a significantly decreased workload.
I won't be taking Martin at RB3, but his workload should keep him top 10.
Ridley (RB14) was a top target of mine last year, but I won't touch him this year. He was less effective at the goal line than BJGE was and he's now got a lot of competition on the team with Blount and a healthy Bolden.
Murray (RB16) was not only disappointing due to injuries, but also when he was healthy.
Rookies. Bell, Ball, and Lacy are all going around the same spot. The bust rate is pretty high for 2nd round RBs. Picking which one will actually have success in his rookie year, much less stand the test of time, is a crapshoot.
Wide Receivers
Marshall (WR3) is a safe bet to finish top 10, but won't come close to WR3.
Thomas (WR6) will see a decrease in targets. Much like Marshall, people are paying for last year's stats.
Harvin (WR7) is going to a team that doesn't throw the ball much and has plenty of talented RBs. I'll be shocked if he sees over 30 carries or 80 receptions.
White (WR8) finished WR10 last year and the targets are trending away from him (5 year low last year) and towards Julio yet White is being drafted above last year's finish. Craziness.
Cobb (WR11) is not a touchdown guy nor a YPR guy and is on an offense that hasn't seen a guy break the low 80's in receptions in quite some time.
Hilton (WR32) led the league in drop rate and could easily be bumped to WR3 by the newly signed DHB.
Tight Ends
Can't really take issue with any of the tight ends. I won't draft one early, but I don't see anyone up there who I think is going to be a bust.
I like a lot of your picks, obviously I agree with Kaep and I've seen some really compelling arguments for Stafford. I'd be none to surprised if he finished outside the Top 10 this season. That said, I do believe in the hype surrounding RG3 and Wilson and I'm targeting them right around their ADPs in my of my redrafts this year. I'm also not sure where you're getting the attempts stat from. RG3 and Wilson tied at 393 pass attempts for 25th overall and Kaep was 34th at 216 but paced out for a whole year would have come in at 498 putting him in 19th right in front of Cam.
I'm convinced RG3 is a stone cold stud when healthy. He had the 4th highest completion percentage last season behind only Peyton, Rodgers and Ryan. He had the third best QB Rating and also the third highest TD:INT ratio behind only Rodgers and Brady who were the only other two QBs who toped a 4:1 ratio along with RG3 who clocked in at exactly 4:1. Obviously, we have one season for his body of work but to think he was a rookie and hasn't even come into his own yet is down right scary. And I absolutely love the fact that I own him in two separate dynasty leagues and probably wouldn't trade him for Luck right now if offered. I see no reason when healthy that he doesn't greatly improve this season.
I agree on Ray Rice and Doug Martin.
Martin had two monsterous games last season which really inflated his ending point value. If you drop his week 8 and 9 from the equation his ppg average drops by about 6 points on the season. Which clearly shows they were outliers and puts him from RB2 last season down to around RB9 based on his average ppg. Big big difference.
Marshall I agree with... I'm not as inclined to agree with Thomas though, him and Peyton developed a special connection last year and I don't see the addition of Welker cutting into that to much. If anything Welker's presence just takes more pressure off of Thomas and hurts Decker. Harvin I'll disagree with Ponder threw about 80 more attempts than Wilson last season and Wilson was on a rookie leash, Carroll has already said that Wilson will have more say in the offense this year. Wilson also had about 7% more completion percentage than Ponder and while he threw 80 less attempts had 26TDs/10INTs compared to Ponder's 18/12. So I think Harvin has just as much value if not more on this team as he'll still see rushing attempts and he'll still see a ton of passes coming this way and will be the clear cut #1 target for Wilson. White, Cobb I'm buying on your take there. Less so on Hilton I think Roddy finishes outside of the top 15, Cobb definitely finishes outside the Top 15. Hilton on the other hand probably roughly matches his stats from last season which would make WR32 a fine number.
I always laugh when I see analysis like this. You're removing Martin's best 2 games, but leaving everyone else's best 2 games? How does that make any sense at all? What makes it even more illogical is that he did it TWICE. In the same season. I'm sure you probably applied the same faulty logic to Peterson a few years back when he exploded and starting breaking individual rushing game records. It would have been silly then and it's silly now.
Even past that...did Martin not earn those yards? He had big games last year, meaning he's more likely to have big games this year than anyone who hasn't shown similar ability. Why would you punish someone for having two really good games? It's like you're saying those big games make it less likely to happen in the future.
It always baffles me to see such sloppy logic...yikes.
It isn't 'sloppy logic' I will break down the numbers and try to enlighten you on what I'm actually trying to say.
RB1: Adrian Peterson (329.40): 20.58ppg, when taking away his two monster games (Weeks 9 & 17) and then redoing his average we come to 18.85ppg. So almost less than a 2 point drop in average. His overall points also drop from 329.40 thru 16 games to 264.00 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 20% of his overall points throughout 2012.
RB2: Doug Martin (288.10): 18ppg, when taking away his two monster games (Weeks 8 & 9) and then redoing his average we come to 14.28ppg. So almost a 4 point drop in average. His overall points also drop from 288.10 thru 16 games to 200.00 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 30.7% of his overall points throughout 2012.
RB3: Arian Foster (284.5): 17.78ppg, when taking away his two best games of the season (Weeks 2 and 12) and then redoing his average we come to 16.75ppg less than a 1 point drop in average. His overall points also drop from 284.50 thru 16 games to 234.60 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 17.5% of his overall points throughout 2012.
RB4: Marshawn Lynch (260.10): 16.25ppg, when taking away his two best games of the season (Weeks 4 and 14) and then redoing his average we come to 14.7ppg about a 1.5 point drop in average. His overall points also drop from 260.10 thru 16 games to 205.80 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 21% of his overall points throughout 2012.
RB5: Ray Rice (252.60): 15.78ppg, when taking away his two best games of the season (Weeks 3 and 16) and then redoing his average we come to 14.59ppg or slightly higher than a 1 point drop in average. His overall points also drop from 252.60 thru 16 games to 204.30 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 19.2% of his overall points throughout 2012.
RB6: Alfred Morris (249.6): 15.56ppg, when taking away his two best games of the season (Weeks 17 and 15) and then redoing his average we come to 13.36ppg or slightly higher than a 2 ppg drop in average. His overall points also drop from 249.60 thru 16 games to 187.10 thru 14 games. His top 2 games of the season were about 25% of his overall points throughout 2012.
So ranking these by the % of their season encompassed by these two games games? This is a pretty solid baseline for consistency in my opinion.
Arian Foster: 16.75%
Ray Rice: 19.20%
Adrian Peterson: 20.00%
Marshawn Lynch: 21.00%
Alfred Morris: 25.00%
Doug Martin: 30.70%
If you would prefer their average PPG afterwards then it comes out like so:
Adrian Peterson: 18.85ppg
Arian Foster: 16.75ppg
Marshawn Lynch: 14.70ppg
Ray Rice: 14.59ppg
Doug Martin: 14.28ppg
Alfred Morris: 13.36ppg
Also realize that both AP and Alfred Morris had one of their top games in Week 17 if you refactor it out and instead take their 3rd highest game (2nd fantasy relevant) you get different numbers. So here you have it, I was 100% fair to all the other running backs that we are talking about in the same league as Martin and gave them the same exact treatment as Martin. These points are all used from my standard scoring ppr league. In a non-ppr league Alfred Morris would have a higher PPG average after the equation than Doug Martin.
My main point is that for people who put a lot of weight in the consistency of their #1 picks in a redraft, Doug Martin appears a lot riskier than the #2 overall RB he seemed to be last season because of the two monster games he had against two of the worst run defenses in football. There is more or less no way I'm drafting him over any of the guys mentioned here or CJ Spiller, McCoy or Charles this season because of it. You cannot ignore that it's scary that 2 games or 1/8 of the NFL season equated for nearly 1/3rd of his overall production last year. While a lot of people won just because they had him starting in 8 & 9 a lot of people lost way more games from having him on staff in other weeks where he performed more like Vick Ballard than any of the other guys on this list who were far more consistent and put up significantly less duds.
