So... state of the thread since I last checked in. Jonathan Stewart is averaging 107 yards per game over his last 3 and has raised his rushing average on the season to 4.4 ypc (which tops Williams' 4.1 ypc in the same situation). Felix Jones
finally topped 20 carries... but he only got 83 yards on them, and his season average has now dipped below 4.0 ypc. Arian Foster and Darren McFadden have continued to make those who questioned their talent look foolish. Lesean McCoy is having the quietest top-5 season by a 22 year old RB in dynasty history (seriously, I'm not saying that I'd take him that high, but why is NOBODY mentioning him as a possible #1 overall in startups next year? He's top 5. He's 22 years old. That was at least enough to get Rice in the conversation last year). MJD has been straight beastin' and reminding everybody that there are more elite backs in the league than just Foster, Johnson, and Peterson. Michael Vick has done a lot to silence anyone who questioned ranking him in the top 10 among dynasty QBs. Pat Bowlen might have demolished any value Orton and Lloyd were busy building. Steve Johnson has shown he's not quite ready for prime time. Vincent Jackson and Sidney Rice has given reminders why we shouldn't drop players' values just because they're going to miss a handful of games in the near future. Dwayne Bowe has followed up one of the best stretches by a WR in fantasy history with one of the worst stretches by a WR in fantasy history. Arrelious Benn finally put in a cameo appearance. Curious what everyone else thinks have been the biggest storylines of the past 3-4 weeks.
Also, a couple of thoughts on a couple of conversations I missed:
First off, to be honest, it's a little bit disconcerting to see Charles as a consensus top-5 dynasty RB right now. It seems like early in the season he was 15th or so in the consensus rankings, and then nobody really talked about him for a couple of months, and now everyone seems to have independently arrived at the opinion that he's a top 5 guy. It's not that I disagree with that opinion (I certainly don't), it's just that it really took me by surprise. He's not a guy who seemed to steadily rise through the year, he seems to have instantly jumped from "RB2" to "stud RB1" while skipping all steps in between. Sometimes the consensus can be weird like that.
Just wanted to point out something to those of you that do dynasty rankings. Tom Brady is still elite.
He's currently ranked 7th by F&L, 11th by SSOG, and 12th by Go Deep.
Yet he's currently the #2 QB in my fantasy league.
2009? Virtual 3 way tie for 6th with Romo and Rivers.
2008? ACL
2007? #1 by a mile.
2006? #7
2005? #2
He's 33 (1.5 years younger than Manning), and there's little reason to doubt his productivity for the next 4+ years.
A whole lot of people sold him short when Moss got traded.
Absolutely, positively, 100% on the money. I was one of them. I feel like I have a blind spot to Tom Brady- historically, I've taken every opportunity to downgrade him. I've clearly got a cognitive bias against him, to the point where I've actually added a note in my rankings spreadsheet that essentially reads "wherever you've got him ranked, you're probably underrating him".
Your statements are both subjective and hyperbolic - you have no idea how the information in this thread is being used, by whom, or to what extent. Telling someone that thier posts haven't or never will have the impact of another's is simply silly. Do you really think that having Arian Foster at 19 (lower than CJ Spiller) "won leagues"? He was a 24 year old runningback in a top offense whose only competition (for the year) was Steve Slaton. I think 19 was pretty safe. If F&L points out where GD said that people should trade Spiller for Foster, then couldn't others do the same to him, having Foster lower than Spiller in his rankings? After Foster's 42 point game, the line in the sand was clear: long term talent or short term sitiuation? F&L was right and should get credit. But lets not pretend that he being slightly ahead of the curve, "won leagues." There were a lot of threads and posts clamoring about Foster. I am not saying that Go Deep contributes any more or less than F&L.
For the record, I don't think there is anything wrong with F&L calling out Go Deep. I don't even mind the manner in which he did, as we are all adults on the internet and shouldn't have to coddle anybody.
People get way, way, way too hung up on absolute rankings. Absolutely rankings don't mean a thing. They are literally completely and absolutely meaningless. All that matters is RELATIVE rankings- where you have a player ranked relative to his peers, and where you have a player ranked relative to where everyone else has him ranked.For instance, let's say that I've got Darius Heyward-Bey ranked at 19th in my current rankings (I don't, but we're playing "let's pretend"). Now, let's also say that Darius Heyward-Bey averages 1800 yard and 16 scores over the next 5 seasons. I would say that my current hypothetical ranking of DHB wasn't just a home run, it was a grand slam. Hell, it was more than a grand slam- if there was such a thing as a 6-run homer, it would be that. Sure, DHB might have outperformed my ranking by a mile (and I mean by a literal mile- that's easily 1800+ yards more than I'd expect from the #19 ranked receiver)... but the point is that it doesn't matter, because I guarantee you that I was the DHB owner. If everyone else has a player ranked 60th, and I've got a player ranked 19th, I *GUARANTEE YOU* that that player is on my roster. I've got him ranked so much higher than everyone else that I'm guaranteed to be the beneficiary of any future production he might post.
That's what's going on with F&L and Arian Foster. Has Foster outperformed F&L's ranking? Yeah, by a huge margin... but that doesn't matter. F&L had Arian Foster ranked SUBSTANTIALLY higher than anyone else had him ranked (of people who publish their rankings, I had him the second highest... and I had him at 28th). Most of the FBGs staff had him in the 40s. Anyone who had Foster ranked at 19th could have traded any of the RBs that were in the consensus 20-30 range for him. Those guys would now be riding him to a championship.
At the end of the day, it's not a question of how high you are on a player, it's a question of how many people are higher on that player than you are. In F&L's case, when it came to Arian Foster, the answer is "none". I literally could not find a single person ANYWHERE who was more bullish on Arian Foster than F&L was. So you can keep trotting out that "but you only had him ranked 19th!" line all you want, because at the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything. F&L had Foster ranked higher than anyone else did, and F&L was right. And it wasn't just this preseason- F&L has been right every step of the way. He tweeted after week 1 that he'd trade Frank Gore for Arian Foster straight up, and he got a lot of grief over it (much of that grief came from me, by the way).
Similarly, I like to claim guys like Michael Vick and Darren McFadden as successes for me- not because I ever said "Michael Vick and Darren McFadden are going to be top-10 players in VBD this season", but because I repeatedly said "everyone has both of these guys too low". Vick's a guy I've taken a lot of crap for through the season- I took crap for having him in the top 30 at the beginning of August when everyone was busy anointing Kolb, I took crap for bumping him to 16th when everyone assumed he was going back to the backup role as soon as Kolb was healthy, and I took crap for bumping him into the top 10 when he only had a handful of good games against bad defenses... but at the end of the day, even though he's outperformed all of my wildest expectations, I count Michael Vick as a "hit" because he's on my dynasty team, because I was higher on him than everyone else. That's all that matters. None of my leagues subtract points if you didn't expect a player to be quite as good as he was, so I'm getting the full benefit of Vick's fantasy onslaught even though I "only" had him ranked at the bottom of the top 30 this past offseason.