Ah. You might want to lurk here for a little bit and see how the real men do things.
Your whole premise isn't a very useful thread. Do you have a player you think beats him, or are you just bringing up the "never before seen, earth shattering, new and completely original idea" that "Not Calvin Johnson" is likely to finish WR1 overall?
It's like if you had a custom roulette wheel: 20% of the spots are green, 40% are red, 20% yellow, and 20% black. (Yes, I realize there is no yellow on an actual roulette wheel).
If you asked me "Do you think it will come up red, or another color?" I'd have to tell you no...because it is more likely than not that it comes up another color. If you asked "What color do you think it will come up as?" I would have to say red...because it's twice as likely as any other color.
If you were to ask "Is it possible that a color other than red will come up?" I'd have to say you're being asinine, because it's obviously possible...
So, you would like me to predict a specific player that I think will do better than Cal. Johnson to make this thread resemble the majority of the threads here? Fine I'll take Fitz, Welker and White to finish the year above Cal. Johnson (PPR).Your roulette analogy isn't comparable to fantasy football, at least not in this regard. Because finishing the year as the #1 WR or even #3 still maintains value. If an injury were to occur then yes its a win/lose scenario like your analogy would hold water.
How do you rank players after a dominate performance? Business as usual (He will continue his performance) or the law of averages (He will fall back down to Earth.)
If it's the latter is he worth the 4th, 5th, or 6th pick overall?
You're getting there. The guys who are actually worth listening to tend to actually contribute opinions and analysis here. A solid OP would have mentioned some of the things that Calvin had in his favor last year:
[*]WOW, Stafford threw the 3rd most pass attempts in NFL history...surely that number will prove to be an anomaly
[*]Calvin had a very high TD rate last year (over 16% of his receptions) while his career rate is about 13%. Because I think Stafford and the offense is better, I'll project him to improve a little on his career, but probably not as high as the 16% rate which he caught them at last year. As such, I see Calvin more along the line of 12 TDs this season.
[*]Calvin career ypr is 16, but in his two best seasons, he averaged over 17 yards per catch. I think his rookie year (littered with back issues) can be overlooked, and he also had injury troubles in 09. I'd guess his ypr is probably closer to 16.5 this year.
[*]Calvin has more receptions last year than any other season he has played by a WIDE margin - over 1 catch per game. His targets were also a little over 1 per game more than in previous seasons. These things both correlate strongly with the higher number of pass attempts that Detroit had, and probably return to earth a little this season. I'll predict about 80-85 receptions for Calvin (still more than any year other than last season by 0.5+ catches per game).
[*]Given those numbers (an incredibly superficial analysis as of now that could use deeper insight, like what % of targets Calvin was getting, whether or not that changed, etc...) I am going to say Calvin gets around 82/1353/12 - good for 289.3 points in your typical PPR league, and 207.3 in your typical standard league.
[*]Looking at historical data for the #1WR's numbers in any given season, the typical number of fantasy points has been about 315 in PPR and just over 200 points in nonPPR over the past five years.
[*]As such, I would say that, given my projections for Calvin (and other players, not included here for brevity's sake) I do not think he'll finish #1 in PPR, but I do believe he is likely to finish top 3 and possibly #1 in a nonPPR.
That would be ANALYSIS and actual thought processes that make posts useful. This:
I just see his numbers coming back down to Earth this year.
He is still 1st round talent, don't get me wrong, I just don't see him finishing the year as the #1 WR.
:discuss:
is really ####ty analysis. You can't even call it analysis. "I just see his numbers coming back down to Earth..." Seriously? Is this the kind of crap you guys populate FFT with? You may just want to stay over there...Also, you should read up on the law of averages (more commonly referred to as regression to the mean) and figure out that if Calvin is to "fall back" to averages, it is a phenomenon based on HIS averages - things like his personal TD/rec rate, YPR, Rec/game, etc...To think that he will fall back to typical averages of any given WR is an incredibly flawed thought process.
My roulette analogy is perfectly applicable to the question that YOU posed: Will Calvin finish #1? You didn't ask "Will Calvin likely have value that makes him worth a mid first rounder this year?" You asked if he would be the #1 WR, period. You have attempted to be very clear about that. To say that the real question is whether or not he will still have value as the #3 WR is to move the goalposts from the question YOU posed.
This sentence here:
If an injury were to occur then yes its a win/lose scenario like your analogy would hold water.
makes no sense. Try again. In solid English please. Unless that's not how they do things on other boards. And you meant to say "dominant" where you said "dominate". Just a heads up.
If you want to continue with the question of years following dominant performances, or whether or not Calvin as merely a top 5 WR is still worth a first round pick, that's a great discussion to have. But let's not pretend that it is the discussion you opened with the OP or your posts prior to just this last one.
on the OP
I think he was just looking to see the degree of how people view a player coming off a dominant year.
Stupid hamsters at FFTTo the bolded: 
