Every year, there are lots of complaints that FBG staffers engage in group think, or don't think outside the box, or don't make risky predictions. Every year, I'm usually part of the charge defending such actions, as I believe against the grain predictions are generally bad. Making a weird ranking to be different, to take a risk, to think outside the box, or to simply gain attention seems ludicrous. I believe everyone's projections and rankings should reflect how they actually feel. If I think RB10 is really RB5, and RB1 is really RB4, I shouldn't rank RB10 higher than RB1 just to do something different, because I believe RB10 is better than RB1. And I tend to think that's what people sometime want to see -- rankers taking some risks.
That being said, this year I see something that 1) is really out of place with conventional wisdom; and 2) I really believe in. I think David Garrard should be ranked ahead of Carson Palmer. I'm not alone here as Tefertiller has Garrard slightly ahead of Palmer, and Maurile has Garrard just one spot behind Palmer. According to ADP, Palmer is QB5 and Garrard is QB12. I think Palmer is really overrated, Garrard is really underrated, and Garrard is actually better than Palmer. Hence the thread.
I think Garrard is better than Palmer for threereasons. Garrard was better than Palmer last year, Garrard's prospects have improved since last year, and Palmer's prospects have decreased since last year.
Garrard was better than Palmer last year
What, you say? How in the world was Garrard better than Palmer last year? Didn't Carson Palmer outscore Garrard by over 70 points last year? Well, yeah.
But Palmer took every snap of every game in '07. Garrard actually missed a bunch of time. He missed four full games, over half the Colts game, he missed about a third of the Raiders game, and part of the Panthers game, too. The Colts one was due to injury, and the other two were due to blowouts. So while Palmer played in 16 full games, Garrard only played in about 10.9 games. If you look at Team QB rankings, Jacksonville ranked 9th with 357 FP and Cincinnati ranked 12 with 324 FP. You might think Garrard should be penalized for missing games due to injury, blowout or his team having locked up a playoff spot. I'll get to that at the end.
But for now, Garrard averaged 23.2 FP/G in his 10.9 games, and Palmer averaged 20.2 FP/G in his 16.0 games. But wait, there's more. Palmer had a slightly easier than average schedule. Garrard had a really difficult one. He played 1.3 games against the Colts, who had an excellent D against fantasy QBs last year. So did the Chargers, and Bills, and Raiders and Chiefs. He had only two easy games, one against Atlanta and one against Denver. But on average, his schedule was very tough. If you adjust Garrard's number for strength of schedule, you see he would have scored 24.7 FP/G in his 10.9 games last year, while Palmer (after SOS adjustment) would have scored) 20.0 FP/G.. In sum, all of Palmer's apparent success over Garrard last year was due to his extra games and easier schedule. You might think that Garrard will have a tough schedule again, or Palmer an easy one again; we'll get to that in the end. But it is clear that whenever the QB was playing last year, Garrard was the much more effective fantasy player.
The off-season
For Garrard, his team added Jerry Porter and Troy Williams. I'm not a fan of either, but hey, they can't hurt. Porter's better than nothing, and the Jags WRs just weren't that good last year. Cincy added Gabriel and Utecht, but the big development is Chad Johnson. Obviously, that's not a good sign for Palmer. The Bengals team in general certainly looks to be trending downward, and there are questions about whether Johnson will actually play this year. If he isn't a Bengal, I think it's obvious that Palmer isn't as good a fantasy option as Garrard. But even if he is, Cincy and Palmer haven't done anything to close the gap that Garrard had on Palmer already.
Now, I said we'd discuss whether it's fair to ignore Garrard's risk of injury and SOS. The fact that Garrard sat in some blowouts last year doesn't concern me -- predicting which QBs will be rested due to blowouts or locking up playoff berths is practically impossible (unless it's Peyton Manning). The injury question is a legitimate one, especially since Garrard has never played a full season. But Palmer's had a serious injury before, and it just happened to come in week 18. Is he less injury prone than Garrard? Maybe, maybe not. It's not easy to say. But even if he is, I don't think Garrard is anywhere near so injury prone enough to ignore his potential upside. With my QB, I'll take a small injury risk at a position where just about every QB is an injury risk, Palmer included.
What about SOS? I project Garrard and Palmer with almost identical strengths of schedule this year. Palmer has about a 2 FP advantage,, which equates to just 0.125 FP/G. And neither I nor anyone else can predict SOS to within 0.1 FP/G, so it's basically a wash.
To recap, Garrard was the MUCH better fantasy player last year when healthy and accounting for SOS. Considering that their SOS is essentially even this year, and Garrard's injury risk isn't really any scarier than Palmer, those two factors shouldn't concern you in 2008. Sure, Palmer scored a ton more FPs, but that's only because Garrard got hurt and had a hard schedule. Do you want to bank on that happening again? It's easy to see Palmer's gaudy passing numbers and be blinded, but Garrard had an incredible season in '07. Do I see him repeating his 18/3 TD/INT ratio this year? Of course not. But he's got nearly a 5 FP/G cushion on Palmer already; he can regress a bit this year and still be better than Palmer. He should see more pass attempts this year, as he hits his prime and Fred Taylor leaves his. And I don't see much to convince me that Palmer's going to be throwing two or three TDs for every INT anymore, either. This isn't the 2005 Bengals. Chris Henry and Eric Steinbach are gone. Willie Anderson is 33 and coming off an injury-plagued season; he's not a 30 year old All Pro.
Palmer is very overrated, leaving out the potential disaster involving Chad Johnson. David Garrard is very underrated. And Garrard is better than Palmer.
I actually agree that Garrard will out perform Palmer this season. I would have laughed at you if you said this last year, Palmer has really fallen in my eyes too and Garrard is looking really good.
this thread, Schaub doesn't look so hot under my analysis. Why? Rosenfels was way better than him last year, from a fantasy perspective. Part of that was the insanely huge 4th quarter he had, but in 7.55 games he scored 8 more FP than Schaub did in 8.45 games....and Rosenfels had a really hard schedule, and Schaub a really easy one. (Some of that is probably biased a little bit, though.)
I actually agree that Garrard will out perform Palmer this season. I would have laughed at you if you said this last year, Palmer has really fallen in my eyes too and Garrard is looking really good.
'IF' is the biggest word in the dictionary with just two letters, and you used it 6 times in that post..If this, If that.."and, If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ### a-hoppin' now would he? " - Raising Arizona
