LHUCKS
Footballguy
I have much love for Joe, David and the FBG site in general and this series of critiques is by no means intended to be an analysis of negative tone. FBG is easily the best fantasy football product available and if I didn’t respect the opinions of the staff and ownership here I wouldn’t be composing this analysis.
Part I: The Quarterbacks
OVERRATED
Willis McGahee Ranked #13
Willis McGahee is a mediocre running back. I’m not stating this because it has “shock value”, rather I’m stating it because it’s true. He rarely makes people miss in space, he appears to have lost his breakaway speed and he is not that great on the goal line. To make matters worse he’s a sub par pass catching back. Let’s take a look at Willis’ mediocre career:
+--------------------------+-------------------------+ | Rushing | Receiving |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| 2004 buf | 16 | 284 1128 4.0 13 | 22 169 7.7 0 || 2005 buf | 16 | 325 1247 3.8 5 | 28 178 6.4 0 || 2006 buf | 14 | 259 990 3.8 6 | 18 156 8.7 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| TOTAL | 46 | 868 3365 3.9 24 | 68 503 7.4 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+So Willis has averaged a blistering 3.9 yards per carry with 8 TDs throughout his career despite an average of 290 carries each of his three years. I base a lot of my analysis on what I see and throughout this preseason and even over the last couple of seasons Willis just doesn’t look that special. He’s a nice consistent power back but he just doesn’t represent the upside you want out of your #13 running back…from a yardage perspective or a TD perspective. Expect slightly better numbers than what Jamal Lewis has averaged over the past couple of years…and that will get you nowhere close to the #13 running back.Staff With Highest Ranking: Bloom, Hicks and Tefertiller at #11
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Wood #19, Wimer #20, Norton #25
Players I have Ranked Above McGahee: Maurice Jones Drew, Edgerrin James, Cedric Benson, Cadillac Williams, Thomas Jones, Brandon Jacobs, Clinton Portis, Ronnie Brown(in addition to others already ranked higher)
LHUCKS Ranking: #21
Ronnie Brown #15
I’ve never been enamored with Brown’s ability. There have been rumblings in Miami that he’s been outplayed by Chatman and he has looked mediocre to me in the preseason. Ronnie may get some solid yardage and a pedestrian TD total but I can’t rank him ahead of other backs that I feel are more talented and that are in better situations. Throughout the preseason Cameron and the Miami brass have stressed that it’s going to take some time to get this offense to gel and as a fantasy owner do you want to wait around for that offense to gel? Listen, I’m not saying he’s going to bust, but I’m also not about to rank him #15 on my list ahead of guys like Portis, Edge, Benson, Thomas Jones, Cadillac etc. etc. The Miami offense is suspect and is so is a consensus ranking of #15. One other note, Ronnie faces Baltimore and New England in weeks 15 and 16 and although that shouldn’t effect year-end totals, it should effect whether or not you draft him.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Brown at #11, Jason Wood at #10
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Bloom, David and Joe at #20, Tremblay at #21
Players I have Ranked ahead of Ronnie: Portis, Edge, Benson, T. Jones, Cadillac, MCallister, Jacobs
LHUCKS Ranking: #22
Adrian Peterson Ranked #19
I’m rarely a fan of drafting rookie RBs as one of my starters because historical precedent will tell you that rookies just don’t have that high of a ceiling. It happens once in a while, but the odds are stacked against it. Now add into the mix that Adrian is the #2 RB behind incumbent starter Chester Taylor and this ranking starts to look a little worse to me. Chester showed he could take on a large workload last year and he by most accounts ran the ball admirably. Adrian on the other hand had an injury plagued collegiate career and doesn’t have the prototypical workhorse running back frame.
This is the era of the two back system, but we’re not talking about a Reggie Bush-Deuce McAllister scenario here. Comparing the ’07 Vikings to the ’06 Saints or any other high powered offense isn’t wise. The Saints were 23rd in team offense whereas the Saints were #1. Unless you’re extraordinarily high on Tarvaris Jackson, Bobby Wade and Troy Williamson, I wouldn’t put a lot of stock into the Minnesota offense. Defenses are going to play 8 in the box in the first halves of games and in the second half there’s a good chance the Vikes will be playing from behind.
Adrian is fighting an uphill battle to be a fantasy factor in ’07 regardless of how many spin moves he pulls off in the preseason. Don’t be fooled by the highlight reel fellas, wait until next year to draft Peterson.
Staff With Highest Ranking: David and Joe #16, Norton #17
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Brown #25, Smith #26, Wimer #27
Players I have Ranked Ahead of Peterson: Cadillac Williams, Thomas Jones, Ahman Green, Deuce McAllister, Brandon Jacobs, Julius Jones, Jamal Lewis, Marshawn Lynch
LHUCKS Ranking: #27
UNDERRATED
Shaun Alexander #8
This is a classic case of people forgetting how dominant a player can be because of injury. Shaun was the consensus #2 pick last year and because he cracked his foot he is now the #8…I don’t think so. Let’s look at Shaun’s last full season as a starter:
+----------+-------------+--------+----+| WK OPP | RSH YD | RECYD | TD |+----------+-------------+--------+----+| 1 jax | 14 73 | 0 | 0 || 2 atl | 28 144 | 11 | 1 || 3 ari | 22 140 | 0 | 4 || 4 was | 20 98 | 4 | 1 || 5 stl | 25 119 | 16 | 2 || 6 hou | 22 141 | 1 | 4 || 7 dal | 21 61 | 0 | 0 || 9 ari | 23 173 | 0 | 2 || 10 stl | 33 165 | 9 | 3 || 11 sfo | 24 115 | 7 | 2 || 12 nyg | 31 110 | 4 | 1 || 13 phi | 19 49 | 0 | 2 || 14 sfo | 21 108 | 20 | 1 || 15 ten | 26 172 | 0 | 1 || 16 ind | 21 139 | 6 | 3 || 17 gnb | 20 73 | 0 | 1 |+----------+-------------+--------+----+| TOTAL | 370 1880 | 78 | 28 |+----------+-------------+--------+----+Look at those game to game states one more time if you don’t get it. That’s right folks, over 1900 yards and 28 TD with crazy consistency. Now that he’s just one year older he’s no longer elite? I’m not buying it. Guppy: “But LHUCKS, they lost Hutch!”
LHUCKS: “I don’t care guppy. The offensive line has had over a year to recover from that loss and Walter Jones is still one of the best in the business. The coaching staff has been relatively pleased with Sims. The offensive line is a unit and singular losses to offensive lines are overstated IMHO.”
One more note, according to Gray’s SOS Alexander has the 7th easiest rushing schedule for fantasy running backs…let’s not forget Alexander plays in the ultra-soft NFC West.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Gray at #3 and Smith/Hicks at #4
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Mike Brown #16, Wood #12
Players I have ranked below Alexander: Larry Johnson, Willie Parker, Brian Westbrook, Addai
LHUCKS Ranking: #4
Brandon Jacobs #24
Brandon Jacobs is a beast. When this kid gets a full head of steam one player rarely can take him down. Unlike many players ahead of Jacobs, he doesn’t have an injury history and he’s relatively young. The other night on Sunday Night football John Madden stated his only question regarding Jacobs was whether or not he could handle the full load for an entire year, but did our good buddy John notice that some of the players ranked ahead of him have had serious injury histories and/or are getting up there in age? I’d rather take a youthful, hungry Jacobs over the likes of Ahman Green and Deuce McCallister and I certainly would take him over others in less desirable situations like Ronnie Brown and Adrian Peterson. Jacobs in my opinion is a lock for double digit TDs because he’s one heck of a goal line runner…many of the back ranked ahead of Jacobs have never seen a double digit TD in their career.
My projection ranking for Jacobs is more of a “from the gut” call based on qualitative observations so if you’re looking for proof that Jacobs is going to deliver you’ll have to go back to last year’s game tape and watch him run and put that together with the fact that Jacobs has very little competition for carries.
It also might be worth mentioning that Tiki has put up some pretty good seasons in this Coughlin offense recently so a drastic decrease in production seems unlikely. Here are Tiki’s numbers of the last three yeas:
+--------------------------+-------------------------+ | Rushing | Receiving |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| 2004 nyg | 16 | 322 1518 4.7 13 | 52 578 11.1 2 || 2005 nyg | 16 | 357 1860 5.2 9 | 54 530 9.8 2 || 2006 nyg | 16 | 327 1662 5.1 5 | 58 465 8.0 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| TOTAL | 154 | 2216 10448 4.7 55 | 586 5183 8.8 12 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+Those are some pretty powerful numbers. I don’t expect Jacobs to see those kind of yardage numbers because he is a different type of back but nonetheless these stats represent some obvious opportunity that I believe is getting overlooked.Additionally, the team seems to be rallying behind Eli this season and I for one believe the Giants offense has a great chance to improve upon their disappointing ’06. Don’t sleep on the substantial upside that Jacobs presents…his risk isn’t that much different than the other backs ranked similarly.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Jason Wood and Maurile Tremblay at #17
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Wimer #33, Haseley #29
Players I have ranked below Jacobs: Adrian Peterson, Ronnie Brown, Ahman Green, McCallister, Thomas Jones, Cadillac Williams
LHUCKS Ranking: #18
Julius Jones #33
This will be an unpopular call because the general consensus is that MBIII is a better running back....unfortunately the Dallas coaches don’t see it that way. Fantasy owners need to face the facts here…JULIUS JONES IS THE STARTING RUNNINGBACK in BIG D. Listen, I’m not saying that’s the way it should be, but what I am saying is that Julius is the starter and he’s going to get plenty of touches in a high powered offense that will enable him surpass the expectation of a #33 ranking. You may not like these facts, but these are the facts. This offense may be high powered enough and the defense may be good enough to give both MBIII and JJ a significant workload much like New Orleans was able to last year so don’t count out that possibility either. Others ranked ahead of him either aren’t starting(Deangelo Williams) or won’t be starting later(Tinker Bell.) Let’s take a detailed look at them:
Jerious Norwood: How much playing time is he going to get, how’s his offense going to move, can he stay healthy? Problems with pass blocking.
Tatum Bell: Not a workhorse will be done as soon as KJ is back sometime in midseason if not sooner.
DeAngelo Williams: Not the starter, has never proven he can carry the load and splitting with DeShaun
LaMont Jordan: Inconsistent preseason and Rhodes will make this an undesirable RBBC at best when he comes back
Fred Taylor: About the same tier, but lacks the upside of J.J. given Dallas’ potential to explode. Not a spring chicken any longer either.
When it comes down to it I just like JJ more than all of these guys thus he makes my underrated list.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Bloom #26 and Tefertiller #27
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Norton #39, Pasquino/Tremblay at #37
Players I have ranked below Julius: Tatum Bell, DeAngelo Williams, Jerious Norwood, Fred Taylor, Lamont Jordan
LHUCKS Ranking: #26
Those are the runningbacks...the WRs are where the money is at so I'll try to get those out before this weekend.
Part I: The Quarterbacks
OVERRATED
Willis McGahee Ranked #13
Willis McGahee is a mediocre running back. I’m not stating this because it has “shock value”, rather I’m stating it because it’s true. He rarely makes people miss in space, he appears to have lost his breakaway speed and he is not that great on the goal line. To make matters worse he’s a sub par pass catching back. Let’s take a look at Willis’ mediocre career:
+--------------------------+-------------------------+ | Rushing | Receiving |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| 2004 buf | 16 | 284 1128 4.0 13 | 22 169 7.7 0 || 2005 buf | 16 | 325 1247 3.8 5 | 28 178 6.4 0 || 2006 buf | 14 | 259 990 3.8 6 | 18 156 8.7 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| TOTAL | 46 | 868 3365 3.9 24 | 68 503 7.4 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+So Willis has averaged a blistering 3.9 yards per carry with 8 TDs throughout his career despite an average of 290 carries each of his three years. I base a lot of my analysis on what I see and throughout this preseason and even over the last couple of seasons Willis just doesn’t look that special. He’s a nice consistent power back but he just doesn’t represent the upside you want out of your #13 running back…from a yardage perspective or a TD perspective. Expect slightly better numbers than what Jamal Lewis has averaged over the past couple of years…and that will get you nowhere close to the #13 running back.Staff With Highest Ranking: Bloom, Hicks and Tefertiller at #11
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Wood #19, Wimer #20, Norton #25
Players I have Ranked Above McGahee: Maurice Jones Drew, Edgerrin James, Cedric Benson, Cadillac Williams, Thomas Jones, Brandon Jacobs, Clinton Portis, Ronnie Brown(in addition to others already ranked higher)
LHUCKS Ranking: #21
Ronnie Brown #15
I’ve never been enamored with Brown’s ability. There have been rumblings in Miami that he’s been outplayed by Chatman and he has looked mediocre to me in the preseason. Ronnie may get some solid yardage and a pedestrian TD total but I can’t rank him ahead of other backs that I feel are more talented and that are in better situations. Throughout the preseason Cameron and the Miami brass have stressed that it’s going to take some time to get this offense to gel and as a fantasy owner do you want to wait around for that offense to gel? Listen, I’m not saying he’s going to bust, but I’m also not about to rank him #15 on my list ahead of guys like Portis, Edge, Benson, Thomas Jones, Cadillac etc. etc. The Miami offense is suspect and is so is a consensus ranking of #15. One other note, Ronnie faces Baltimore and New England in weeks 15 and 16 and although that shouldn’t effect year-end totals, it should effect whether or not you draft him.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Brown at #11, Jason Wood at #10
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Bloom, David and Joe at #20, Tremblay at #21
Players I have Ranked ahead of Ronnie: Portis, Edge, Benson, T. Jones, Cadillac, MCallister, Jacobs
LHUCKS Ranking: #22
Adrian Peterson Ranked #19
I’m rarely a fan of drafting rookie RBs as one of my starters because historical precedent will tell you that rookies just don’t have that high of a ceiling. It happens once in a while, but the odds are stacked against it. Now add into the mix that Adrian is the #2 RB behind incumbent starter Chester Taylor and this ranking starts to look a little worse to me. Chester showed he could take on a large workload last year and he by most accounts ran the ball admirably. Adrian on the other hand had an injury plagued collegiate career and doesn’t have the prototypical workhorse running back frame.
This is the era of the two back system, but we’re not talking about a Reggie Bush-Deuce McAllister scenario here. Comparing the ’07 Vikings to the ’06 Saints or any other high powered offense isn’t wise. The Saints were 23rd in team offense whereas the Saints were #1. Unless you’re extraordinarily high on Tarvaris Jackson, Bobby Wade and Troy Williamson, I wouldn’t put a lot of stock into the Minnesota offense. Defenses are going to play 8 in the box in the first halves of games and in the second half there’s a good chance the Vikes will be playing from behind.
Adrian is fighting an uphill battle to be a fantasy factor in ’07 regardless of how many spin moves he pulls off in the preseason. Don’t be fooled by the highlight reel fellas, wait until next year to draft Peterson.
Staff With Highest Ranking: David and Joe #16, Norton #17
Staff with Lowest Ranking: Brown #25, Smith #26, Wimer #27
Players I have Ranked Ahead of Peterson: Cadillac Williams, Thomas Jones, Ahman Green, Deuce McAllister, Brandon Jacobs, Julius Jones, Jamal Lewis, Marshawn Lynch
LHUCKS Ranking: #27
UNDERRATED
Shaun Alexander #8
This is a classic case of people forgetting how dominant a player can be because of injury. Shaun was the consensus #2 pick last year and because he cracked his foot he is now the #8…I don’t think so. Let’s look at Shaun’s last full season as a starter:
+----------+-------------+--------+----+| WK OPP | RSH YD | RECYD | TD |+----------+-------------+--------+----+| 1 jax | 14 73 | 0 | 0 || 2 atl | 28 144 | 11 | 1 || 3 ari | 22 140 | 0 | 4 || 4 was | 20 98 | 4 | 1 || 5 stl | 25 119 | 16 | 2 || 6 hou | 22 141 | 1 | 4 || 7 dal | 21 61 | 0 | 0 || 9 ari | 23 173 | 0 | 2 || 10 stl | 33 165 | 9 | 3 || 11 sfo | 24 115 | 7 | 2 || 12 nyg | 31 110 | 4 | 1 || 13 phi | 19 49 | 0 | 2 || 14 sfo | 21 108 | 20 | 1 || 15 ten | 26 172 | 0 | 1 || 16 ind | 21 139 | 6 | 3 || 17 gnb | 20 73 | 0 | 1 |+----------+-------------+--------+----+| TOTAL | 370 1880 | 78 | 28 |+----------+-------------+--------+----+Look at those game to game states one more time if you don’t get it. That’s right folks, over 1900 yards and 28 TD with crazy consistency. Now that he’s just one year older he’s no longer elite? I’m not buying it. Guppy: “But LHUCKS, they lost Hutch!”
LHUCKS: “I don’t care guppy. The offensive line has had over a year to recover from that loss and Walter Jones is still one of the best in the business. The coaching staff has been relatively pleased with Sims. The offensive line is a unit and singular losses to offensive lines are overstated IMHO.”
One more note, according to Gray’s SOS Alexander has the 7th easiest rushing schedule for fantasy running backs…let’s not forget Alexander plays in the ultra-soft NFC West.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Gray at #3 and Smith/Hicks at #4
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Mike Brown #16, Wood #12
Players I have ranked below Alexander: Larry Johnson, Willie Parker, Brian Westbrook, Addai
LHUCKS Ranking: #4
Brandon Jacobs #24
Brandon Jacobs is a beast. When this kid gets a full head of steam one player rarely can take him down. Unlike many players ahead of Jacobs, he doesn’t have an injury history and he’s relatively young. The other night on Sunday Night football John Madden stated his only question regarding Jacobs was whether or not he could handle the full load for an entire year, but did our good buddy John notice that some of the players ranked ahead of him have had serious injury histories and/or are getting up there in age? I’d rather take a youthful, hungry Jacobs over the likes of Ahman Green and Deuce McCallister and I certainly would take him over others in less desirable situations like Ronnie Brown and Adrian Peterson. Jacobs in my opinion is a lock for double digit TDs because he’s one heck of a goal line runner…many of the back ranked ahead of Jacobs have never seen a double digit TD in their career.
My projection ranking for Jacobs is more of a “from the gut” call based on qualitative observations so if you’re looking for proof that Jacobs is going to deliver you’ll have to go back to last year’s game tape and watch him run and put that together with the fact that Jacobs has very little competition for carries.
It also might be worth mentioning that Tiki has put up some pretty good seasons in this Coughlin offense recently so a drastic decrease in production seems unlikely. Here are Tiki’s numbers of the last three yeas:
+--------------------------+-------------------------+ | Rushing | Receiving |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| 2004 nyg | 16 | 322 1518 4.7 13 | 52 578 11.1 2 || 2005 nyg | 16 | 357 1860 5.2 9 | 54 530 9.8 2 || 2006 nyg | 16 | 327 1662 5.1 5 | 58 465 8.0 0 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+| TOTAL | 154 | 2216 10448 4.7 55 | 586 5183 8.8 12 |+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+Those are some pretty powerful numbers. I don’t expect Jacobs to see those kind of yardage numbers because he is a different type of back but nonetheless these stats represent some obvious opportunity that I believe is getting overlooked.Additionally, the team seems to be rallying behind Eli this season and I for one believe the Giants offense has a great chance to improve upon their disappointing ’06. Don’t sleep on the substantial upside that Jacobs presents…his risk isn’t that much different than the other backs ranked similarly.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Jason Wood and Maurile Tremblay at #17
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Wimer #33, Haseley #29
Players I have ranked below Jacobs: Adrian Peterson, Ronnie Brown, Ahman Green, McCallister, Thomas Jones, Cadillac Williams
LHUCKS Ranking: #18
Julius Jones #33
This will be an unpopular call because the general consensus is that MBIII is a better running back....unfortunately the Dallas coaches don’t see it that way. Fantasy owners need to face the facts here…JULIUS JONES IS THE STARTING RUNNINGBACK in BIG D. Listen, I’m not saying that’s the way it should be, but what I am saying is that Julius is the starter and he’s going to get plenty of touches in a high powered offense that will enable him surpass the expectation of a #33 ranking. You may not like these facts, but these are the facts. This offense may be high powered enough and the defense may be good enough to give both MBIII and JJ a significant workload much like New Orleans was able to last year so don’t count out that possibility either. Others ranked ahead of him either aren’t starting(Deangelo Williams) or won’t be starting later(Tinker Bell.) Let’s take a detailed look at them:
Jerious Norwood: How much playing time is he going to get, how’s his offense going to move, can he stay healthy? Problems with pass blocking.
Tatum Bell: Not a workhorse will be done as soon as KJ is back sometime in midseason if not sooner.
DeAngelo Williams: Not the starter, has never proven he can carry the load and splitting with DeShaun
LaMont Jordan: Inconsistent preseason and Rhodes will make this an undesirable RBBC at best when he comes back
Fred Taylor: About the same tier, but lacks the upside of J.J. given Dallas’ potential to explode. Not a spring chicken any longer either.
When it comes down to it I just like JJ more than all of these guys thus he makes my underrated list.
Staff With Highest Ranking: Bloom #26 and Tefertiller #27
Staff With Lowest Ranking: Norton #39, Pasquino/Tremblay at #37
Players I have ranked below Julius: Tatum Bell, DeAngelo Williams, Jerious Norwood, Fred Taylor, Lamont Jordan
LHUCKS Ranking: #26
Those are the runningbacks...the WRs are where the money is at so I'll try to get those out before this weekend.
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although i think Alexander is neither
