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You drafted him in front of Lynch? Wow, and here I thought I was confident...BroadwayG is correct. I haven't been reading the Shark Pool lately, so my bad. Should have realized there would be a lot of threads on the same subject. I will try to watch that in the future.
Hindsight is always 20/20...but Calvin had (has) all the measurables to be a dominant top 5 can't miss WR for a long long time. Lynch's measurables are above average for sure, but he joined an offense in Buffalo with no stable QB, 1 WR, and a shoddy line/Def/etc. Many people took Calvin over Lynch...I just happened to be one of them.
I crossed the road today, to get to my car...I was stoked!tonight I%ll walk back from the road and reverse the process, can%t wait for that either!!
This ain't the FFA, guy. Banning imminent for tim.
I posted elsewhere that I started him over Ryan Grant this week. I think he'll explode. Reasons:(1) Atlanta has a bad defense.(2) He is returning to Georgia. I believe he grew up in Georgia and in any event he no doubt has a huge fanbase having excelled at GTech. He will want to shine here if anywhere.(3) Detroit is probably going to continue to have some difficulty running the ball, and will readily rely on the passing game. Brent Grimes and Chris Houston covering Roy and Calvin? 
I'm projecting 110 yards and 1 TD. It could be more, easily.
Good grief... has Shark Pool actually been reduced to this? Maybe tim has some history I'm not aware of but a post about this Sunday being a coming out party for CJ seems perfectly fine to me. First off, I did a search after reading this gripe and did not find "the dozen" existing threads you reference. There is one "CJ ready to blow up" which hadn't been bumped in 3 days. The next is Calvin vs. Santonio, inactive since August 17, and a third player profile, also inactive since August 17. After that you need to go back to August 6. Do all Calvin Johnson posts need to be put in the general thread that hasn't been bumped in several days? Have other threads all addressed the Atlanta matchup? Personally I found this thread to be timely for people who are on the fence contemplating CJ vs. X wdis.
have him in 3/3 leagueseggs meet basket
He struggled with injuries last year, now has a year of experience under his belt, and just because the Lions want to run more doesn't mean that they will be able to. Talent wise, he's a freak of nature (more talent than Roy).I think that's generally how the argument goes.
I know what the argument is, but it's pretty safe to say they can't possibly pass more than they did with Martz and they can't possibly run less than they did with Martz. They could trow 75-100 fewer times this year. I suspect that won't help Megatron's cause any.Paper Lions said:
David, I don't disagree that there's a decent chance that those that drafted him at #8 WR overpaid, but as it is with anybody the story is where you got him. I have him in two leagues, both as my WR#2 and ironically enough as the #19 WR in both drafts. I think that's great value. I think it's those that have drafted in the last 7-10 days that have seen the Megatron-Tax take affect. If you are a believer you are paying the tax, if not you are probably doing the "smart" thing and taking somebody a little safer.David Yudkin said:
Detroit can wish in one hand and crap in the other. Their running game will be below average at best with that line, and their D stinks. They will be playing from behind in most every contest and will be forced to throw. Last year Kitna threw all the time, and Furry/McDonald were the major recipients (both had more targets than Roy and Calvin)..........in the new Offense Roy and Calvin are options 1 and 2 with little other WR options unless they throw in another WR in their 3rd down package. I see this offensive shift as being a huge positive for Calvin as there will be more of an emphasis on the rush (doubt it will last too long due to being down in most games...minus the ATL game) which HOPEFULLY will force opposing D's to get more guys in the box. Roy should get double-teams on the other side (unless Calvin really takes over as the #1) leaving a 1 on 1 coverage Nightmare for the poor little 5'10" DB that has to outleap and outrun the 6'5" 240 lb 38inch vertical leaping Johnson.David Yudkin said:
Agreed. Top 10 is too rich for my blood. He may have a great season, but for me I wouldn't take him that early.
I think what will play out is that the Lions will throw the ball less than under Martz, yet Calvin and Roy will actually have far more targets due to far more 2 WR sets rather than Martz always running 3-4 WR sets. I have no doubt in my mind that the departure of Martz is a great thing for Detroit's (big two) WR's.
I will point out that I would expect them to be in more traditional 2-3 WR sets - you won't see McDonald and Furrey get nearly the targets that they did in Martz's system. But again, in general you are correct that WR#8 is too high.
Snagged him as WR16 in my main league in the middle of the annual 5th Round WR Run. Wouldn't take him earlier and any later he'd have been gone.
FWIW, I don't think you know what the argument is at all based on this statement. It's not about passing more and running less, it's about targets of passing. Wouldn't you agree that the team needn't pass more to increase CJ's stats if McDonald/Furrey aren't being targetted 40%-50% of the passing attempts [rough guess] like they were in the Martz offense? I expect those guys to become virtually invisible in a more vanilla offense that takes advantage of the huge mismatches created by Roy/Calvin.
Good stuff guys. How many targets did Furrey and McDonald see per game last year? 101 and 139 aren't THAT many targets considering Welker had about 139 CATCHES last year.
I am curious about Chapter 2, "A year older, a year bolder." I didnt love Chapter 1 as much as i thought I would.
Speaking of wasted space...and I just made it worse by highlighting it....Stay on topic
I don't know. Seems to me like you're circumventing the real issue by again narrowing your focus to Roy/Calvin.(1) How many times were McDonald/Furrey targetted over the past 2 seasons? They had a combined 140 receptions last year so I have to believe that was a lot of targets. In 2006 Furrey had enough targets to amass 98 receptions. (2) In your opinion, will Furrey/McDonald maintain that 2007 target % in 2008?
MacDonald saw 7.9 targets and Furrey 5.6 targets. That adds uo to 13.5 targets between them. I doubt anyone things that will happen again, but I would think it still may conceivable that combined they see half that number (so say 6.5 to 7.0 targets). That alone would free up 105-110 targets).If the Lions drop down to 500 attempts like they did pre Martz, that would only leave 20-25 extra targets (remember, we were taking off 85 passing attempts from the Martz-era numbers).So the math question becomes, does the fact that Martz used 3 or 4 receivers get negated by throwing the ball less?Alsom the other factor that is getting glossed over is that if the Lions really do go a lot more with CJ and RW and fewer WR sets, then there are also more defenders available to cover them as well. Kitna's numbers overall saw a slight bump in the Martz system on a per pass basis, but his numbers saw a big bump based to the volume of passes he threw.We assume that throwing to CJ and RW will be a boom to Kitna, but Kitna could just as easily revert to his lower yards per attempt and yards per completion numbers from his pre-Martz days.Again, I'm not say that Williams and Johnson won't do better or that they won't do well. I'm just wondering how well they should be projected to do and whether the hype is justified.
where would you take him? WR15? WR20?
He's a steal at wr15 or higher...
Probably in that range, but at that point it would depend on how my team looked and which WRs were left.For example, last night I got Ocho Cinco at WR16 IIRC. If both were still there, I'd have taken Chad over Calvin (Calvin was already off the board). IMO, I'll take the guy that has played in 100 straight games (even with an iffy shoulder) and 5 straight Top 10 finishes (3 in the Top 5) over the guy that has yet to prove it. Maybe that's just me.
Great discussion. What I think this all boils down to is what you think of Johnson.. I believe he was injured and a rookie last year so he didnt add much impact to the offense, but this year I believe he will have a huge impact due in part to his health and maturation and also in large part to the more basic offense..... Think... adding TO to the Eagles only to a slightly lesser degree, the numbers prior to TO being there bore little resemblance to the numbers after TO arrived and thus are inconsequential to some degree.
I think you are better off just forgetting all of this minutiae in trying to defend why a superfreak player won't perform as one. I'd be interested how many times Randy Moss was targetted as a rookie when he scored 17 TDs, most of them for 35+ yards. He only had 69 receptions. Why do I think that's relevant? Well, if Brian Billick had gone 4 WR every play, and he gave Cunningham 2 seconds to pass the ball, that season would have never happened. You would have seen the same receptions for far shorter yardage and far less TDs. It is possible that a vanilla offense will help Calvin and Roy take better advantage of their obvious mismatches even if they are in the 80 reception area. I don't care how many targets they had last year... I care about the type of targets. That offense provided no real opportunity for downfield throwing so they were not used as effectively as they could have been, IMHO. I think we've already seen the difference this preseason.
I think we are all saying somewhat the same thing. . . Calvin will do better. It's defining what better translates to that is the intriguing part.As I said, I would have no problem rostering and starting him, but the line in the sand for all of us will be different in what it costs to get him in your lineup each week.As for the guys from teams with big target numbers and bigger numbers in general, they include players with Brady, Manning, and Palmer at QB (and Warner too).I'm not sure I have the faith in Jon Kitna that I do in that other set of QBs.Put another way, if Williams and Johnson out up the numbers that some folks are suggesting, then Kitna is WAY under projected at QB20.
I know what the numbers show from the preseason, but I generally try not to pay much attention to them because they are a distorted sense of reality.In 2005, coming off a monster season, Daunte Culpepper played lights out like you wouldn't believe in the preseason. His totals were 36 for 44 for 520 yards with an 82% completion rate. People were DYING to draft him. When the season started, he was TERRIBLE.So while I agree in theory with your assessment, I wouldn't be all that swayed by what happened in the preseason.
I'm not a Johnson fanatic. I agree with a couple of things that you said. I think they will throw 75-100 times fewer than last year. But the difference is thatthey won't be in 4 receiver sets on every down. I think that the majority of the decrease in targets will come from McDonald and Furrey, who caught 140last year (I don't have the number of targets that they got). So I think that there is some reason for optimism.That said, I don't agree with people who are thinking he will be a top 3 or even top 5 receiver.
BOTTOM LINE-HE WAS HURT BAD LAST YEAR- HE WAS QUOTED AS SAYING I TOOK TWO PAIN PILLS BEFORE EVERYGAME A WR HIGH ON PAIN PILLS COMPLICATED SYSTEM ROOKIE YEAR = BAD NEWS. GIVE RANY MOSS THE EQUATION HIS ROOKIE YEAR AND HE WOULDA BEEN ABOUT THE SAME. NOW WR HEALTHY LESS COMPLEX SYSTEM NO PIAN MEDS 2ND YEAR = A 100% DIFFRENT RECIEVER ADD HE WORKED ALL OFF SEASON TO GET BETTER.TROW LAST YEAR AWAY.. TARGETS SMARGETS THIS MAN IS A FREAK OF NATURE AND "WILL" BE TOP FIVE AS HIS FLOOR THIS YEAR AND IM SAYING THAT AS A NON OWNER.
Calvin will be the top WR in the NFL in a few years. He could move top 5 this year, which is incredible for a 2nd year WR. Except for one freak, no WR dominates the league their first couple of years.Simply uncoverable. Enjoy the show vs ATL.
