Mr. Irrelevant
IBL Representative
For my money, one of the best SP reads of last preseason was this thread (all credit to @zftcg), in which he and various other posters channelling Bill Barnwell - who in his Grantland days used to identify trends from the prior season and attempt to draw parallels to certain players/teams for the upcoming one.
With draft time approaching, I've carried over some of his analogues for 2017, then added a couple of new ones. Feel free to chime in with some of your own!
1. Second-year RB who blew up in the second half of his rookie year and is now a first-round pick
2015: CJ Anderson, Jeremy Hill
2016: David Johnson
Potential 2017: Jordan Howard
After watching Johnson score his 3rd TD of the game on MNF last season, I joked in the game thread that "the lesson here is you should never take a RB in the first round based on a half-season of stud production as a rookie, except when you should." Howard was even more unheralded than Johnson coming into last year, yet, much like DJ in '15, finished RB5 over the second half of last season. Is Howard the next DJ or the next CJ? Call me stubborn, but I'm leaning the latter. A fifth-rounder with little pass-catching ability on a terrible team with an uncertain QB situation adds up to waaay too much risk for me at the 1-2 turn.
2. Second-year QB primed to make the leap to elite fantasy production
2015: Blake Bortles
2016: Jameis Winston
Potential 2017: Carson Wentz
Football Outsiders ranked 93 WRs who received at least 50 targets in 2016. Seventy-five of them had a positive DYAR - in other words, "above replacement-level" players. You know how many of those 75 were Eagles? Zero. Zero! Their three primary wideouts ranked 76th, 81st, and 87th. Dorial Green-Beckham - who will most likely never play another down in the NFL - was their SECOND-LEADING WIDE RECEIVER. In Jeffery and Torrey Smith, Wentz finally gets a legit #1 option and a field-stretcher to man the outside; while a full season of Lane Johnson on the OL should help the run game keep down-and-distance reasonable (Wentz threw the second-most passes of any rookie QB ever). He's going off the board at QB18, but like Winston last year could easily finish the year as a QB1.
3. Teammate of QB from previous example who will come along for the ride
2015: Allen Robinson
2016: Mike Evans
Potential 2017: Alshon Jeffery
Alshon Jeffery, a physical freak who will be the Eagles' undisputed #1 option whenever he's healthy, can still be had for mid-range WR2 prices. Just saying.
4. Young WR so widely expected to "make the leap" that he winds up getting drafted close to his ceiling
2015: Charles Johnson
2016: DeVante Parker
Potential 2017: Tyreek Hill
I'm gonna get shade thrown my way on this, I know, but ask 2015-16 Blake Bortles owners: fantasy is a game of volume. You can be aggressively mediocre, but as long as you keep getting the ball in your hands, you can make fantasy owners happy. The Freak is a crazy athlete who scored 9 TDs on 85 touches last season - that's the good news. The bad news is such outlier stats almost always regress, so to justify him as a high-end WR2 you have to believe he's capable of handling #1 WR volume, while getting a defense's full attention, without getting that 5'10" frame dinged up. I think folks are falling prey to "shiny new toy" syndrome here; I'd be much happier with a name like Fitzgerald a full round later.
5. Regression of Top QB back to their prior two-year normal
2015: Andrew Luck
2016: Cam Newton
Potential 2017: Matt Ryan
This one's just too easy, isn't it? The average NFL QB had TD/INT ratios of 4.3% and 2.3% last season. Ryan's were 7.1% and 1.3%. That's, ummm ... that's not going to happen again. The three QBs going ahead of him in drafts - A-Rod, Brady, Brees - have floors when healthy that are sky-high. Ryan's? Not so much. He should finish 2017 closer to his prior 3-year average of 24-25ppg than to 2016's absurd 30.4ppg.
6. RB who had great success for a couple years then is dragged down by horrible coaching and crappy team rebounds to have a great season
2015: Doug Martin
2016: DeMarco Murray
Potential 2017: Carlos Hyde
Like Martin and Murray before him, Hyde has been written off for dead, yet comes into 2017 with a new coaching staff and competition only from a moderately-regarded 4th-rounder who hasn't set the world on fire in camp. He's an extremely talented runner who's also a decent receiver and blocker - NFL GMs may increasingly consider the position fungible, but that combination doesn't grow on trees. Yes, it's a high-risk gamble, as he clearly isn't the apple of Shanny and Lynch's eye, but the upside for the risk is much greater than with other RBs around his ADP.
(Ironically, the other very appropriate choice for this would be ... Doug Martin, once again. Ridiculous value at RB29.)
7. Last-round flier who backs into a top-30 season by accumulating targets on a bad team
2015: Kamar Aiken
2016: Rishard Matthews
Potential 2017: Marqise Lee
One of my (rare) 2016 hits - the only thing that surprised me about Matthews' WR19 performance in 2016 was how not-bad the Titans actually were. Speaking of 2016, Lee, despite his 1st-round pedigree, came in as the forgotten member of the Jags' offense - due to his injury history and, probably, to his name not being "Allen". Yet 2016 threw a wrench into the Allens
- especially Hurns, who plunged to near the bottom of FO's advanced metrics. Some of that was bad QB play, you'd say, and you'd be right. Except Lee finished in the top 20 by those same metrics with that same QB, and led the team in yards per route run to boot. The Jags, of course, are the Brazil of the NFL: the team of the future, and always will be. But amidst this perpetual rebuilding effort, Lee could convert 120ish targets into 70-75 catches and 5-7 TDs, yielding immense value vs. his WR70 ADP.
8. Sleeper rookie receiver who all the sharps will be just a little early on in terms of fantasy usefulness
2014: John Brown
2015: Tyler Lockett
2016: Tyler Boyd
Potential 2017: O.J. Howard
I had Mike Williams penciled in here a month ago, but with his injury lingering I'm gong to cheat a bit and sub out "receiver" for last year's "WR". Of all the rookie pass-catchers, Howard sets off the biggest alarm bells for me. His size/speed combination is a rare one, but even before you consider the difficulty of rookie TEs' transition to the NFL and of his mysterious lack of college production, consider that the Bucs will likely come in right around league-average on pass attempts and of those, Howard's likely going to spend most of them a blocker, at which he excels and teammate Cameron Brate does not. Howard's ADP of TE13 makes him the single hardest pass of 2017 redrafts for me.
9. Young pedigreed WR who finally delivers on the "post-hype sleeper" tag
2015: Allen Robinson
2016: Davante Adams
Potential 2017: Josh Doctson
A big bounceback requires a blend of talent (derailed either by injury as with AR15, or mental lapses as with Adams) and situation (good / emerging QBs on teams that love to throw). Doctson checks both boxes as a first-round talent who should start the season at full strength alongside an above-average QB who lost his two top WRs to free agency and whose #1 this year is a relative question mark in Pryor. There's no guarantee he'll recover all the athleticism that made him a first-rounder to begin with, but at WR64 even a small chance of that massive payoff is well worth the investment.
10. Veteran QB who can be had for $1 but could put up a top-10 season
2015: Carson Palmer
2016: Philip Rivers
Potential 2017: Andy Dalton
Dalton, like Rivers, is one of those guys whom I'm convinced gets underdrafted by dint of merely having been competent for a long time. No one's ever gonna pound the table and curse when you say his name in your draft or type "damn, nice get" into the draft room chat box. But he's more due for positive TD regression than any QB in the league, even before considering his new weapons in Ross, Mixon, and a healthy (for now!) Boyd and Eifert. Yes, the OL is still bad, but A.J. Green is still really, really good. He's going at a QB17 ADP and I expect I will own him just about everywhere.
With draft time approaching, I've carried over some of his analogues for 2017, then added a couple of new ones. Feel free to chime in with some of your own!
1. Second-year RB who blew up in the second half of his rookie year and is now a first-round pick
2015: CJ Anderson, Jeremy Hill
2016: David Johnson
Potential 2017: Jordan Howard
After watching Johnson score his 3rd TD of the game on MNF last season, I joked in the game thread that "the lesson here is you should never take a RB in the first round based on a half-season of stud production as a rookie, except when you should." Howard was even more unheralded than Johnson coming into last year, yet, much like DJ in '15, finished RB5 over the second half of last season. Is Howard the next DJ or the next CJ? Call me stubborn, but I'm leaning the latter. A fifth-rounder with little pass-catching ability on a terrible team with an uncertain QB situation adds up to waaay too much risk for me at the 1-2 turn.
2. Second-year QB primed to make the leap to elite fantasy production
2015: Blake Bortles
2016: Jameis Winston
Potential 2017: Carson Wentz
Football Outsiders ranked 93 WRs who received at least 50 targets in 2016. Seventy-five of them had a positive DYAR - in other words, "above replacement-level" players. You know how many of those 75 were Eagles? Zero. Zero! Their three primary wideouts ranked 76th, 81st, and 87th. Dorial Green-Beckham - who will most likely never play another down in the NFL - was their SECOND-LEADING WIDE RECEIVER. In Jeffery and Torrey Smith, Wentz finally gets a legit #1 option and a field-stretcher to man the outside; while a full season of Lane Johnson on the OL should help the run game keep down-and-distance reasonable (Wentz threw the second-most passes of any rookie QB ever). He's going off the board at QB18, but like Winston last year could easily finish the year as a QB1.
3. Teammate of QB from previous example who will come along for the ride
2015: Allen Robinson
2016: Mike Evans
Potential 2017: Alshon Jeffery
Alshon Jeffery, a physical freak who will be the Eagles' undisputed #1 option whenever he's healthy, can still be had for mid-range WR2 prices. Just saying.
4. Young WR so widely expected to "make the leap" that he winds up getting drafted close to his ceiling
2015: Charles Johnson
2016: DeVante Parker
Potential 2017: Tyreek Hill
I'm gonna get shade thrown my way on this, I know, but ask 2015-16 Blake Bortles owners: fantasy is a game of volume. You can be aggressively mediocre, but as long as you keep getting the ball in your hands, you can make fantasy owners happy. The Freak is a crazy athlete who scored 9 TDs on 85 touches last season - that's the good news. The bad news is such outlier stats almost always regress, so to justify him as a high-end WR2 you have to believe he's capable of handling #1 WR volume, while getting a defense's full attention, without getting that 5'10" frame dinged up. I think folks are falling prey to "shiny new toy" syndrome here; I'd be much happier with a name like Fitzgerald a full round later.
5. Regression of Top QB back to their prior two-year normal
2015: Andrew Luck
2016: Cam Newton
Potential 2017: Matt Ryan
This one's just too easy, isn't it? The average NFL QB had TD/INT ratios of 4.3% and 2.3% last season. Ryan's were 7.1% and 1.3%. That's, ummm ... that's not going to happen again. The three QBs going ahead of him in drafts - A-Rod, Brady, Brees - have floors when healthy that are sky-high. Ryan's? Not so much. He should finish 2017 closer to his prior 3-year average of 24-25ppg than to 2016's absurd 30.4ppg.
6. RB who had great success for a couple years then is dragged down by horrible coaching and crappy team rebounds to have a great season
2015: Doug Martin
2016: DeMarco Murray
Potential 2017: Carlos Hyde
Like Martin and Murray before him, Hyde has been written off for dead, yet comes into 2017 with a new coaching staff and competition only from a moderately-regarded 4th-rounder who hasn't set the world on fire in camp. He's an extremely talented runner who's also a decent receiver and blocker - NFL GMs may increasingly consider the position fungible, but that combination doesn't grow on trees. Yes, it's a high-risk gamble, as he clearly isn't the apple of Shanny and Lynch's eye, but the upside for the risk is much greater than with other RBs around his ADP.
(Ironically, the other very appropriate choice for this would be ... Doug Martin, once again. Ridiculous value at RB29.)
7. Last-round flier who backs into a top-30 season by accumulating targets on a bad team
2015: Kamar Aiken
2016: Rishard Matthews
Potential 2017: Marqise Lee
One of my (rare) 2016 hits - the only thing that surprised me about Matthews' WR19 performance in 2016 was how not-bad the Titans actually were. Speaking of 2016, Lee, despite his 1st-round pedigree, came in as the forgotten member of the Jags' offense - due to his injury history and, probably, to his name not being "Allen". Yet 2016 threw a wrench into the Allens

8. Sleeper rookie receiver who all the sharps will be just a little early on in terms of fantasy usefulness
2014: John Brown
2015: Tyler Lockett
2016: Tyler Boyd
Potential 2017: O.J. Howard
I had Mike Williams penciled in here a month ago, but with his injury lingering I'm gong to cheat a bit and sub out "receiver" for last year's "WR". Of all the rookie pass-catchers, Howard sets off the biggest alarm bells for me. His size/speed combination is a rare one, but even before you consider the difficulty of rookie TEs' transition to the NFL and of his mysterious lack of college production, consider that the Bucs will likely come in right around league-average on pass attempts and of those, Howard's likely going to spend most of them a blocker, at which he excels and teammate Cameron Brate does not. Howard's ADP of TE13 makes him the single hardest pass of 2017 redrafts for me.
9. Young pedigreed WR who finally delivers on the "post-hype sleeper" tag
2015: Allen Robinson
2016: Davante Adams
Potential 2017: Josh Doctson
A big bounceback requires a blend of talent (derailed either by injury as with AR15, or mental lapses as with Adams) and situation (good / emerging QBs on teams that love to throw). Doctson checks both boxes as a first-round talent who should start the season at full strength alongside an above-average QB who lost his two top WRs to free agency and whose #1 this year is a relative question mark in Pryor. There's no guarantee he'll recover all the athleticism that made him a first-rounder to begin with, but at WR64 even a small chance of that massive payoff is well worth the investment.
10. Veteran QB who can be had for $1 but could put up a top-10 season
2015: Carson Palmer
2016: Philip Rivers
Potential 2017: Andy Dalton
Dalton, like Rivers, is one of those guys whom I'm convinced gets underdrafted by dint of merely having been competent for a long time. No one's ever gonna pound the table and curse when you say his name in your draft or type "damn, nice get" into the draft room chat box. But he's more due for positive TD regression than any QB in the league, even before considering his new weapons in Ross, Mixon, and a healthy (for now!) Boyd and Eifert. Yes, the OL is still bad, but A.J. Green is still really, really good. He's going at a QB17 ADP and I expect I will own him just about everywhere.