What player is the safest bet to finish #1 at their position? (1 Viewer)

[werdnoynek]

I can't believe that Rodgers is getting so many votes over Brees. Brees has finished as QB1 the past 2 years in a row (Rodgers was #2 both years). What makes people think that Rodgers will pass him up this year?

I voted Brees, but after re-thinking, Calvin is probably the best bet of anyone to finish #1 at their position.

Rodgers with a running game is going to give Brees a run for his money imo. I went CJ tho.

 

[CalBear]

"He's only topped 13 TDs once" is about the silliest thing I've seen you post, considering that he's had exactly 13 TDs four times. Did you forget about multiple endpoint fallacies when they made you staff?

Here are the list of RBs with 5+ seasons of more than 12 rushing+receiving TDs (choosing the other side of the endpoint):

S.Alexander (5)

M.Allen (6)

J.Brown (5)

M.Faulk (5)

A.Peterson (5)

B.Sanders (5)

E.Smith (7)

L.Tomlinson (8)

Since, excepting Alexander, everyone else on that list is in the HOF, or will be, I think it's safe to say that Peterson historically scores TDs as well as the greatest RBs in history.

No, I didn't forget about multiple endpoints. Yes, I deliberately gerrymandered the cutoffs, completely aware that Peterson had scored exactly 13 a bunch of times. No, I don't think this is unfair. Your list would be totally relevant if we were going to guess who had the most points over a lengthy span, but we're talking about who is going to lead the league in fantasy points over ONE YEAR, and Adrian Peterson's touchdown totals for his career suggest that's less likely. His 5-year touchdown totals are very impressive, but over the last 10 years, here have been the league-leading TD totals on a year-by-year basis: 17, 20, 18, 18, 20, 18, 31, 28, 20, 27. If Adrian Peterson gets 13 TDs again, like he has in 4 out of his 6 seasons, then historically speaking, he'll probably be giving up a half dozen TDs to whoever winds up leading the league. That's going to severely hamper his chances of leading the league in fantasy points.

Calvin Johnson has finished with 5 or fewer TDs three times in his 6-year career (including 2012). Peterson has never finished with fewer than 10. Peterson has finished top-3 in fantasy scoring five times, Calvin three. Peterson has never finished worse than #8 in fantasy scoring (and that was in 12 games); Calvin has finished 20+ twice.

 

[Norcalhoya]

Graham, hands down. Dez and AJG are much bigger threats to Calvin than a broken-down Gronk or Hernandez...Too much competition at QB and RB -- could see at least 5 different players at each position end up being #1.

Yet, Tony G and Witten outscored him last season. (1.5 PPR league)

Right, while graham battled injuries and even missed a game, and he was only a couple points behind.

Witten was pretty useless the first 2 weeks with the spleen issue...

 

[Concept Coop]

Witten was pretty useless the first 2 weeks with the spleen issue...

Unless you get points for drops...

 

[Adam Harstad]

"He's only topped 13 TDs once" is about the silliest thing I've seen you post, considering that he's had exactly 13 TDs four times. Did you forget about multiple endpoint fallacies when they made you staff?

Here are the list of RBs with 5+ seasons of more than 12 rushing+receiving TDs (choosing the other side of the endpoint):

S.Alexander (5)

M.Allen (6)

J.Brown (5)

M.Faulk (5)

A.Peterson (5)

B.Sanders (5)

E.Smith (7)

L.Tomlinson (8)

Since, excepting Alexander, everyone else on that list is in the HOF, or will be, I think it's safe to say that Peterson historically scores TDs as well as the greatest RBs in history.

No, I didn't forget about multiple endpoints. Yes, I deliberately gerrymandered the cutoffs, completely aware that Peterson had scored exactly 13 a bunch of times. No, I don't think this is unfair. Your list would be totally relevant if we were going to guess who had the most points over a lengthy span, but we're talking about who is going to lead the league in fantasy points over ONE YEAR, and Adrian Peterson's touchdown totals for his career suggest that's less likely. His 5-year touchdown totals are very impressive, but over the last 10 years, here have been the league-leading TD totals on a year-by-year basis: 17, 20, 18, 18, 20, 18, 31, 28, 20, 27. If Adrian Peterson gets 13 TDs again, like he has in 4 out of his 6 seasons, then historically speaking, he'll probably be giving up a half dozen TDs to whoever winds up leading the league. That's going to severely hamper his chances of leading the league in fantasy points.

Calvin Johnson has finished with 5 or fewer TDs three times in his 6-year career (including 2012). Peterson has never finished with fewer than 10. Peterson has finished top-3 in fantasy scoring five times, Calvin three. Peterson has never finished worse than #8 in fantasy scoring (and that was in 12 games); Calvin has finished 20+ twice.

What do I care what Calvin did as a rookie? Clearly he took a little while to get up to speed. Clearly he's now a completely different player than he was in 2007. Over the last three seasons, Calvin Johnson has finished 1st, 1st, and 6th (in 15 games- pro-rates to 3rd). Discounting his rookie year (which I think is perfectly fair, and a courtesy I'd be happy to extend to Peterson, as well), Calvin has averaged 10 TDs per 16 games, which is a heck of a lot closer to the league lead at WR than Peterson's 14 TDs per 16 games over his career is at RB. Calvin Johnson's last two seasons are the two best fantasy seasons by any WR over the last half decade. Adrian Peterson's two best seasons (and they are not his two most recent seasons) only rank 3rd and 5th over that span (and Ray Rice's 2011 almost matched Peterson's 2012). Peterson's season was absolutely unbelievable from an actual NFL standpoint. From a purely fantasy points standpoint, though, it wasn't that remarkable- it was your average, run-of-the-mill RB1 finish. Calvin Johnson has been way further ahead of the rest of the field.

And, for the third time, Calvin Johnson has regression working massively in his favor. He only scored 5 TDs last year. He actually had more plays where he was tackled at the 1 yard line than he did where he scored a TD. This is an aberration, and it will change in a huge way. Calvin Johnson should easily double his TD total this year from last year, which will go a long way towards offsetting the huge drop in yards he's no doubt going to see. Adrian Peterson has no such positive force mitigating his inevitable regression in yardage and yards per carry.

If you ask me who is most likely to finish as the #1 RB, it's Adrian Peterson. If you ask me who is most likely to finish #1 at his position, though, it's Calvin Johnson by a substantial margin. He's just been farther out ahead of the field at WR than Peterson has been at RB- and by that, I don't just mean over the last season (which was a crappy year for RBs and a huge year for WRs), I mean over the last three seasons. Calvin's career norms are a lot closer to the typical #1 WR finish than Peterson's career norms are to the typical #1 RB finish.