Fantasy Football is Won on Tuesdays

For those who follow this blog you know FFIWOT (click here for WTF is FFIWOT) does not put a lot of stock in the preseason. Who cares what what star players do for one quarter against a bunch of third stringers looking to make the team or guys who know they have made the team and just don’t want to get hurt.

In fact, FFIWOT doesn’t even follow the preseason. What’s the point? It’s a distraction. Better to study what happened in the offseason (coming in a later post). The preseason is filled with hype and BS. While yes, the preseason can give valuable insights it more often offers up false hopes and misleading data. The preseason is a time for trades based on the hype. We’ll talk about that in a later post.

The preseason is also filled with rookie hype. Good lord, can we ever hear enough rookie hype from these guys who worship at the alter of college football? FFIWOT does not follow the JV. Again, why bother? Despite the fact that over the past 25 years you can count on one hand the number of rookie QBs who have come in and put up big numbers in their first year, we hears what seems like millions of hours spent debating the merits of each year’s new crops.

From a fantasy perspective, who the hell cares! FFIWOT Rule: Never keep a rookie QB on your roster. Sorry Mr. Flacco (QB Bal) and Mr. Ryan (QB Atl) but you will not even ride the pine on my team. For that matter, another FFIWOT Rule: Never keep a first year starting QB on your roster. Sorry Mr. J.T. O’Sullivan (QB SF). Let the fool coaches on the other teams in your fantasy league try and find the next Peyton Manning (QB Ind) or Dan Marino (QB Mia ret.) because for every one of them there are 25 Cade McNown’s (QB Chi). Look at Trent Edwards (QB Buf), who had a very respectable rookie season for a QB but I still wouldn’t have wanted him as my starting Fantasy QB or even my bye week QB. I will keep an eye on him this year but I not ready to commit if you know what I mean.

As far as rookies go, running back is usually the only position where an impact can be made by a rookie (Adrian Petersen, Min) with any degree of predictability and even then it’s rare to have a guy who you know has the talent and is on a team with blocking and where they will be the featured back.This year it looks like a couple prospects to watch include Matt Forte (RB Chi), Rashard Mendenhall (RB Pit), Jonathan Stewart (RB Car), and Kevin Smith (RB Det). My personal favorite is Mendenhall. I have always thought Willie Parker was not smashmouth enough for Pittsburgh but with a Bettis (RB Pit ret.) like north south back, a successful RBBC (Running Back By Committee) favoring Mendenhall. Look for box scores like this:

Parker 13 for 66 yds

Mendenhall 8 for 41 yds 1 TD

And Every third week or so count on Parker breaking a long one adding 45 yards and a TD to the above stats. You may ask where is Darren McFadden (RB Oak)? My answer would be, “He is in Oakland, that’s where he is”

You could argue that there are usually some rookie Wide Receivers that have good fantasy years but we could counter back that while that is true, it’s usually not the rookies that were predicted to do well during the preseason. Calvin Johnson (WR Det) would be an exception but for every Calvin Johnson there are several Charles Rogers (WR FA).

As for other positions, we’ll see. John Carlson (TE Sea) is getting the start in Seattle but even if he has a great rookie year that would probably place him in the mediocre middle of the pack of tight end where one is just as good as the other.

Finally a word about Drafts. We don’t offer ranking sheets and we don’t offer predictions. Personally I do auto-drafts and play with whatever the football gods decide to give me. FFIWOT is all about building on the team you have after the draft so look to one of the many other fantasy football sites for draft information but come back to us after the draft.

Good luck to all and lets get ready for some football!

-Chris

I’m quite sure I have pissed off many of you with this headline. Why is it, every year there is a diehard crowd of college football aficionados who proclaim the next coming with some super stud or studs entering the NFL? And there is always a quarterback mentioned. WHY? Name three rookie QB’s who had impactful numbers from a fantasy perspective. Individual games, sure but seasons, no. I’ll take a solid second string veteran journeyman over an erratic rookie any bye week.

Let’s look at the other positions. Running back is the one exception when a rookie can be impactful. The thing about RB is that when it happens it is seldom a surprise as this is the spotlight position in JV (college ball ;-). The real problem here is that the guy who will run the best in the NFL generally goes to the crappiest team so that despite a lot of talent, they will have little supporting cast and probably be playing from behind and thus passing.

Receivers and Tight ends? It seems there are always a couple rookies that come from nowhere to put up decent number but these guys seem to happen at random. I’d like to meet the guy who predicted Marques Colston’s year. Ok, kickers. They don’t count. There is no “game” for them to learn they kick the frickin ball.

My rules are simple. I don’t waste time scouting rookies in college, in combines, in training camp or in the preseason. I don’t scout rookies. Weeks played in the NFL show a rookie’s worth. Sometimes a guy will come out of the blue and have one, maybe two good weeks then he is shut down. This happens because there is limited scouting and preparation on them. Once they have a game, every team in the league builds a book on them and shuts them down.

The point is, yes you can find exceptions to everything above but wasting time on rookies when it could be spent on experienced player opportunities is not a wise move. For every rookie gem you discover and pick the rest of us will have a field of diamonds on our bench ready to take us to the championship

-Chris