One website did - RotoSource, publishing the results from their Fantasy Football Projection Competition. In this, the 2006 FF Today projections ranked #2 overall out of 17 fantasy football information services, which included both free and pay subscriber content model websites in the sample.

This is a great result for FF Today! However, to ensure FF Today is taking appropriate accountability for its pre-season projections, I wanted to do our own comparison and grading of head honcho Mike Krueger.

I did an exercise reviewing FF Today's 2006 QB projections to actual stats, and you should go back and read that article first for a more thorough introduction on why we're doing this. Now, it's time to look at running backs...

Running Backs

Similar to the full QB table comparing projections to actual stats, the RB table is quite long. Krueger does project about 100 RB going into each season. But for a guy like, say, Jason Wright of Cleveland, if Krueger projects him at 222 yards and 1 TD, and he ends up with 271 yards and 0 TD, for a difference of 1.1 points, does that really matter? I guess only if you were high on Jason Wright's prospects back in 2006.

In this case it wasn't as easy to filter out just projected starting RB as it was with the QB position. We expect multiple RB on a team to contribute, and expect Krueger to help identify those guys for us in his projections.

Instead, I took out all RB who were both projected under 60 fantasy points and actually ended up scoring under 60 fantasy points. While these players certainly would help Krueger's difference column, realistically, they are not overly relevant to this analysis. This left us with, coincidentally, exactly 60 players to review.

Under-projected:

On The Mark:

Over-projected:

For the QB analysis, we considered the players with differences of +/- 40 fantasy points, or 2.5 fantasy points per game, to be on the mark. The rationalization was that 2.5 fantasy points per game is not a very big difference. For RB, if we stick to the 2.5 points per game, this equates to 25 yards in our scoring, or less than half a TD. Now how many times has my RB come this close to breaking one more tackle for an extra 2.5 points? I'd rather not think about it.

However, the 2.5 does seem a tad arbitrary. In the QB article, it seemed reasonable to include Carson Palmer as the outer boundary of the on the mark range because he had a projection rank of 7th and finished with an actual rank of 5th. Pretty tough to say that the Palmer projection was not on the mark. To further justify our under-projected, on the mark and over-projected categories for RB, let's review some of the reasons why the players are falling in each category.

Of the players whose actual results exceeded their projections the most, Ladell Betts, Travis Henry, Ron Dayne and Justin Fargas all had their expected roles change from backup to starter for an extended period of time to allow them to really rack up some numbers.

In the case of Maurice Jones-Drew, Marion Barber, Deuce McAllister, Laurence Maroney and Brandon Jacobs, each player's role did not change significantly from expectations, but they really produced a ton even in a reserve role. You can see in Barber's case, the projected number of carries was very close to the actual, 126 to 136, but Barber scored 12 additional TD from the projections. Phenomenal.

When I say that Jones-Drew's role didn't change significantly, we know his opportunities went up quite a bit as the Jaguars had much more confidence in him, but really his role on the team as a change of pace and backup to Fred Taylor did not change. He did start 1 game against New England in Week 16 and racked up 29 of his points in that single contest.

Projected starters going into the season, LaDainian Tomlinson, Frank Gore, Steven Jackson, Willie Parker and Brian Westbrook all just did much better in the same role as starters than the projections predicted they would.

Kevin Jones is the first name inside -40 fantasy points difference. His actual stats exceeded his projections due to impressive receiving yard totals and a couple more TD. The thing is, Jones missed 4 games. Looking beyond our rigid 40-point guideline, Jones should be included in the under-projected category, and I've adjusted as such in the above table.

Then Maurice Morris, Michael Turner and Anthony Thomas all saw a modest bump in their results from the projections due to more work. Morris doubled his workload due to Shaun Alexander's injury, and essentially doubled his fantasy points. Thomas started 2 games for the Bills. Turner stayed in the same backup role to Tomlinson, had some more carries and did a little more on a per carry average. I don't think we can reasonably downgrade Krueger for these projections, so we'll move Kevin Jones but keep these guys inside the on the mark category.

On the other end of the spectrum, Alexander, LaMont Jordan and Clinton Portis all lost significant time due to injury. Mostly ineffective play hurt the others in the over-projected category. At the edge of this category, T.J. Duckett just barely missed our 60/60 fantasy point cut-off from getting dropped from this list. Duckett's contribution to this analysis, much like his fantasy output in recent years, is marginal at best.

Warrick Dunn and Edgerrin James were under-projected by 30 points. Looking at the stats, they each missed by only 2 TD and less than 200 yards (even though James needed an additional 76 touches to get his numbers). For significant starters like these two falling within 30 points of their projections it would seem to me they are appropriately categorized as on the mark.

Players That Matter

Now the fun part. Let's look at the players that have the biggest difference in their projection rank from their Average Draft Position ("ADP"). These are the players that will have the biggest influence on people drafting from the FF Today projections, because if the FF Today projections exceed the ADP, FF Today users are more likely to draft these players. If the projections result in much lower rankings than the ADP, then FF Today users are then unlikely to draft these players. These are considered my "players that matter". Please refer to the QB article for more explanation.

Its an interesting list. One that could perhaps have 2 sub-sets. One of players that matter, and one of players that really matter. I mean, Mewelde Moore? Was anyone winning or losing games last year because of Mewelde Moore? I don't think so. Correll Buckhalter, Cedric Houston and Duckett would all be similar. I'd say Ron Dayne too other than that improbable 3 game stretch of over 350 yards and 5 TD which just happened to coincide with weeks 14, 15 and 16. Classic FF In The Groin material there.

Generally the lower a player's ADP, the more likely it is there will be a difference between the projection rank and the ADP, just because the players are more interchangeable at the bottom end of the rankings. The 50th ranked RB compared to the 70th ranked RB is a lot less relevant than, say, the 3rd to the 8th. But, we do certainly have some big names on this list too, and in the interest of not making this my dissertation, let's keep them in one list.

Twenty-four RB with a difference from their ADP greater than or equal to +/- 5. Of the 24, 13 assessed as good and 11 assessed as bad.

The under-projections of Travis Henry and Ladell Betts are understandable because these guys came from relatively out of no where to be thrust into the starting RB position on their teams, plus they performed well in doing so. However, at the 65th and 68th projected RB, there was little indication for people using the FF Today projections to identify these guys as good long-shot picks.

One thing I find particularly impressive is the rate of good to bad assessments for rookies, who one could reason are the biggest unknowns and therefore hardest to predict. Joseph Addai, Wali Lundy, Jones-Drew, Jerious Norwood, Reggie Bush, Mike Bell and Maroney were all drafted in 2006, all made this list and a "bad" was only given to Lundy and Maroney. I can sense Matt Waldman's influence on Krueger's projections. Matt's 2006 Rookie Scouting Portfolio listed Addai, Jones-Drew and Lundy as his top 3 Underrated RB Prospects.

Best Projection

No doubt in my mind, it was Joseph Addai. I usually feel Krueger is conservative with rookies, but he picked his shot here and he couldn't have been more accurate, which turned out extremely advantageous for people drafting off the FF Today projections. An ADP of 27 but Krueger projected Addai 11th, Addai must have ended up on many teams managed by FF Today patrons. The projection was off by a mere 11.5 fantasy points. He nailed this one folks and it was definitely a player that really mattered in determining fantasy football wins and losses in 2006.

Honorable mention for the Mike Bell projection. It is easy to get caught up in the Denver starting RB hype hoping you can land the next Terrell Davis. Bell was the de facto starter, but Krueger appropriately assessed what Mike Bell brought to the table, and kept the hype in check projecting out Bell as the 33rd RB. Bell's ADP was 25 making him a likely regular starter for many fantasy teams in 2006. The projection difference from our top chart was only 8 fantasy points.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't give mention to some incredibly close projections at RB, even though the players didn't fall into our players that matter list. Larry Johnson, Chester Taylor and Cedric Benson all within 7 fantasy points of the projections for the season. The Taylor one in particular, on a brand new team with a first time head coach and Taylor's first time as a starter, off by only 1.1 fantasy points. Wow, nice job.

Worst Projection

This is a tougher choice picking a clear worst projection at RB. Kevin Jones is a yes in some ways and a no in others. Yes in that Krueger appeared to underrate his talent and opportunity in the Mike Martz offense. Jones was getting drafted as the 16th RB while Krueger had him projected out to be 31st, so very few FF Today users would likely have drafted Jones last year. If not for the injury, Jones would have been significantly under-projected. But there is the rub. Because of the injury in which Jones missed the most important weeks of the fantasy season, FF Today users were not burned by having Jones and being forced to rely on someone else come playoff time.

The over-projection of Kevan Barlow was a negative with an ADP difference of 9 spots. Julius Jones' over-projection was a more significant 6 spot difference though, due to him being projected as the 13th RB. The yardage projection was good for Julius Jones but his TD projection getting cut in half due to the effectiveness of Marion Barber made Julius Jones a frustrating player to own last season. I'll give a tie on worst projection to the Jones duo, Kevin and Julius.

Running Backs Overall Grade

I thought initially the QB projections would grade out better than the RB. Taking a closer look at the numbers and the players that matter, and assessing reasons for the projection differences and if these should have been accounted for based on known information at the time of the projections, now I'm giving the edge to the RB projections. Overall grade this time, a B+.