In a fantasy football draft, every single pick is important. Sure,
it’s not impossible to recover from a terrible pick if you
find a breakout player deep in the draft or discover a waiver wire
gem, or perhaps your fellow league-mates make some terrible picks
as well. The reality, however, is that those things cannot be counted
on and do not happen all that often, so it is vital to make every
one of your draft picks count rather than be wasted on players that
will under-produce in terms of where they were drafted, what you
expect from them, or who you could have had instead. In this piece
I will be examining some players I think can ruin your draft based
on where they are being drafted, or sometimes just in general. It
is important to note that this info is based on 12-team standard-scoring
leagues. And while I don’t necessarily think all these players
will have bad years, I do think they are either very bad values
where they are being taken or simply too risky to be taken at all.
Also, I picked 10 players that all have seventh-round ADPs or better
because these picks are generally going to be starters for your
team, thus making them extremely valuable and important picks.
We love Rodgers but the depth at QB this
fantasy season makes it easy to pass on him in the 2nd round.
Aaron
Rodgers, GB
(ADP 2.10, QB1)
Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Rodgers is a fantasy
stud. He has a strong, accurate arm, an excellent set of skill position
players to throw to, a pass-first offense, and the mobility to add
some yards and touchdowns on the ground. Of course, the loss of
his starting left tackle for the year may hurt his production, and
the loss of Greg
Jennings certainly doesn’t help, but Rodgers is still an easy
top 5 fantasy QB. The issue I have with taking him is not Rodgers
himself but the premium you will have to pay to get him. I’ve seen
Rodgers go as high as mid first round in a few drafts I’ve done
and never lower than early third round. The big issue I see here
(and why I think taking him hurts your draft) is that the first
three to three and a half rounds are vital to loading up on RBs
and WRs because the quality of each drops fairly dramatically after
Round 3. In a 12-team standard league, most if not all teams will
draft just one QB in the first eight or so rounds, meaning even
if you are the last team to get a QB, the position is so deep this
year that you should still end up with a guy like RG3 or Tony
Romo, who both could conceivably be as good as Rodgers when
all is said and done. If you take Rodgers within the first three
rounds, however, you are missing out on sure-fire starters at the
RB and WR positions, which are much harder to find in the later
rounds of the draft. You could very well miss out on WRs like Demaryius
Thomas, Larry
Fitzgerald, Randall
Cobb, Roddy
White, and Vincent
Jackson and have to draft an Antonio
Brown, Marques
Colston, Wes
Welker, or Danny
Amendola in their place. That is a significant drop from a low-
to mid-range WR1 to a low-end WR2 or high-end WR3. For RBs the drop
is even more significant, as guys like Reggie
Bush, Lamar
Miller, Le’Veon
Bell, and David
Wilson are usually there to take around where Rodgers is going.
In their place you would get a Giovani
Bernard, Chris
Ivory, Eddie
Lacy, and Ahmad
Bradshaw. Once again, to me this is a scary drop-off since the
guys you may miss out on are pretty sure-fire starters (RB2s), whereas
the other group are more RB3s or flex guys that you might have to
count on to be RB2s. Once again, this is not a knock on Rodgers
ability, as I believe he will have a great year, but in order to
get him I believe you have to pay a price that ultimately could
ruin your draft, and thereby possibly your season.
Tom
Brady, NE
(ADP 5.05, QB6)
A lot of what I said about Rodgers would apply to Brady here; he
is a very talented quarterback who I think will have a fine year
but is being drafted too soon. Of course, the quality of players
at this point in the draft (two and a half rounds after Rodgers)
is certainly less, but the same principle applies; you can get an
equal or better QB one to three rounds after where Brady goes, so
why not load up on more shallow positions instead of taking Brady?
Why I would urge you to pass over Brady even more so than Rogers
is that Brady's situation has changed significantly this offseason,
and not for the better. The Pats lost four significant players in
the passing game: Wes Welker, Aaron
Hernandez, Danny
Woodhead, and Brandon
Lloyd. Obviously Lloyd and Woodhead’s loss is to a much lesser
degree than the others, but the fact remains that Brady will have
to throw to a lot of new faces, many of whom are rookies and unproven
players. Add this to the fact that Brady’s top target, tight end
Rob
Gronkowski, is currently recovering from multiple surgeries
and may either miss or be rusty for much of the regular season,
and newly acquired receiver Danny
Amendola is an injury risk, and you have a possible recipe for
disaster. As talented as Tom Brady is, the Pats may actually move
to a run-first attack if the passing game doesn’t click, since they
have two nice running backs (Ridley and Vereen) and a decent defense
to keep games close. People may forget since it has been awhile,
but Bill Belichick came into the league as a run-first coach, and
he would not be afraid to revert to that if the personnel so dictates.
The bottom line is that Tom Brady is a great NFL quarterback but
this is fantasy football, and this year you should probably skip
over him in your drafts, take another (probably better) QB later,
and reap the benefits of the increased value you are getting.
Marshawn
Lynch, SEA
(ADP: 1.06, RB5)
There is a lot to like about Lynch; he’s coming off a career year
in which he ran for over 1,500 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, he’s
the main running back in a run-based attack, and he is still just
27 years old. With this being said, Lynch is obviously a great fantasy
RB option to own, and I’m not totally taking him off my draft board.
However, I do think there is cause for concern, and he is being
drafted too high in my opinion. Lynch may be only 27 years old,
but he has a lot of mileage on his wheels, with well over 1,600
total touches in his six-year career. Add to this the fact that
Lynch’s game is not about trying to dance around people and avoid
hits but rather run through them, and you begin to wonder about
the toll this type of pounding has on his body. While it is impossible
to predict injuries, most NFL running backs don’t make it more than
a few years without injury, and with Lynch’s running style, his
time may be coming. While last year’s numbers were indeed fantastic,
Lynch was not exactly a fantasy stud his previous five years. He
totaled 1,590 yards on the ground while his previous high was 300
yards less, and in his first five years he averaged a bit less than
1,000 yards per year. Another career high last year was his 5.0
yards per carry; but in his previous five years he averaged 3.9,
a significant difference. These numbers tell me that last year may
have been a bit of a fluke rather than the norm, meaning you are
drafting Lynch based on last year’s numbers and not what he will
most likely do this year. Another drawback to Lynch is that he is
not involved in the passing game much, so when a game gets a bit
out of hand for the Seahawks, Lynch may be on the sideline. Speaking
of the sideline, it may be harder to keep Lynch’s fellow running
backs there this season, as the Seahawks used a second-round pick
on Christine
Michael, a super-talented running back who is having a very
strong offseason. Combined with Robert
Turbin, a rookie last year who showed flashes of excellence,
the Seahawks may begin to give their younger guys more looks in
order to see what they have for the future. All in all, I’m not
predicting a total bust of a year for Lynch, but as a mid-first
round pick, there are much safer guys out there with just as much,
or more, upside.
Darren
McFadden, RB
(ADP: 3.07, RB20)
McFadden has as much talent as any other running back in the league.
He has elite size, speed, quickness and vision and a good set of
hands as well. He has a firm lock on the every-down back job for
a team that should run the ball a good amount. But with all this
being said, McFadden will not be on a single one of my teams this
year. While he has loads of talent and the skills to be a top 5
fantasy back, with the cold hard fact that he is injury prone, he
is also not fooling anyone. How does that old saying go? Fool me
once shame on you, but fool me five seasons in a row, shame on all
of us. In five seasons McFadden has played just 47 games, averaging
fewer than 10 per year. In addition to missing a ton of games, he
has left early in a good handful of games he started and was the
dreaded “game time decision” in a whole lot more. In other words,
he is basically a walking ulcer for his fantasy owners, who have
to constantly monitor and worry about his situation each week. Add
all this to the fact that the Oakland quarterback situation will
make defenses put eight in the box to stop McFadden, and you have
an ugly situation. While his ADP may not seem that high for a back
of his talent level, the players that you miss out on by taking
him are way safer with nearly as much upside. They include Randall
Cobb, Roddy
White, Andre
Johnson, Victor
Cruz, Vincent Jackson, and Le’Veon
Bell. I would take any of these guys in a heartbeat before I
took McFadden, and I wouldn’t take McFadden at all unless by some
crazy chance he was there in the sixth round or so. While it is
tempting to take a guy who could hypothetically end up a top 10
fantasy back in the middle of the third round, it is smarter to
be realistic and realize that McFadden is more hype than substance
and more risk than value.
Darren
Sproles, NO
(ADP: 3.12, RB23)
In PPR leagues Sproles is a potential top 15 RB, with the likelihood
of his seeing or more catches every single game. Sproles is a much
riskier play in standard leagues, where the amount of catches he
gets matters very little. This is not to say I would totally avoid
Sproles in standard leagues, as he still has some intrigue as a
flex player, but I feel there is better talent out there at the
end of the third round in guys that should see more consistent playing
time. As for touches in the receiving game, Sproles is probably
fourth in line at the very best, behind tight end Jimmy
Graham and wide receivers Marques
Colston and Lance
Moore. Pierre
Thomas (currently atop the running back depth chart) is also
a very good receiver out of the backfield, and there is a good buzz
about receivers Nick
Toon and Kenny
Stills in training camp. In other words, Sproles will in no
way be the focus of the passing game this season. While running
the ball has never been Sproles’ strength, the Saints have publicly
stated they want to emphasize the run more this year, and in this
sense Sproles is no better than third on the depth chart in the
run game behind Thomas and Mark
Ingram, who has also had a great training camp by all accounts.
I don’t think Sproles will have a bad year, but with his late-third-round
ADP, it seems people are expecting him to return to his 2011 form,
and I see that as a bit out of reach now that there is greater competition
and may be less emphasis on the passing game. There are a ton of
upper-tier WRs in the range in which Sproles is being drafted, so
do yourself a favor and grab one of them rather than reaching for
Sproles.
Chris
Ivory, NYJ
(ADP: 5:03, RB26)
I really liked Ivory in New Orleans where I (along with a lot of
people) thought he was being underutilized. Ivory has a good combination
of size, speed and burst and talent-wise may be capable of NFL stardom.
One of the main problems with Ivory unfortunately is that even though
he was not used very often, he still battled a host of injuries
including knee, foot, hamstring, and concussion issues. Now he is
supposedly being counted on as a near full-time back and we are
supposed to trust that, with more banging and running and hitting,
he will be injured less? That is a huge leap of faith that I am
not willing to take. If Ivory were the main guy on a high-powered
offense with an excellent passing game to free the running back
to find big holes, then maybe I would say the risk is worth it.
He is likely to be very productive when he is healthy. This, however,
is the 2013 New York Jets, with a big problem (or problems) at quarterback,
no real legitimate threats in the receiving department, and a good
but not great offensive line. Besides maybe the Jags and the Raiders,
I see this as one of the NFL’s worst offenses and, thus, it may
be hard to get consistent production from anyone on this team—whether
they are healthy or not. I see the very best scenario for Ivory
being that he plays a full 12-14 games and ends up with just over
1,000 yards and 4-5 touchdowns. The worst-case scenario is that
he plays much less and struggles in a constantly over-matched offense,
putting up less than 500 yards on the season. The reality is probably
somewhere in the middle, but to me he is someone I am avoiding.
He's practically a wasted pick at that point in the draft. I’d much
rather have Matt
Ryan, Vernon
Davis, Jordy
Nelson, Giovani
Bernard, or Shane
Vereen, just to name a few guys being drafted after Ivory.
DeMarco
Murray, DAL
(ADP 3.02. RB18)
Murray is another guy that I really like watching and want to believe
in as a possible star, but I see him as more of a guy who will burn
you and be a terrible value at where he is being drafted. In just
two seasons, Murray has already missed nine games with leg injuries
and has been injury-prone dating back to his college days. Of course
the argument can be made that these were fluke injuries, but Murray
is reminding me more and more of Darren
McFadden at this point in his career—a guy who has a ton of
talent but due to his running style or his makeup or something,
he just can’t stay on the field. On top of injuries being a major
red flag, the Cowboys offense itself may be another reason to scare
away potential Murray owners. The Cowboys have ranked 24th and 31st
in rushing attempts the past two seasons and have made the passing
game much more of a focal point. With weapons like Dez
Bryant, Jason
Witten, and Miles
Austin still around, there is little reason to imagine much
changing this year. That means that even if Murray is healthy, he
may not get the touches necessary to justify his fairly high ADP.
In addition to this, the Cowboys have some talented backs behind
Murray in Joseph Randle and Lance
Dunbar, who have looked good this preseason and may be used
to keep Murray fresh. All this adds up to a severely limited for
Murray, despite his physical talent. I therefore see him as more
of a mid to late fourth-round pick, not an early third, which is
where he is currently being taken. At his ADP, I’d much rather have
Larry
Fitzgerald, Lamar
Miller, Randall
Cobb, Victor
Cruz, or Roddy
White, to name just a few.
Wes
Welker, DEN
(ADP: 4.07, WR15)
I love Welker as a player, not only because he works hard, is scrappy,
and has been consistent, but because he’s one of the few big-time
NFL players that I’m actually quite a bit bigger than! The problem
that I see with Welker this year is that many people are drafting
him based more on his past performance than this year’s potential,
which I see as significantly less than years past. Unlike many of
the guys profiled in this article, Welker is not much of an injury
risk (4 games missed in 9 years) but is more of a risk to drop significantly
in production. Most of his previous production has been based on
volume, as he is not a touchdown machine and doesn’t have the long
speed to catch deep bombs. In New England, Welker was a great fantasy
player because he would catch a hundred balls every year, making
him an excellent WR2 because he would rack up 70 or 80 yards every
game, even if his touchdown totals were not on par with other top
fantasy WRs. This year Welker will not be the focal point of the
offense, and in fact may not even be among the top two options,
as both Demaryius Thomas and Eric
Decker are entrenched as solid passing game options and have
a year of experience with quarterback Peyton
Manning. Welker, by his own admittance, expects his reception
total to drop significantly, saying “If I have to catch 112 balls,
that probably means we’re in trouble.” Most people around the Broncos
organization feel that 75 or so receptions is about what to look
for this year, and while this is certainly a nice number for most
NFL receivers, it is not that of a high-end fantasy WR2 (where he
is being drafted) unless his touchdown totals rise significantly
over the six or so he averaged each year with the Patriots. I would
not bet on that, and neither should you. Welker is currently being
over-valued in the mid-fourth round. If I’m looking for a high-upside
but fairly safe player to be my WR2 this year, I’d much rather take
Pierre
Garcon, Torrey
Smith, Dwayne
Bowe, or DeSean
Jackson, who are all being drafted around or after Welker’s
current ADP.
Tavon
Austin, STL
(ADP; 7.03, WR29)
In a PPR league and especially a dynasty league, I like the chances
of Austin becoming a very valuable player. But this is a standard
redraft league we are talking about here, and in this case I believe
Austin is a wasted pick. Austin was a dynamic playmaker in college
and has the potential to be the same in the NFL. And with comparisons
to Randall Cobb and Percy
Harvin already being made, I’m sure many fantasy owners are
drooling at his potential. The real issue this year is that he also
has a lot of things going against him. For one, he is a rookie,
and very few rookie wide receivers, especially those with his lack
of dominating size, make a real significant impact as fantasy players.
Secondly, the Rams have some real potential in a lot of areas, including
quarterback, where Sam
Bradford seems to be improving yearly, but they are still very
much a work in progress and are far from an offensive powerhouse.
Third, while there are no real studs in the Rams receiving corps
right now, they are fairly deep with tight end Jared
Cook and receivers Chris
Givens, Brian Quick, Austin
Pettis, and third-round pick Stedman
Bailey. While Austin has as much or more talent than all of
these guys, he still needs to show it and battle for touches within
a deep roster of hungry talent. The most likely scenario involves
a big timeshare among the receivers, where everybody contributes
and has some good games but nobody really dominates to the level
of fantasy stardom. Rams front office man Kevin Demoff recently
echoed these sentiments, saying that they won’t necessarily have
any one player catching 70 plus balls, but rather four or five guys
catching 40 to 50. For the Rams this may be a good strategy to get
everyone involved and spread the wealth, but for fantasy owners
this is most likely a maddening scenario where a guy like Austin
catches five balls for 80 yards one week then one for nine the next.
Long term, Tavon Austin is a player to closely monitor; but this
year you should do yourself a favor and pass him up. While the players
at Austin’s ADP begin to thin out, I still much prefer Cecil
Shorts, Anquan
Boldin, Andre
Brown, and Miles
Austin, all with lower ADPs then Austin.
Greg
Jennings, MIN
(ADP 7.11, WR32)
You would think a guy with Jennings’ resume would be among the top
20 wide receivers off the board, but after an injury-filled season
and a huge change of scenery—and about to turn 30—Jennings' value,
upside, and outlook is very poor. After knocking the Packers organization
this offseason, Jennings has the opportunity to put his money where
his mouth is and remain an above-average player for a different
team. Of course, the main issue about Jennings' move to the Vikings
is that he went from a pass-happy team with an elite quarterback
and plenty of supporting talent to take the pressure off, to a run-happy
team with one of the least talented quarterbacks with unproven talent
around him. In the seventh to tenth rounds of redraft leagues, I
want to find sleepers that might break out big or at least be a
steady and consistent option as a bye-week fill in or injury replacement.
Jennings would qualify as neither of those this year, as you will
most likely see a couple of good games scattered within a bunch
where he would be unstartable in all but the very deepest leagues.
Even if Christian
Ponder somehow improves enough to put up decent stats on a consistent
basis, the ball will likely be spread around more to the slot receiver
or tight end Kyle
Rudolph, or possibly even to talented rookie wide receiver Cordarrelle
Patterson. To me, Jennings is being drafted on name basis and
past performance, but anyone who takes him before the last couple
of rounds will be sorely disappointed. At his current ADP (late
7th) I’d much rather take my chances on guys like Mark
Ingram, Ronnie
Hillman, Kenny
Britt, Josh
Gordon, and Golden
Tate.
Suggestions, comments? E-mail
me.
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