For starters, Happy Easter to everyone. It’s certainly not the best holiday, especially as an adult. There’s no presents like Christmas. There’s no costume parties like Halloween. There’s no cool explosions like the Fourth of July. And there’s no football like Thanksgiving. So while you’re sitting there trying to avoid small talk with your great-aunt and uncles and stuffing your face with ham, football may not be on the television screen, but it should be on your brain.
Year in and year out during fantasy football drafts, players are drafted too soon. Every league has that ‘scout’ guy/gal who drafts a rookie running back in the third round because, ‘dude, he was a beast in college.’ On the other hand, every league also has that guy/gal who drafts a player who has been consistently mediocre in the fantasy world and says, ‘this is his year.’
I’m here to stop the madness. Just because a player is a household name and he’s started on his team in the past, doesn’t mean he holds the highest value.
Household Names Don’t Always Lead to Big Points in Fantasy Football
Replace Matt Ryan
2016 will be Ryan’s eighth season in the league. At this stage in the game, he’s not going to change. We’ve seen what he can do. At his best, in 2012 and 2014 respectively, he was the number seven fantasy quarterback. However, 2015 was his worst year statistically from a fantasy football standpoint, finishing at QB19, yet he was owned in 88% of leagues. For comparison, Blake Bortles finished as QB4 and was owned in 87% of leagues. Ryan threw 21 touchdowns to 16 interceptions – that’s one interception per game. That’s essentially starting with -2 for your quarterback. He only finished with 20+ points on two different occasions. He only had four games without a turnover. And for his career, he’s only thrown 30+ touchdowns once, during his career-best 2012 campaign.
I recommend avoiding Ryan altogether. He could be a viable waiver wire pick-up later in the season, but his history is inconsistency.
Replace him with Blake Bortles
He finished as the QB4 and with the emergence of Team Allen (Hurns and Robinson), Bortles has enough targets to earn himself top ten potential for 2016. Factor in Chris Ivory and T.J. Yeldon along with a healthy Julius Thomas, and that Jacksonville offense is going to look good in 2016.
Other Substitutes: Jameis Winston, Derek Carr, and Kirk Cousins.
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Replace Frank Gore
The man is durable, I’ll give him that. However, Gore has never really been that home run hitter and 2015 showed that. He failed to reach 100 yards rushing in any of the 16 games. He’s always been the grind-it-out type of running back. Although, with the dumpster fire that occurred in Indianapolis this past season, finishing as the RB12 was nearly a miracle. Then again, how many running backs even made it through the end of the season? Gore finished with only five games with double digit fantasy points. In five other games, he only scored five or fewer points. He was extremely touchdown dependent and in an offense captained by Andrew Luck, I look for Indy to throw heavily. That doesn’t favor the volume-dependent Gore in his future fantasy football endeavors.
Replace him with Lamar Miller
ALL ABOARD. The Miller hype-train is here and I’m the conductor. Miller finished as the RB6 in 2015 in a Miami offense that was difficult to decipher, to put it nicely. Miller had six games with less than ten carries and four with ten touches or less and STILL finished with 1,267 total yards and ten touchdowns – that’s efficiency. Now, move that efficiency to Houston with Bill O’Brien. Houston was fifth in rushing attempts in 2015 using running backs like Alfred Blue and Jonathan Grimes. Imagine what they’ll do with a Lamar Miller. Opposing teams sure aren’t going to fill the box – not with DeAndre Hopkins lining up outside.
Other Substitutes: Demarco Murray, Thomas Rawls, Eddie Lacy, Ryan Mathews
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Replace Demaryius Thomas
Thomas finished 2015 at the number 13 wide receiver, which is respectable. He had eight games with double digit fantasy points, which means he also had eight games under ten fantasy points. He had just six touchdowns after having ten in each of the previous three seasons. He was fifth in the league in drops. He did have a lot going on off the field last season regarding his mother getting out of prison, so I’m sure that weighed heavily on him. But as of right now he has Mark Sanchez throwing him the ball and that doesn’t scream production.
Replace him with Sammy Watkins
Watkins finished as the WR16 after missing four games early in the year with a calf injury. After Buffalo’s bye week in week eight, Watkins finally hit his stride. In the last four weeks of the season, Watkins scored 59 fantasy points, fifth among wide receivers behind Doug Baldwin, Julio Jones, Brandon Marshall, and Antonio Brown. He finished 2015 with 1,047 receiving yards and nine touchdowns on 96 targets. His only downfall is playing on a team led by Rex Ryan. In 2015, the Bills were second overall in rush attempts and 31st overall in pass attempts. When the Bills throw the ball, Watkins in the focal point, but the consistency of that may not be as clear as one would hope.
Other Substitutions: Kelvin Benjamin, Mike Evans, Randall Cobb
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Replace Jason Witten
He finished 2015 as the TE12. This was his first season not finishing in the top ten among fantasy tight ends since 2006. He scored three touchdowns – two in week one and the other in week 16. In the remaining 14 games, Witten failed to record more than seven fantasy points.
Replace with Coby Fleener
Fleener may not be Jimmy Graham, but he’s better than Ben Watson – both of whom flourished with Drew Brees at the helm. In the past five years, the number one Saints tight ends have finished at: 8, 3, 1, 1, and 2 in the respective seasons. Marques Colston retired this offseason, opening the middle of the field for a guy like Fleener. With Brandin Cooks taking the top off of defenses, Fleener will have open spaces in the middle of the field and I look for him to capitalize on them.
Other Substitutions: Zach Ertz, Zach Miller, Ladarius Green
