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Two Linemen, Dropping Into Coverage
In perhaps the least stunning news of the offseason, Brett Favre has apparently been in touch with the Green Bay Packers about “coming out” of his retirement.
First of all, we predicted this when he announced his retirement back in March that Favre would quarterback the Packers to a comeback win over Minnesota at some point during the 2008 season.
Second, he has only missed a couple mini camps. Since it’s only been four months and he typically misses a couple of those anyway, it hasn’t been long enough to call it “coming out” of retirement.
One of the reasons that we started this blog was that Andy and I generally talk a lot of fantasy football throughout the season. And preseason. And pre-preseason. Enough that, even though we don’t have full time jobs writing about it, we often think we would be better at doing so than many people that do.
Case in point:
Article (already discussed here) from Yahoo that amongst other things, has three “experts” pciking their ‘Top 5 players you’ll most heavily target in drafts.’ Now, I don’t know about you, but the top guys that I most heavily target in a draft are usually guys that will go in the first 2-3 rounds–maybe into the 4th, if I’m lucky. Beyond that, it’s not so much that I targeted them, as they were the best of the rest. Or the best of the worst.
In this article, Andy Behrens lists his #4 player as Matt Forte, rookie RB for the Bears. Even links to an article, where apparently the value of Forte was previously discussed (I’d go into more detail, but it appears this article has already disappeared from Yahoo).
Now, fast forward to an article posted today, written by the same Andy Behrens. In this article, which ranks the Bears as the worst team in the NFL from a fantasy stand point–a point I can probably agree with him on. However, check out that first paragraph:
“Not surprisingly, there are no Bears among the top 25 quarterbacks in the Yahoo! experts composite rankings. There are also no Bears among the top 25 running backs, or the top 50 receivers, or the top 12 tight ends.”
So apparently, I’m supposed to be heavily targetting Matt Forte, despite the fact that he’s not a top 25 back.
The lesson here? Both at ZoneBlitz and at Yahoo, you get what you pay for, in regards to fantasy football advice.
When he was being ignored by the higher-ups in Miami and appeared destined to stay stuck with the Dolphins in 2008 it was easier to feel for defensive end-linebacker Jason Taylor. However, when his posse leaked to the media his lack of interest in going to Green Bay because the market isn’t big enough he risked losing some goodwill.
Sure, the Packers reside in middle America. And sure, Brett Favre retired this offseason, making the season ahead much more murky.
But this is a team coming off a 13-3 season during which it surprised the league by reaching the NFC Championship game. Aaron Rodgers, while unproven, comes with a decent enough pedigree to think the team will at least be competitive during the season ahead.
As mentioned more times than you probably care to read Zoneblitz is operated by a pair of homegrown Minnesota Vikings fans. That’s been more frustrating than joyous for the past six or seven years but you’ve got to stick with your team, don’t you?
Anyway, if Dr. Z at Sports Illustrated is right we Minnesotans might finally get our payoff this year. He’s pegged the Vikes to knock off Dallas, New York, New Orleans, and all other comers to grab the NFC berth in the big game.
Six weeks until training camp, but Yahoo! is already full force into their barrage of Fantasy Football ‘08. They had a 10-round mock draft a few weeks back, and today writers Brandon Funston, Andy Behrens, and Brad Evans provided some top 5 Fantasy lists.
The first thing that jumped out at us? It appears that everyone wants to pick the next Adrian Peterson. Each guy had at least one rookie RB in their ‘Top 5 Players [tehy'll] most heavily target’ list–and Behrens had two. Which strikes me as downright foolish, given that few rookie RB’s contribute to the level of an Adrian Peterson.
Jonathan Stewart (Funston, #2; Behrens, #1) - I understand that in the long run, he may be the better overall back than DeAngelo Williams. But Behrens even points out the big flaw in targetting Stewart heavily (especially early):
“If he just gets Foster’s ‘07 carries (247), he’s going to be a force.”
Seems like an awfully big ‘if’ to me, given the presence of Williams. Stewart will have to come into practice and absolutely dazzle some people to get Foster’s carries–think of how long it took WIlliams to get the carries he did, when many considered him significantly better than Foster all along?
Matt Forte (Behrens, #4) - I understand that the Bears don’t really have any one else to throw back there as the primary guy. But that doesn’t mean that Forte will put up 1,400 yards and 10+ TDs. Two reasons that Peterson succeeded early in ‘07–first, he had a solid offensive line in front of him. Second, early in the season, teams thought they would have to cover the Vikings receivers. As soon as they figured out that wasn’t the case, they threw 8-9 guys in the box, and frustrated Peterson.
So how good will Forte be, given that most teams will probably (rightly so) assume that they don’t have to worry about the Bears passing attack from week 1 on, and with an average (at best) offensive line?
Rashard Mendenhall (Evans, #1) - Seriously? Who gave this guy the title of fantasy expert?
1,000 total yards and 7-9 TDs? “High” Five was an accurate name for this article.
Yeah, the Steelers are likely to try to reduce Willie Parker–of course, I’ve also heard reports that Gary Russell has impressed them this offseason, while Parker heals his broken leg. Granted, it’s only OTAs, and coming from local Minnesota media (Russell was a Minnesota Golden Gopher before being booted from the team), but it adds to Mendenhall’s competition to even see the field in 2008. Not to mention Mewelde Moore, who also was decent when he got some playing time, and signed as a FA.
So if you’re looking for fantasy standouts that will help you all season long, at least in the early rounds, stay away from the rookies. And until they come to their senses, I’d stay away from Funston, Behrens and Evans, too.