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.