Fantasy Mashup

Cedric Benson, RB

Cedric Benson was the second of three running backs draft in the top five picks of the 2005 draft (Ronnie Brown, No. 2; Benson, No. 4; and Carnell Williams, No. 5).  All three have flashed potential while posting disappointing performances, and Benson is the least productive of the trio. This year he's finally the clear No. 1 in Chicago, but his questionable pro resume makes him one of the key decisions for fantasy owners in this year's fantasy offseason.

The basics: Benson is a powerful, explosive runner with a better-than-adequate running skills and speed. His between-the-tackles style attracted Bears' scouts because it matched the new offense they were installing for 2005, but Benson missed training camp in a contract holdout, worked his way into the rotation late, brooded, got hurt, spouted off to the press and flirted with the ghost of Curtis Enis. He entered the 2006 season as 1A in the Bears RBBC, but injured his shoulder in training camp and fell back to the second option behind Thomas Jones. In two years he has rushed for 919 yards, though he finished the 2006 season on something of a roll. It ended with his early exit from the Super Bowl due to injury.

"Stud RB" Theory, RIP

I'm from that generation of pre-Internet fantasy players who had to puzzle out the Stud Running Back Theory on our own. People tried all sorts of wild ideas at the top of drafts in the early 1990s, but ever since the rise of the Web and the explosion of professional fantasy pubs and sites, EVERYBODY knows that the key to success is acquiring two stud running backs ASAP.

I see two immediate problems with this development:

First, if everyone has the same strategy, that isn't a strategy anymore -- it's background music. It's the status quo against which you have to develop a new winning strategy.

And second: The Stud RB drafting theory would make a lot more sense if fantasy owners were better at telling the studs from the duds. Consider this "expert" mock draft from a year ago ("these are all fantasy football experts who have played in several leagues per year for at least a decade, so study the picks closely because there is a lot of knowledge here"). Check out how many of the RBs taken in the first and second rounds were either flat-out busts or season-killing under-performers...

2007 Busts

It may actually be easier to spot which players are headed for a bad season than the guys who are about to break out. Here's my list of guys to treat skeptically in 2007...

RB Thomas Jones

Thomas Jones was a former first-round bust until he showed up in Chicago three years ago. Today, 4,212 combined yards later, Jones is a Super Bowl veteran with a revived career. The trade that brought him to the Jets could make him the focal point of the New York offense and the immediate heir-apparent to the Curtis Martin era... but the questions that surround him give Jones only scatter-shot value in the early  rounds of fantasy drafts.

The basics: Jones is a tough, veteran runner with decent speed, good work ethic and impressive clubhouse presence. Despite his age (29 when the season starts), Jones has had relatively few NFL carries and should have plenty left in the tank for 2007-08. In 2006, Jones rushed for 1,200 yards despite sharing the position with former No. 4 pick overall Cedric Benson.

2007 Fantasy Sleepers

How I figured this list: A lot of analysts confuse undervalued players with sleepers, so let's clear that up first. A sleeper is a player who:

1. Isn't generally ranked as a legitimate fantasy starter;
2. Can typically be found in the second half of a fantasy draft;
3. Shows potential to become a significant fantasy contributor at some point in the upcoming season, producing numbers that will compare favorably to "consensus" starters.

(Players like San Diego's Vincent Jackson don't appear on this list because they've already been identified by most analysts as legitimate 2007 fantasy starters, thereby raising their draft status.)

On to the list...

RB Willis McGahee

With an ADP near the bottom of the first round and a late-June Standard Deviation above 5.0,  Willis McGahee represents one of the first big variables in most 2007 drafts. He's clearly a strong No. 2 RB prospect with No. 1 RB potential, but he enters the year as the highest rated enigma among running backs.

The basics: McGahee enters his fifth NFL season (he spent his rookie season rehabbing a horrific knee injury) as a talented but disappointing fantasy player in what most analysts consider to be a vastly improved team situation. McGahee has size (6 feet, 230 pounds) to go with good (but not great) speed. He has averaged just over 1,100 yard for the past three years, but has a ypc average below 4.0. McGahee has scored more than six touchdowns in a season only once (13 in 2004).

Using ADP "standard deviation" to target players

This isn't a math-geek site (on average, only 3.59 percent of our waking hours -- or roughly 37 minutes per day, with a margin of error of 5 percent -- are devoted to doing math-related tasks), so we don't typically get all freaky with the statistical stuff.

That said, statistics are the foundation of most fantasy analysis, since the outcomes of our games are based solely on the numbers produced in NFL games, not the non-quantifiable qualities of actual NFL players. We still believe foremost in the human factor, but we're always on the hunt for mathematical insights that give us an edge.

Like this one...