4 reasons why Heath Miller will be a top 7 Tight End this year

1.     Jerricho Cotchery and Emanuel Sanders left Pittsburgh- These two players were major parts of the passing offense for Big Ben as they combined for 1342 yards, 188 targets, and a whooping 16 TDs. Some of that will go to a healthier Le’veon Bell and some of it will go to the number option 1 Antonio Brown. I expect Heath Miller however, to get a big chunk of those targets and TDs because…

2.   Heath Miller was already a huge red zone threat in 2012- 2013 was a lost season for Heath Miller as he was coming back from an ACL/MCL tare along with the fact that Cotchery comes out of nowhere and grabs 10 touchdowns. However, if you look at Miller’s 2012 numbers, you’ll find that he was targeted 19 times in the red zone converting 7 of them into touchdowns. I fully expect a repeat of those numbers with a less talented Steelers' receiving corps. Speaking of which…

3.  Miller is by far the biggest guy in the Steelers' receiving corps- The Steelers don’t have a WR monster like Calvin Johnson or Dez Bryant that Roethlisberger can just throw jump balls to during red zone situations. Even their number one guy Antonio Brown is only 5’10’’. Offseason signee Darius Heyward-bay has decent size but he’s shown in the past that he’s not starting material being listed as the number 4 WR. Markus Wheaton has a chance to be a decent sleeper pick but again he’s a small 5’11” and is unproven. Lance Moore is okay for what he is and had a few good years in New Orleans but he’s the smallest receiver out of everyone at 5’9’’. That leaves the 6’5” Heath Miller as the obvious go to guy for Big Ben on 3^rd down and Red Zone situations. Speaking of Big Ben…

4.   Miller is Big Ben’s most trusted receivers- Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, and Jason Witten have been what people call “security blankets” for their respective quarterbacks for years and have always been relied upon when their signal caller is in trouble. Add Heath Miller to that list as you won’t find a tandem more trusting in one another, than Ben and Miller. For the past 9 years, a couple of Superbowl MVP and several other 1000 yard receivers have come and gone through Pittsburgh but Heath Miller and Big Ben have stayed there year after year. It’s a passing league and Big Ben’s been throwing the ball more than ever with increases in attempts per game for the past 3 years. This year, it’s going to take a while for Roethlisberger to adjust to his new roster. In that time, when he is under heavy pressure, I fully expect Ben to throw to his most trusted receiver, Heath Miller.

Projection- I think that a repeat of Miller's 2012 number is extremely doable give the circumstance that he is in . I think that Miller will easily average 50 yards a game and score 7 touchdowns putting him at 800/7 which last year would have put him 7^th behind Jordan Cameron.

               

8 "bold" predictions for the 2014 Fantasy Football season backed up by statistics

1.      Antonio Brown will lead the league in receiving yards and will be a top 3 fantasy WR- Antonio Brown already would have lead the league in receiving yards last year if not for a monster second half by Josh Gordon. The next two receivers in the Steelers offense, Emanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery are gone and they're replaced by the much less talented corps of Lance Moore and Markus Wheaten. So now assuming Big Ben stays relatively the same as last year, there are 188 targets and 16 touchdowns to go around. Even if Brown only gets 10 of those targets and 100 more yards, he’s at 1599 yards making him the clear receiving yards leader. I don’t see Moore and Wheaten combining for 16 touchdowns (Although Health Miller who’s one of my favorite sleeper tight ends will probably take 6-7 of those). Give brown just 2 more touchdowns and he’s at 1600 yards receiving and 10 TDs. He’s not drafted a top 5 WR but definitely should be.

2.  Le’veon Bell finishes outside the top 20 fantasy RB- This statement doesn’t hold true in a PPR league as Bell is one of the better pass catchers in the league. However, in a standard league where running ability matters a lot more, I don’t trust in Bell’s talent at all. In the last 5 years, there have only been 3 running backs who had a lower or equal yards per carry average than Bell’s 3.5 last season who finished in the top 20 in rushing yards. MJD (3.4) last year, Cendric Benson (3.5) in 2010, and Bell (3.5) last year. Add this to the fact that the Steelers signed LeGarrette Blount who is a bigger and better goal line back to take away from Bell’s TDs. And that the Steelers drafted Dri Archer who is a much smaller quicker back to take away from Bell’s receiving totals. I don’t see a lot of potential in Bell’s situation.

3.    Victor Cruz will be too inconsistent to be worth more than a bench spot- Two of biggest offenders last year of being horrendously inconsistent were Vincent Jackson and T.Y Hilton. These guys are known to be boom or bust players that are criticized for giving Fantasy owners headaches for never knowing when to start them. Add Victor Cruz to that list as well. Last year, 42.85% of Cruz’s total fantasy points came in two games. Now to be fair to Cruz since he only played 14 games, let’s extrapolate this data to the full 16 games. Now he’s only at 37.5% of his total fantasy points coming from those two games. The only players in the top 30 WR last year that finished with a higher amount of their total fantasy points than Cruz coming from two games were Riley Cooper, Jerricho Cotchery, Marvin Jones, and T.Y Hilton. All of those guys are not nearly as highly valued as Cruz is but yet they actually put about around the same fantasy consistency as Cruz last year. Vincent Jackson by the way, only 30.3% of his points came from his top two games.

4.   Arian Foster will produce a top 5 Fantasy year- I don’t get how this guy is being valued so low that he’s being drafted under unproven guys like Demarco Murry and Monte Ball. Of the consensus five most proven running backs in the NFL last year (Matt Forte, Jamal Charles, Adrian Peterson, Lesean Mccoy, and Mashawn Lynch), Foster has less touches and carries than all of them except Charles. Injures also didn’t stop Forte, Peterson, Charles, or Mccoy from producing great bounce back years in the past. Add this to the fact that Foster has a career average of 16.37 fantasy points per game and I think he’s one of the best bargains bets of this year.

5.   Andy Dalton will be a top 10 QB- He’s being undrafted in a lot of ten person leagues despite being a top 5 QB last year. Is it really that crazy to expect that only 5 people to pass him up this year when he’s still a young QB with pretty much the same weapons as last year? I’d be very comfortable with Dalton as my QB1.

6.    Darren Sproles will be a top 20 RB- Jackson gone means his 1332 yards are up for grab. Even in the season Maclin stayed completely healthy, he had under 1000 yards receiving yards. Plus, Nick Foles and Michael Vick combined for 527 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns which I don’t see happening again. Add in Bryce Brown being gone and I like Sproles this year.

7.   Matt Ryan will once again finish outside top 10 QBs- I feel like I’m the only one down on the Falcons this year. Tony Gonzalez, who was Ryan's security blanket the last five years, is not gone and is one of the most overlooked moves of the off-season. So now, in order for Ryan to match his 2012 career year season we have to assume 1. Julio Jones and Roddy White both bounce back from injury, 2. Steven Jackson stays relatively healthy to put pressure away from Ryan and the passing game, 3. The unproven tight-ends on the roster step up and fill at least some of the void left by Gonzalez. Even then, Ryan was only the number 7 QB in 2012. Sorry, I just can't bet on Ryan this year. 

8.  Kyle Rudolph will finish outside the top 10 TEs- So what if Norv Turner magically turns regular tight ends into fantasy studs, every other statistic says otherwise about Kyle Rudolph. His best season so far he had 493 yards when he was fully health and played all 16 games. Last season, he was only on track for 626 yards if he kept up his pace. Yes he had 9 touchdowns 2 years ago and is a decent red zone target but the current Vikings run the ball when up close with 23 rushing touchdowns compared to only 18 passing last year. The QB situation is still very poor and Peterson is still doing his thing. Sorry, I don’t see Norv turning all this around.  

Second year Quarterbacks

Analyzing Fantasy Football Trends:

Second year Quarterback play

     When looking at statistical trends in Fantasy Football, it is important to analysis only the relevant data and throw away potential outliers that are not consistent with the players your are trying to analysis. In other words, for this specific analysis, the players Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees are taken out of the equation. These quarterbacks are statistically some of the greatest of all time and thus their statistical growth between their first and second years would be unfair to compare to the developing quarterbacks in the league that have uncertain futures. Is it possible that guys like Andrew Luck, Nick Foles, and Russell Wilson end up with careers like the Mannings and Bradys of the world? It certainly is, but it’s much more likely that the majority of these quarterbacks will be average statistically comparable to guys like Matt Ryan, and Andy Dalton. Additionally, guys like Sam Bradford and Matt Stafford are also omitted from this analysis as there first few years as starters were plagued injury making them outlier cases. However, guys like Nick Foles and Colin Kaepernick will be considered is this particular study with their first season being counted as when they were starters for more than 7 games and were not majorly impacted by injury. Lastly, it is important to realize that Football is a fickle game and therefore statistics are more relevant when looking at trends that happened most recently to today’s game. Thus, the following quarterbacks being analyzed are all players that have played for only 7 season or less.

Note: Statistics are taken from Espn.com Statistics and info. Fantasy points are based on Yahoo scoring system and only games where quarterback has attempted 15 or more pass attempts will count in this analysis. 

Fantasy points first year starter 

Fantasy points second year starter

Differential between first and second year

Advanced Fantasy points differential statistics

Conclusion:

     According to the graphs shown, the average Quarterback will improve their fantasy score by 1.255 points per game while 25% of quarterbacks improve by more than 2.66 points per game. So while the stats indicate that quarterbacks don’t actually decrease in fantasy production on a per game basis, the growth isn’t really significant in my opinion. Consider that Geno Smith averaged 13.42 points per game. If he improves his fantasy production by 2.66 points per game, he’d be at 16.08 points per game, worse than Alex Smith’s production last year. Similarly, Ej Manuel averaged 14.25 points per game last year. If he were to increase his fantasy production by 2.66 points per game, he would average 16.92 points per game. This, according to this statistical analysis, is probably his ceiling which is around Tony Romo level. In both Geno’s case, and Manuel’s case, to reach this production they would have to have growth better than 75% of the quarterbacks listed in this study. I wouldn’t invest even a late round pick on either quarterback unless it were a two quarterback league as both have a ceiling of a low end starter.