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.
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