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Fantasy Football: A Trio of Sleepers for the 2009 NFL Season
Published: June 3, 2009
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“Sleepers” are an essential part of any fantasy team.
The amount that you are able to grab in your draft will more than likely dictate the success that you will achieve during the course of the season.
One must do their research to better their chances of finding and picking out “sleepers” during the course of their draft.
To identify a potential sleeper, you have to run a player through a few tests.
- Has this player encountered success in his past?
- Has this player been injured recently?
- Is this player in a situation where he can experience success?
Here is my list of sleepers for the upcoming season, being put through each of the tests.
Chris “Beanie” Wells: Running Back, Arizona Cardinals
Certainly, Beanie has encountered success in his past. At Ohio State University, he amassed 3,382 yards and 30 touchdowns in only three seasons withe the Buckeyes. He also was a finalist for the prestigious Heisman Trophy last year.
Wells missed three games in his final season at OSU, thus raising concerns about his durability. However, he is healthy now, and that is what’s most important.
“Beanie” got drafted by the Arizona Cardinals with the second-to-last pick in the first round. In the off-season, the Cards released Edgerrin James, thus opening the door for a new back to step up, (Tim Hightower or Chris Wells).
However, it is widely assumed that Wells has more upside than Hightower, which would result in an increase of playing time. One of the only knocks on him is that the team passes more often than they run, but Wells should still get a handful of looks in the redzone.
Pros: Talented runner, Great chance of starting.
Cons: Has a bit of injury history, on a “pass first” team.
Torry Holt: Wide Receiver, Jacksonville Jaguars
Torry has talent. Granted, he didn’t show much of it last season, finishing with 796 yards and a mere three touchdowns. But what people fail to realize is that he only had 64 receptions, his lowest total since his rookie season.
Take out those two years and Holt averages 94 receptions. a huge increase. The fact that Holt had 30 less receptions than what he normally averages can certainly make the case as to why he experienced a drop in numbers.
Holt has a sparkling clean record when it comes to injuries, missing only two games in his storied career. No issues here.
Holt was traded to the Jaguars this off-season, after Matt Jones left, and thus automatically became the No. 1 receiver on the team. David Garrard is a reliable quarterback and can be trusted to throw the ball Tory’s way.
The knock on Holt is the exact opposite of Beanies, the Jags are a “run-first” team and pass second. However this is not all bad since it will more than likely cause the defense to stack the box, opening up pass lanes on the sides for Torry to exploit.
Pros: No. 1 receiver on team, reliable quarterback getting him the ball. Can be had later in the draft, and has the potential to still produce like a No. 1 WR.
Cons: On a “run-first” offense. Old, (chuckle).
Kyle Orton: Quarterback, Denver Broncos
Kyle Orton may not have all the talent in the world, but he’s shown improvement, and for a quarterback, that may be just as good. In Orton’s first year in the league, (2005) with the Bears, Orton struggled. He managed only 1,869 yards, (through 15 games), and showed a completion percentage of 51.6 percent.
However, the next year, (while splitting time behind center with Rex Grossman), he improved that number to 53.8 percent. Then, the next year, (and his last with the Bears) Orton was handed the reins to the offense, and finally found some success. His completion percentage jumped nearly 5 percent, to 58.5 percent, and he also set new career highs in ards passing, (2,972), touchdowns, (18), and rating, (79.6, previously 73.9 and 59.7).
Orton has a minor injury history, his most recent one coming against a game versus the Detroit Lions, where he sprained his ankle and was sidelined for a month. Again, like Holt and Wells, he is healthy now, and that’s what matters.
This offseason, Orton was shipped to Denver Broncos as part of the Jay Cutler trade. Orton went from a “run-first” nitty-gritty minded Bears team to a Broncos team who likes to air it out a bit more, albeit still remaining a “run-first” team.
Josh McDaniels, the Broncos new coach, (formerly the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots), saw what could happen with a good quarterback with good wide receivers, so expect him to try to repeat the success with his new team.
It is also important to note that the Bears had no legitimate wide receivers helping out Orton, and that that may have been a major factor in Orton not producing great numbers. With Denver, he gets a top 10 wide receiver in the entire NFL, (Brandon Marshall), an emerging wide receiver, (Eddie Royal), a great TE, (Tony Scheffler), and a handful of capable backs to help keep the defense’s honest.
Pros: New, “pass-happier” coach in Denver, more weapons to utilize, no backup to take away playing time.
Cons: Hasn’t had a “breakthrough” season yet, not yet elite.
Anyone can draft a fantasy football team that contains a couple of stars and favorite players. It’s up to you to find the “sleepers” and gain an edge on the competition.
That’s been Fantasy Football: A Trio of Sleepers for the 2009 NFL Season by Taylor Rummel.
Fantasy Football: A Wining Draft Strategy For 2009
Published: May 31, 2009
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Hey guys, hope your all heavily engaged in fantasy baseball right now like I am. Fantasy Sports are great; they keep us following the sport to a tee and they allow you to become an expert on players within the league.
Anyways, this is fantasy football that we are talking about, (specifically draft strategy), so as that captain on Spike’s tv show “MXC” would say, “Get it on”.
Last year, we saw a star quarterback go down before taking one snap (Tom Brady), a fantasy legend show some age in the wake of a “down” year (Ladanian Tomlinson), and an unlikely running back lead all backs in fantasy points (DeAngelo Williams). What we also saw (as we do every year) was many injuries, primarily to running backs, the position that arguably takes the most pounding year after year—swiftly prompting teams to turn to a running back by committee approach.
So, what does all this information mean?
For one, the market for top tier running backs has been rung dangerously thin. In my opinion, the only truly safe first round type talent remaining in the RB pool includes:
Adrian Peterson, Michael “The Burner” Turner, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Matt Forte.
That’s it.
“Where’s Steven Jackson,” you say. Well I say where’s he been the past two years? And Chris Johnson, well unfortunately he is stuck in that dreaded acronym “rbbc” thus failing to meet the safe aspect from these prerequisites listed.
Again, what does this information all mean?
It means that we need to approach our drafts with a different mind-set, a different approach.
Now, I’m not going to babble on about the so called “psychological” aspect of throwing your opponents off, or of having a tiering sheet, (although there is only good that can come out of that), but I will talk about what positions to target, and where at (specifically what rounds).
Let’s get the basics out of the way first shall we?
Always draft your kicker with your last pick. NO exceptions, at all.
Trying to predict who the top kicker will be at year’s end is akin to winning the lotto, it ain’t gonna happen. Defenses are a tad easier to predict, just because they actually have an outlook at the beginning of the season, where as next to no information is available about kickers at that same time.
Now, this is the meat and potatoes of what we are all reading this article for, the specifics, the goods. In the first round, picks 1-6, (I’ll include Johnson here, disregarding my early comment of him), you’ll want to go RB. They are by far the most consistent, strongest part of your fantasy team. I’ve tried to field teams without a star running back, trying to dance around the notion of needing one or two great backs to win, not too surprisingly, it didn’t work out to well.
First Round: Get one of the top six running backs if you can, if not, draft the top available wide receiver. While this is not unheard of, it is not looked after too highly amongst the eyes of seasoned fantasy football vets. But here’s the logic, you’ll be drafting a WR sometime, might as well get the best one of the league’s best and not draft a running back who isn’t safe.
Second Round: In scenario one, you get a top six back, nothing to scoff at and great to build your team around. Here, you will definitely want to grab the best wideout available, since waiting even one more round will push you into the pool of wr’s that have question marks. In scenario two, you have a top wideout, and here’s the big twist from this article to any other you’ll read, you’ll want to take another, yes I just said that, you will want to grab another wide receiver, you can stop pinching yourself and rubbing your eyes. The rationale is simple, the running backs from rounds two to four are statistically comparable where as wide receivers are not. Let’s play Player A, Player B
Player A: 885 rush yards, 10 total td’s
Player B: 1089 rush yards, 15 total td’s
Player A is Marion Barber, who was on average drafted in the second round of fantasy drafts last year.
Player B is Brandon Jacobs, who on average was drafted at the end of the third and even into the fourth round of drafts.
One more time, this time for wide receivers:
Player A: 1575 yards, 8 td’s
Player B: 821 receiving yards, 5 td’s
Player A is Andre Johnson, who on average was drafted in round two of fantasy drafts last year.
Player B is Santonio Homes, who generated almost as much hype as Mr. Johnson, and was on average taken in the fourth and fifth round of fantasy drafts.
Third Round: In scenario one, we have a top-six running back, and a top-10 wideout. Now, you want to take a running back that compliments who you took in round uno. If you took a yardage machine who gets the boot at he goal-line, then maybe it’s time to snatch up Jonathan Stewart, who had 10 touchdowns last year while playing on a newly surgically repaired toe. Did you grab a touchdown maker in round one? Then take a yardage horse such as a Ryan Grant. In scenario two, we have a pair of stud WR’s. It’s time to take a running back now, the best available works.
Later rounds: In scenario one you will want to take about two more running backs while mixing in a QB and two good WR’s somewhere in rounds six through eight (the WR’s preferable coming first). In scenario two, it’s a good idea to stack on some sleeper RB’s such as Chris “Beanie” Wells, who happens to be my favorite sleeper on the year, Shonn Greene, and Rashard Mendenhall. Take a QB somewhere in rounds six through eight and you should be set.
The goal is to grab the best available player, while avoiding rbbc messes and injury risks.
I’m Taylor Rummel, (The Fantasy Football Wonder) and that’s been Fantasy Football: A winning draft strategy for 2009.
