Fantasy football: Great draft deals, and those to avoid
Building a fantasy football team is comparable to shopping – you should always be looking for a great deal and, at the very least, get what you pay for. To help you be able to spot such deals, I’ve tried to pick out a few players that I think will either exceed or fall short of expectations this season. I’ve also ranked them according to their ESPN ADP at the time of this writing.
Underrated
▪ Julius Thomas (81) – Going from Peyton Manning to Blake Bortles is like trading your Camaro for a Pinto, but that doesn’t entirely eliminate Thomas’s fantasy value. Many analysts are warning players lower their expectations to the point that he sounds like anathema, but he is still an elite athlete that Bortles will look to in the red zone on a Jags offense that might surprise in a few games this season.
▪ Torrey Smith (85) – The criticism of Smith being too dependent on big plays is well-deserved, but Smith landed in a good situation in San Francisco. The Niners will have to rely heavily on their ground game, which will set Smith up for great success on play-action deep throws. Colin Kaepernick can buy time for Smith to get down field and then put a deep ball on a dime, and plenty of such throws will result in touchdowns for the former Raven.
▪ David Johnson (136) – No, the Cardinals don’t plan on replacing Andre Ellington anytime soon, but last season proved he could not handle being a feature back. Enter Johnson, who will be more of a power runner and could play a Jeremy Hill-like role to Ellington’s Giovanni Bernard, particularly near the goal line.
▪ Cameron Artis Payne (167) – Aside from death and taxes, the only other thing that is for certain in life is that Jonathan Stewart will get hurt. In addition, Carolina has shown love to multiple running backs for much of recent memory. Grab Payne in the final round or two and get ahead of the curve.
▪ Jay Cutler (192) – For the past few seasons, Cutler has remained an above average fantasy quarterback, but not the player you would ever want to lead a real NFL team. That might change this year with the new regime of John Fox and offensive coordinator |Adam Gase in the Windy City. If they can recreate even some of their success from the record-setting 2013 Denver offense, Cutler and Co. could surge in the fantasy rankings.
▪ Owen Daniels (196) – Per ProFootballFocus.com, Gary Kubiak’s teams throw to their tight end 18 percent above the NFL average. Kubiak and Daniels both left the Ravens for Denver and Peyton Manning, who is used to throwing to another tight end who was a fantasy nobody before Manning started to throw him the ball.
▪ Ladarius Green (315) – The posterboy for offseason hype, Green has failed to completely take the next step of his career and become a relevant fantasy tight end, largely due to the fact that Antonio Gates must have the mythical Fountain of Youth in his backyard. Now Gates’s suspension gives Green a chance to carve out a nice role in the Chargers offense in those four games and beyond.
Overrated
▪ CJ Anderson (7) – Hailed by some as a top-5, and maybe even the top-overall pick, Anderson enters this season as a massive question mark. Peyton Manning might have begun to crumble in one of his final seasons, and this would certainly help the workload dished out to Broncos running backs. But Anderson currently isn’t the only mouth to feed. Broncos beat reporter Andrew Mason stated on ProFootballFocus.com that we should expect a “1A and 1B (running back) type of situation.” This bodes well for Montee Ball/Ronnie Hillman, but limits Anderson’s potential below his current price tag.
▪ Odell Beckham Jr. (15) – Put down your pitchforks for a second. Yes, the Notorious OBJ did set the fantasy world aflame last season and he will probably have another stellar year. But don’t try to tell me that he is in the same conversation as Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Julio Jones et al quite yet. Part of OBJ’s stratospheric rise was due to Victor Cruz’s absence. Now that he’s back, New York added pass-catching running back Shane Vereen, and teams have had the entire offseason to study film on the Giants star, I wouldn’t be the least surprised to see OBJ experience a sophomore slump, and a little buyer’s remorse for those who draft him.
▪ Latavius Murray (48) – NFL.com’s Matt Harmon delivered a great evaluation of Murray and his outlook for this season. Murray had moments of brilliance (108 yards against the stout Bills run defense and 112 yards and two scores on four carries against the Chiefs), but delusions of grandeur must be tempered with good reason. Teams that are bad at offense generally tend to run less later in the game as they fall behind and are forced to pass. The Raiders are one of the worst offensive teams in the league. Essentially, Murray will go only as far as the supposedly-improved Raiders take him.
This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Fantasy football: Great draft deals, and those to avoid."