2013 NFL Draft Winners and Losers: NFC South

Jeff Beran

josh_freemanWe bring our Premium members a team capsule for every team in the NFL every off-season. These quick snapshots in time give you a good assessment of where we feel the value of those players lies at the moment. Unfortunately, things change often in the NFL and in dynasty leagues. The biggest value rises or drops come as a result of the NFL Draft. Rather than leaving those capsules untouched until next year, we decided to go division-by-division with extended coverage of veteran winners and losers from the off-season. Many values have stayed the same, so an entire team capsule would be redundant. However, these articles will cover some key draft additions that have a huge impact in dynasty leagues one way or another.

We continue our journey through the NFL with the NFC South.

Atlanta Falcons

Pick #22 – Desmond Trufant, CB

Pick #60 – Robert Alford, CB

Pick #127 – Mallicah Goodman, DE

Pick #133 – Levine Toilolo, TE

Pick #153 – Stansly Maponga, DE

Pick #243 – Kemal Ishmael, S

Pick #244 – Zeke Motta, S

Pick #249 – Sean Renfree, QB

Winners

Harry Douglas

A slot receiver in an offense that doesn’t particularly highlight slot receivers is only considered a winner in this case because Atlanta didn’t draft anyone to replace or even compete with him.  However, Douglas is still barely worth keeping on your roster in all but the deepest leagues unless you believe in handcuffing your stud wide receivers.

Steven Jackson

It’s true the Falcons gave Jackson $12 million dollars over three years to come in and be the man, but they had an opportunity in the first round to have their pick of the litter from this year’s running back class as well.  They stood by their man.  When they had an opportunity in the late second round to grab a running back who most thought would go in the top half of the first (Eddie Lacy), they balked again.  Jackson’s injury history suggests that he’ll miss a game here and there but without anything behind him on the roster, he doesn’t have to worry about getting Wally Pipped.

Losers

Chase Coffman

How can a player with four total career receptions be a loser, you ask? Well, the 2008 John Mackey Award winner and former third round pick was an injury to veteran Tony Gonzalez away from being thrust into the starting tight end role for the Falcons’ dynamic offense.  Coffman was a player I tried to keep stashed on my dynasty team, but with the selection of Levine Toilolo in the fourth round, it appears as though the Falcons might not see the starting potential in him I had hoped.

Eddie Lacy

Yes, I’m listing Lacy here because if a team like the Falcons that loves straight-line running backs (and needs a straight-line running backs) passes on an opportunity to get one that fell to the late second round in favor of a nickel back (Robert Alford), it should tell you all you need to know about that player.  Consider this my warning to stay away from Lacy at all costs if it’s not too late.

Carolina Panthers

Pick #14 – Star Lotulelei, DT

Pick #44 – Kawann Short, DT

Pick #108 – Edmund Kugbila, OG

Pick #148 – AJ Klein, ILB

Pick #182 – Kenjon Barner, RB

Winners

Brandon LaFell

For whatever reason, the Panthers decided to give LaFell another season to prove he’s not capable of filling Steve Smith’s shoes when the day comes.  LaFell thus retains his status as Carolina’s WR2 and a low-end WR5 for fantasy purposes.

Greg Olsen

Brandon LaFell will continues to not be very good and Steve Smith will continue to be old, so Olsen will continue to receive a lion’s share of the targets from Cam Newton.

IDPs

The addition of Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short to the defensive tackle rotation is going to make it that much easier for ends Greg Hardy and Charles Johnson to get into the backfield and for stud middle linebacker Luke Kuechly to keep racking up the tackles.

Losers

DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart

The writing was already on the wall but the drafting of Kenjon Barner in the sixth round all but assures Williams will soon receive his pink slip.  It’s may even be a matter of time before Barner proves he’s a better running back than fellow University of Oregon alumnus and fantasy football enigma Jonathan Stewart.

Cam Newton

Newton doesn’t really need a ton of talent surrounding him in order to be successful for fantasy football purposes, but it would have been nice for the Panthers to add somebody (anybody) to his sub-par wide receiver corps.  I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like a very sustainable business model.

New Orleans Saints

Pick #15 – Kenny Vaccaro, S

Pick #75 – Terron Armstead, OT

Pick #82 – John Jenkins, DT

Pick #144 – Kenny Stills, WR

Pick #183 – Rufus Johnson, DE

Winners

The whole team

Because getting back a ticked off and super motivated Sean Payton after his year-long quarantine just seems like it will be a huge boost for everybody, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

Losers

Fantasy football managers who own a member of the RBBC Trio

Things remain pretty much status quo for Darren Sproles, Pierre Thomas or Mark Ingram, but the status quo was clear as mud.   Standing in mud does not a happy fantasy football owner make.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Pick #43 – Johnthan Banks, CB

Pick #73 – Mike Glennon, QB

Pick #100 – Akeem Spence, DT

Pick #126 – William Gholston, DE

Pick #147 – Steven Means, OLB

Pick #189 – Mike James, RB

Winners

Luke Stocker and/or Tom Crabtree

When the Bucs decided not to retain Dallas Clark, most assumed that they would draft a tight end pretty high to replace him.  Well, they didn’t draft one at all so now the competition for targets comes down to Stocker and free agent signee Crabtree.  The first three options for quarterback Josh Freeman are clearly Vincent Jackson, Mike Williams and Doug Martin but Tampa Bay does like to run two tight end sets so it should be interesting to watch how things shake out.

Doug Martin

By focusing their draft efforts on strengthening the defensive side of the ball (including the trade for Darrelle Revis), the Buccaneers may have consequently created more late game rushing opportunities for Martin.  Plus, Martin is just a winner in general so he deserves to be listed as such.

Losers

Josh Freeman

Because his fourth option, as it stands, is going to be Luke Stocker, Tom Crabtree or Kevin Ogletree. Yuck.  Something tells me that Freeman won’t be sending Greg Schiano a Christmas card this year.