Super Flex 101 – Building the Foundation – Part 3

Editor’s Note: This is Adam’s third article of his Super-Flex series as a Member Corner writer. You’ll be seeing more from Adam soon as an official DLF writer in the coming weeks. Congratulations Adam!  

There I was one summer evening in the later 80’s, taking advice from my older brother on how fast I should be riding my bike down our gravel driveway. “Pedal as fast as you can,” he said. Lock up the brakes at the end of the driveway and crank the handle bars hard right,” he said. Well, needless to say, 25 plus years later I still have the same huge scar on my elbow that was supposed to go away “by the time I was married.”

Two things went wrong there. One, I was taking advice from entirely the wrong person. But more importantly, I probably wasn’t quite ready to take the training wheels off. Just think if I could have pulled that stunt off though. The personal accomplishment of stirring up the biggest dust storm that a one speed off-brand pedal bike could have, will now go down as one of the biggest epic fails by a five year old ever.

In part three of this series I would like to take a look at the 2014 rookie class of quarterbacks. I am not going to focus on every second year quarterback, but just the quarterbacks that I think will have the biggest impact for your dynasty squads. As I discussed in part two, I am looking for guys that I think are either valued too high or too low based on current “market” prices. Which quarterbacks will set new personal benchmarks and rise to greatness? Which quarterbacks should keep the training wheels on, and maybe never be allowed to take them off? Let’s start with my personal favorite from last year’s crop of signal callers.

Derek Carr, QB OAK
Projected Market Value: 1-2 First Round Picks
My Value: 2-3 First Round Picks

I have recorded several Raiders games this year for further critique. The main reason was because I wanted to see just how good I thought Latavius Murray could be. What I always left with was that I could honestly say that the Oakland Raiders have become a very fun team to watch. But more impressively, that Derek Carr is legit, and he needs to be on your radar going into 2016.

When analyzing quarterbacks I can’t always completely critique their mechanics quite like an NFL scout would. But let’s be honest, that type of stuff is well above my pay grade. What I can see is how in control of a game they seem to be, and how well they perform under intense pressure that would cripple any average quarterback. Does the offensive coordinator call a safer play when clearly he could be aggressive if he trusted his quarterback to take the training wheels off?
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Derek Carr passes every eye test that I can see. He absolutely looks to be in control of the Oakland offense, and has the look of a quarterback who can take over a game and control the defense instead of always just react to what they throw at him.  From his rookie season to his sophomore campaign, Derek has increased his production in nearly every statistical category. He actually attempted 26 fewer passes from year one to year two, but increased his passing yardage by over 700 yards, increased touchdowns by 11, and only threw one more interception. Carr looks poised in the pocket, he anticipates throws, and looks fearless.  He faded a bit down the stretch, but that may give you an opportunity to buy him at a slightly discounted price.

Moving forward Derek Carr will have his most important pieces coming back and getting better. Amari Cooper is obviously one of the best young wide receivers to enter the league in the last few years. He has that same “stud” appeal that I referenced in my previous article. Michael Crabtree came back to life for the silver and black, having one of his best seasons of his career catching passes from Derek. Although I like Clive Walford, I don’t know that he is a great option at tight end. I would love to see an upgrade to Walford moving forward. Lastly, a more consistent running game would help open up things for Derek as well. Latavius Murray looked good, but often times the blocking seemed to be overmatched from one week to the next.

I could easily see Derek Carr averaging 4,500 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions year in and year out. Those numbers would put him well into top 5 fantasy quarterback range. Based on most recent ADP’s, if you are able to snag him for guys like Melvin Gordon, Lamar Miller, or Davante Adams, that is definitely something I would jump on.

Teddy Bridgewater, QB MIN
Projected Market Value: 1-2 First Round Picks
My Value: 1 First Round Pick

Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Truthfully, I’m a Minnesota homer, I love my Vikings. They have definitely left me with a ton of heartache, but this team is different. There is a certain element of toughness that the entire team brings to the table, and Coach Mike Zimmer has the arrow pointing up. Along with the changeover to Coach Zimmer’s style, the team has changed to be led by a strong defense, and control the ball with an efficient offense. But…it isn’t sexy. To me, Teddy isn’t going to be the quarterback that has your little guy tickling the zipper, thinking about how Teddy can lead your dynasty squad to a championship.

I honestly just don’t see it. What I do see is Jarius Wright getting wide open often and Teddy total not even seeing him. The best way I can describe Theodore Bridgewater is comparable to how most people play Madden football on their favorite gaming platform. We pick a play, take a peek at the defense pre-snap, but regardless we know the football is going to go to the guy we are locked on anyway. If he isn’t open, guess what, the play breaks down and we put our head down and just try to get something out of the mess. I might have a guy running a drag route to dump it off to in order to salvage a minimal gain. Heck, when things really aren’t going good, my offensive coordinator ends up picking a play that has my primary option running a drag route. Sound familiar Norv Turner? But if you’re like me and ever take a look at replays, you’re slapping yourself in the face seeing Cordarrelle Patterson constantly beating coverage snap after snap, but me being locked onto Stefon Diggs, I never see him. Ok, ok, maybe the part about C-Patt constantly beating coverage was a stretch, but you get the idea.

Teddy Time will win NFL football games. He’s an efficient quarterback that doesn’t make many mistakes and takes what the defense gives him. As he matures, they may take the training wheels off a bit more. But I think you are looking at an absolute ceiling of 4,200 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. Sure he might hit some higher end QB2 seasons, but he’s not a guy I would spend anything more than a mid to late first round pick to get. His total numbers on the season from his rookie year to his sophomore year only show marginal gains, but he started four more games in 2016. You would hope just by the volume of additional snaps he took, that his numbers would increase. But in reality, his per snap production faded.

Based on recent ADP’s, from a fantasy perspective I actually would prefer to trade Teddy for Matthew Stafford plus some sugar. Teddy will probably win you more NFL games in his career, but Stafford has a much higher scoring potential in fantasy and he’s still only 27 years old. If you wanted to chance it a little bit, I believe you could wait a few months for the NFL draft to come around and buzz to start building up. His ADP might spike back up slightly during that time frame. But I personally would sell prior to the kickoff of the 2016 campaign.

Blake Bortles, QB JAX
Projected Market Value: 1-2 First Round Picks
My Value: 1 First Round Pick

Being the top quarterback taken in the 2014 NFL draft, the expectations of Bortles instantly elevated higher than I believe he was ready for. I love his height and overall build as a great quarterback prospect. His believers are going to see a rise in numbers and hope they continue to grow in his third season. The non-believers are probably going to take into consideration the overall performance of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2015, and think those numbers are inflated. Which guy am I?

I’m a non-believer, and here is why. In games that the Jaguars won, Bortles averaged 227 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, and .6 interceptions per game. In games that the Jaguars lost, Bortles averaged 299.36 passing yards, 2.27 touchdowns, and 1.36 interceptions per game. The Jaguars were 3-0 when Blake attempted 30 or fewer passes. They were 2-11 when he hum chucked over 30 nuggets in the direction of guys wearing a blend of gold and black helmets. Side note, am I the only one who thinks those helmets are insanely ugly? Anyway, to add to those numbers, T.J. Yeldon rushed 45 times for 231 yards for a rock solid 5.13 yards per carry when Bortles was limited to 30 or fewer attempts.

The numbers don’t lie. As I mentioned previously with Teddy Bridgewater, he will win a lot of NFL games if he is quietly efficient. Bortles is the same type of quarterback. He might be around for a long time if they utilize his skills correctly, but clearly they didn’t win many games this year with the ball primarily in his hands. And I would actually argue that the skill position tools surrounding Bortles in his offense, are stronger than that of Teddy Bridgewater. If you think the Jaguars are always going to suck and Bortles will survive on sheer volume alone, that’s fine. But, if the Jaguars aren’t winning games, the finger will be pointed squarely at Gus Bradley and Blake Bortles whether they deserve all of the blame or not. That usually leads to someone, if not both of them, losing their jobs.

If we projected out his numbers in losing games he would throw for around 4,800 yards, 36 touchdowns, and 21 interceptions. Numbers that would place him firmly in QB1 territory. If they want to win though, numbers such as 4,000 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions are probably more what they should be shooting for, but they aren’t going to win you fantasy championships. In a startup, wait a round and draft Matt Ryan instead. You would absolutely be stealing Matty Ice if you could get him plus some sugar for Bortles. I prefer Matt Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, and Philip Rivers all over Blake Bortles. Based on the most recent ADP’s, you should get a little sugar with all of those guys for Blake Bortles. Essentially, free money, go get it!

Johnny Manziel, QB CLE
Projected Market Value: Second Round Pick
My Value: Nearly not worth rostering

What a waste of talent. He has value, but it’s just because he’s still young and has a first round draft pedigree. But, he’s just not a good NFL football player. I’m not going to waste much time on explaining why, your time is better spent reading about players that will make a difference on your team.

In short, he is everything bad about Madden football that I mentioned before, but just worse. He looks like a new gamer that just unwrapped his first copy of Madden football and decided to play on all-madden right out of the gates. He might make a couple nice plays, but ultimately dancing around in the pocket and not taking the quarterback position seriously will lose the faith of his coaches, fans, and fellow teammates. I’ll take my shot on a coin flip type player on someone else. Try to get a second round pick and move on.

Conclusion

I truly hope you are enjoying reading this series as much as I am writing it. It has been a pleasure to work with the staff at DLF, and look forward to keeping the content coming your way. I confess, I’m probably not going to be correct on everything, but I promise my work will be highly researched and validated. As always, I welcome your feedback, and look forward to my next installment. Until next article, do your homework. Get the trade talks brewing, and make the moves to build your foundation for next season.

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