Grading our Predictions: Part One
Each and every year we take a moment towards the end of August to poll our team and ask what they think is going to happen during the following fantasy season. We ask a variety of questions ranging from who they think will be the fantasy MVP, fantasy rookie of the year and just about everything else. If you want to see the exact picks and explanations for them, you can go ahead and take a look at part 1 and part 2.
In case you don’t want to go back and see all of the details, I’ll do the heavy lifting for you with a nice little wrap up of our predictions that were made back in August. Just for fun, bragging rights and some good natured ribbing. I’ll also name a prediction champion as well as award the “swing and miss” title for the year! After all, none of us can be right all of the time!
The nominees for each award are the players who our writers predicted back in August with multiple votes shown by the numbers. The list would certainly be different if they were allowed to pick now, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Part 1 will include the categories of MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Overvalued and Most Undervalued. Time to get down to business with the awards!
Fantasy MVP Nominees: Jimmy Graham (2), Demaryius Thomas, Adrian Peterson (3), Aaron Rodgers, LeSean McCoy (3), Dez Bryant (2), Matt Forte, Jamaal Charles, Montee Ball, Rob Gronkowski, Julio Jones, Peyton Manning
With two quarterbacks, five running backs, three receivers and two tight ends on the list, it is a reminder of just how varied opinions were on the top players in the fall. While there seemed to be a definite tier at the top of each position, the order within those tiers was very fluid depending on who you asked. Our writers definitely had their individual favorites.
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Most of these players had very good seasons as expected. A few struggled with some minor injuries at some point in the season, but two players clearly don’t belong. Peterson had legal issues and was clearly a letdown in multiple ways while Montee Ball being on this list has me singing the old Seseme Street song “One of these things is not like the others.”
Since this is the MVP category, I’m only going to consider the top scoring player in each group. That limits the discussion to Rodgers, Forte, Thomas and Gronkowski. Great arguments could be made for all four of them being the MVP from this group, but because of my completely arbitrary rules for this article I’m only allowed to consider two. In my eyes, for someone to be the fantasy MVP, they need to have guided teams towards the championship or at the very least not killed teams in the playoffs. Thomas posted only two receptions for 11 yards in week 14 while Rodgers had 185 yards and two picks with no scores in week 15. Both were major letdowns and likely killed many fantasy playoff hopes. That means we’re down to two players!
The Case for Forte: Forte’s value this year was largely dependent on your scoring system. If your league gives a full point for running back receptions, Forte’s record setting 102 receptions (fourth in the entire NFL this year) made him a top five player overall this year. While his rushing yards and attempts were lower than most RB1s, the PPR points and 800+ receiving yards made him amazingly consistent this season. He had only one game with single digit fantasy points while ten games he was over 20 points in PPR leagues. The Bears might have struggled this year, but there were few players more valuable in fantasy leagues all season then Forte.
The Case for Gronkowski: The entire Patriots’ offense struggled out of the gate this year. Gronk’s first four weeks saw him unable to top 4 receptions or 45 yards. From that point on he had either a touchdown or at least 5 catches for 68 yards every single week. He was a consistent force week in and week out, though wasn’t quite as dominating as we have seen in the past outside of the mid-season stretch against the Bears and Broncos. He led all tight ends in touchdowns with 12 and yardage with 1124 while hauling in 82 catches, good for fourth among all tight ends. Gronk did lead tight ends in scoring, but it was helped by the fact that many of the other top tight ends, like Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas, missed a lot of time with injuries.
2014 Fantasy MVP: Matt Forte (by a nose due to a full season of consistency)
Honorable Mention: Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell – I normally try to limit it to one honorable mention, but these two were so close in value I couldn’t choose! The leaders at their respective positions, both of them showed amazing consistency week in and week out. Neither of them ever posted a ‘bad’ game from a fantasy perspective as they were always in double digits in PPR leagues while averaging nearly 25 points a week. As icing on the cake, they both helped win numerous championships as they racked up at least 65 points during the fantasy playoffs in weeks 14-16. If either of them had been a pre-season selection by one of our writers they clearly would have been the winner over Forte.
One completely meaningless point is awarded to Jeff Miller for selecting Forte. I’m going to give the swing and miss award on this one to Matt Caraccio for Montee Ball.
Fantasy Rookie of the Year Nominees: Kelvin Benjamin (5), Bishop Sankey (3), Sammy Watkins (2), Jordan Matthews (2), Jeremy Hill, Brandin Cooks (3), Carlos Hyde, Johnny Manziel
Eight different rookies were nominated for the award, with Benjamin seeming to have the most support behind him in August. The most amazing part is that none of our writers pegged the year’s top rookie back in August. That award clearly needs to go to Odell Beckham Jr given his performances over the last part of the season. Mike Evans also failed to receive a nomination back in August due to the belief he would need some time to adjust to the NFL game.
Between injuries, underwhelming performances, getting stuck behind veterans and inconsistent play, it comes down to a four horse race from these options. With Evans and Beckham out, the other receivers who far exceeded expectations were Benjamin, Watkins and Matthews. Hill also needs to be in the discussion. In order to narrow it down to two players, I’ll just take the most productive of the three rookies and go with Benjamin. Though I feel compelled to mention I think he is the last of the three receivers I would want to own long term. I think Watkins and Matthews will both be better long term options.
The Case for Benjamin: In the interest of full disclosure, I never have been and probably never will be as high on Benjamin as others are and were. I see him as a talented player with a limited ceiling. With that said, he fell into the ideal situation both in terms of scheme and depth chart and translated it into 73 receptions for 1008 yards and 9 touchdowns. Those are spectacular numbers for a rookie wide receiver but are overshadowed by the seasons Evans and Beckham put together. In just about any other year, a rookie receiver with those kinds of numbers would have easily led the class. The biggest question in my eyes for Benjamin is if he can expand on those numbers or if he’s already near his ceiling.
The Case for Hill: I really liked Hill prior to the draft but being selected by the Bengals made me sour on him due to him likely being forced into a RBBC role and playing second fiddle in that committee. That seemed to be exactly the case through the first two months of the season when Hill received more than 10 carries only once. The second half of the season saw Hill post 100 rushing yards or more every game he had more than 20 carries. He clearly looked to be the best rusher on his team since November and seems more than capable of carrying the load. While his use in the passing game was limited, his 5.1 yards per carry for the season goes rather nicely with his 395 rushing yards and 3 scores in the fantasy playoffs.
2014 Rookie of the Year: Jeremy Hill (Thanks to his fantasy playoff run)
Honorable Mention: Odell Beckham Jr was easily the best rookie of the season and it wasn’t even close! In fact, he was arguably the best rookie receiver ever, even though he only played 12 games this season. His 91 receptions, 1305 yards and 12 touchdowns led the rookie class in all three categories. While I’m not putting him into my top tier overall yet, he is easily in the first round startup discussion.
Rob Leath gets one imaginary point for his selection of Hill as the top rookie from the group of nominees. While it pains me to give the swing and miss on this one to my favorite Greek fantasy writer and fellow Bears fan George Kritikos, his selection of Manziel as the best fantasy rookie couldn’t have been more wrong.
Most Overvalued Dynasty Player: Brandon Marshall, TY Hilton, Cordarrelle Patterson (4), Jordan Cameron, Le’Veon Bell (4), Pierre Garcon, Rashad Jennings, CJ Spiller, Emmanuel Sanders, Giovani Bernard, Alfred Morris, Christine Michael
Before we get into the overvalued/undervalued discussion, I think it is important to define the criteria. For me, overvalued means their price tag in a trade or startup vastly out paces their production. While undervalued means the exact opposite, their price tag was drastically under their production level. I’m not going to get into nitpicking on this one, so I’m automatically going to throw out anyone who was an every week starter regardless of their price. That means Marshall, Hilton, Bell and Sanders are clearly out. I also feel like Morris and Jennings were about what we expected. Morris was a solid RB2 and Jennings was solid when healthy but struggled to stay on the field.
That limits the discussion to Patterson, Cameron, Garcon, Spiller, Bernard and Michael. While I think Michael is vastly overvalued, his value really hasn’t changed much in the eyes of the overall fantasy community. Spiller continued to be what he has been for his whole career. I remember discussing him in this very same article last year. He won’t ever be what we hoped, and I think most are realizing that now. Cameron struggled with injuries and quarterback play while Bernard definitely lost some value this season with the emergence of Hill. However, I think the most overrated from this group are Patterson and Garcon.
The Case for Patterson: The word “potential” is one of the most dangerous words in all of fantasy sports. To me, the word is often synonymous with the phrase “they haven’t done anything yet”. Yet people are willing to pay top dollar for the potential. Heading into the season, Patterson was often going in the first two rounds of startups. In other words he was a top 25 player overall! That was absolutely insane and many of us (as you can see by the four nominations) were very loudly protesting that ranking. Fast forward a few months and Patterson wasn’t even starting for his NFL team let alone fantasy teams. It might be time to at least consider Patterson a gifted athlete who might never learn how to play the receiver position in the NFL.
The Case for Garcon: One of 2013’s breakout players, we knew Garcon wasn’t going to approach his 113 receptions and 1346 yards from two seasons ago. However, few expected his decline to be so dramatic. With the circus that was the Redskins’ quarterback situation and the addition of DeSean Jackson to the team, Garcon only managed 68 receptions for 752 yards and 3 scores. While I expect him to bounce back a bit once the quarterback situation gets solidified, it clearly isn’t going to help his owners who paid a 3rd or 4th round startup price for him.
2014 Most Overvalued Player: Cordarrelle Patterson (and it wasn’t even close!)
Honorable Mention: There are a lot of other great options for overvalued including Robert Griffin III, Nick Foles, Doug Martin, Trent Richardson, Montee Ball, Michael Floyd, Justin Hunter, Ladarius Green and Vernon Davis. However, I think next on the list after Patterson would need to be Zac Stacy. He went from a top 10 RB in startup drafts and a top 40 pick overall to holding almost no value. I sure hope you sold when you could!
A lot of worthless points to go around here as Karl Safchick, Jeff Miller, James Simpson and myself all nailed Patterson as the most overvalued player. As for the swing and misses, it is hard to miss larger than calling a top two overall producer overvalued. Jeff Haverlack, Nick Whalen, Ty Miller and Eric Hardter are all docked a point and need to go stand in a corner for five minutes for calling Le’Veon Bell overvalued.
Most Undervalued Dynasty Player: Roddy White (2), Eric Decker, Russell Wilson, Jason Witten, Marvin Jones, Jarrett Boykin, Ben Tate (2), Golden Tate, Arian Foster, Torrey Smith, Jordy Nelson, Michael Crabtree, Drew Brees, Robert Woods, Justin Hunter, Matt Ryan
In my opinion, this is by far the hardest category to evaluate. How much does/should age factor into this? For example, Roddy White had a great year, but a lot of his pre-season price had more to do with him turning 33 mid-season than his ability. He clearly out produced his price tag, but there were other reasons for his price being where it was. For this reason, I’m going to throw out any quarterbacks over 34 and anyone else over 30 from the discussion. We hopefully all realize aging players offer great return on their price for a limited window. Off goes White, Witten and Brees.
I’m also going to toss out any players who were being valued as top 15 RB/WRs or top 10 QB/TEs prior to the season. If they were at that level where they were an unquestioned every week starter, they probably weren’t being undervalued enough to win the award. So there goes Nelson, Ryan, and Wilson.
For the remaining group, only two of them actually produced as every week starters when they were healthy, Foster and Golden Tate.
The Case for Foster: Heading into the season there was a lot of talk about Foster being broken and his career basically being over due to the mileage and the injuries. As a result, he was being drafted around the 20th running back off the board or about the fifth round in startup drafts. While he did miss some time with multiple injuries, he was one of the best in the game when healthy. Even with missing all of three games and parts of a few others, he still was a top five running back in most leagues and a top ten player overall. He clearly rewarded those who invested in him this season. The big question now is if there is enough left in the tank for another year.
The Case for Golden Tate: Tate might have been the only person in the league happy to leave Seattle. Yes, Super Bowl rings are great, but he was severely misused and under-used in their offense for years. We knew he had talent, but I don’t think we realized just how much. He was just barely being drafted inside the top 50 wide receivers and top 100 players overall prior to the season. Thanks in part to injuries to Calvin Johnson, Tate managed to be the twelfth best wide receiver in PPR leagues this year and a top 40 player overall. He dropped off a bit once Megatron was healthy, but he is clearly the weapon the Lions were hoping for when they signed him.
2014 Most Undervalued Player: Tie! I think Foster was the better return on investment this year, but Tate has longevity on his side. The two balance out and make them equal in my eyes.
Honorable Mention: I’m tempted to put Emmanuel Sanders, Jeremy Maclin or even Lamar Miller in this spot. But I think they all pale in comparison to the values that were Justin Forsett and CJ Anderson. Neither player was expected to do much this season but both took advantage of injuries and other issues to claim the starting role. Once they had it, they never looked back. They helped win an awful lot of games during the season as well as money in daily leagues while Anderson likely powered more than a few teams to the fantasy championship.
A completely unimportant point is awarded to both Jeff Miller and James Simpson for their selections of Golden Tate and Arian Foster. When it comes to a swing and a miss, it doesn’t get any worse than selecting Ben Tate as your undervalued player. Nick Whalen and Luke Wetta have been sent to bed without dinner for their selections and deducted a point for the miss.
That’s it for part one of our look back. I’ll be back in a few days with part two where I examine out predictions for sleepers, best buy, best sell, and comeback player of the year. So far, our leader in this completely meaningless and utterly arbitrary competition is Jeff Miller with an extremely impressive 3 points! He is followed closely by James Simpson with 2 points. Will Jeff keep the lead? Will James squeak out a victory? Only time will tell when part two comes around. See you then!
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- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Three - April 28, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Two - April 26, 2021
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round One - April 25, 2021
