Fantasy Football

Before we get to the second part of our three-part draft preview, I think it’s imperative that we be the fourth entity to bring you the news that Tony Gonzalez is being traded to the Atlanta Falcons for a second round draft pick in 2010. In other words, the Falcons are getting an inarguable top five tight end (and some would say top three) in the league for a pick in next year’s draft. If you look at the upcoming NFL season and the continually depleting rosters in the NFC, Atlanta is starting to look more and more appealing at 20/1 odds to win the Super Bowl.

Also, some bad news for Carolina fans, Jake Delhomme has been resigned to a four year extension, presumably to take your chances of making it to the Super Bowl in 2010. Luckily, this is the NFL and ownership doesn’t have to honor their contracts. Phew, Bullet: dodged.

Following up on our favorite picks for immediate impact fantasy rookies in 2009, we bring you several players we’d advise veering away from. It isn’t that these players are hopeless, just that all things being equal, they have so many question marks around them either on or off the field, that it is difficult to be overly confident in their performance. We don’t have many of these because we aren’t keen on shitting all over some kids before they even play a down, but for varying reasons we’d advise looking for greener pastures. Just like yesterday this is all pending on who drafts them, but we have to write something, and listed speculation is easier than paragraph form speculation. I mean, better. It’s better than paragraph form speculation.

Marc Sanchez
Has there been a player that has skyrocketed quicker and higher in draft stock simply by default than Mark Sanchez? I saw him play live in SoCal for the Ohio State game, and while he looked impressive then and against Penn State he was decidedly mediocre the rest of the season. Sure, he could be Carson Palmer. But he could also be Matt Leinart of John David Booty, the latter of which he couldn’t even beat out of the starting position in 2008. So, congrats on beating up on an weary and banged up OSU team and an under-tooled and overrated Penn State team, but we still have our doubts that you warrant all this attention. If I’m Washington, I’m giving Jason Campbell one more year and waiting for something better to come along, and if I’m the Jets I’m waiting to see if Josh Freeman is available with my mid-first rounder or taking a chance with another 2nd or 3rd rounder, and banking on the fact that Clemens might look a little better now that the line has some reps under its belt.

Michael Crabtree
Man, I heard an interview on Scott Van Pelt’s radio show earlier this week and it’s impossible to not root for this kid if you don’t root for UT. He’s college football’s version of JT from the current season of Survivor. But that knee injury he sustained playing fucking Baylor is known to be career ending, not to mention he played in the Big twelve, inarguably the worst defensive conference in the country and in a system offense that caters to the passing game (roughly 75% of their offensive plays were through the air). If the argument against every single Texas Tech quarterback is that they play under a favorable and misleading offensive system, we don’t know why this doesn’t apply to receivers as well. Needless to say, as entertaining as he was too watch during the 2008 college football season, we have our doubts as to whether or not he will pan out as an efficient pro. Cleveland fans should be ecstatic that they’ve already said they aren’t drafting him.

Percy Harvin
And it’s not even the failed marijuana test. Well, that’s not helping. But it’s just the cloud of negativity that seems to surround this kid. He’s undersized, he’s injury prone, he doesn’t get along with his teammates, and now he has failed a drug test. Personally, and I really doubt I’m alone in these sentiments, I could give a shit that he smokes weed. In fact I even encourage it, assuming it serves as a stress reliever. It’s that he knew it was coming, got stoned and failed to beat the drug test. Now, this either wreaks of arrogance or sheer idiocy. The latter would imply that he smoked, knew he would get caught and was indifferent to the potential consequences because he figured there wouldn’t be any. The former implies that he smoked, and either failed to mask his indiscretion properly or simply failed to remember the pending drug test. Admittedly I felt differently about him in January, but whatever the reason for him failing that drug test, it isn’t particularly flattering.

Brian Robiskie
This just comes from personal experience. We’ve been to roughly…five OSU games on average since Robiskie started getting regular playing time. And to say he lacks quickness is to say Peyton Manning lacks mobility. He has no breakaway speed, is seemingly incapable of bailing out his quarterback and lacks a penchant for inspired play. Not once did he make a play in a close game or when they were facing a considerable deficit. In short, when the best thing you can say about a receiver is that he’s bigger than average, it isn’t an encouraging sign. That isn’t all necessarily his fault, but it’s enough of one for me to avoid taking him on the first day. My guess is he won’t see any playing time this season, so you won’t have to worry about him from a fantasy perspective.

Pat White
Not that he’s highly touted or anything and he did have a superb college career (would have played in a national title game in 2007 if he didn’t leave halfway through the last game of the season), but any quarterback that relied that heavily in college on the running game isn’t going to amount to much in the NFL. The best precedent for this is Kordell Stewart, but the more likely outcome is someone along the lines of Michael Robinson (San Fransisco) or Brad Smith (NY Jets). Not they’re completely responsible (or, at all), but neither of those teams made the playoffs.

Rhett Bomar
Long story short: If you play at Sam Houston State and are the fifth rated quarterback by Mel Kiper, you’re going to make a list like this one.

Chase Daniel/Graham Harrell
For the same reason we’re not particularly fond of Mr. Crabtree, but to an even more confident extent. Both of these guys are under-sized and ill-equipped to adapt to the NFL. We’d have more confidence in Chase Daniel, and Drew Brees would be the reason for that. But Brees was an almost unflappable quarterback at Purdue and lacked an offensive weapon like Jeremy Maclin. We’re rooting for both of them just because everyone seems almost gleeful that they won’t measure up to the pros like they did the college ranks, but we’re just as pessimistic as everyone is hostile.

Alright, our late bloomers coming tomorrow, we’re still deliberating live-blogging the first couple rounds of the NFL draft, we’ll let you know tomorrow.