Rookie Rash
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008I for one am always hesitant to draft rookies going into a fantasy season. Generally speaking, there is a significant learning curve for everyone coming into a new offense, and to a lesser extent a new defense. Sure there have been exceptions, most notably Adrian Peterson last season and before him Randy Moss, who coincidentally both came into the league with the Vikings. But for the most part, it has been considered something of an enigma to have a rookie putting up monster fantasy numbers, particularly in the first half of the season.
But we could fill up a bakers dozen of sufficiently worded posts about the number of rookies this year that would be considered assets. It’s astonishing, really; and speaks to the nature of this season’s unpredictability. Look, every season for the past five years has been fairly rattled by the hard salary cap and led to a lot of unexpected performances, playoff teams and everything else. But this season has been off the charts.
In terms of the season, a lot of that is due to the two stalwarts, the Colts and Patriots, getting off to slow starts and being decimated by injury and old age. That rendered the AFC wide open until Tennessee came through with a 40 year-old quarterback and has ran the first 11 weeks of the season undefeated. With their supposed future of the franchise riding the pine. This is not anything, anyone could have expected, despite the fact they made the playoffs. Not to mention that the Jags, along with the Browns, Chargers and Broncos have all failed to live up to the standard that everyone set for them for various reasons.
A lot of Tennessee’s success is due to, well, it is mostly defense. Guys like Haynesworth and Finnegan have lofted that D to an unsung level. But on the offensive side, no one could have expected Chris Johnson to be as effective as he’s been from week one. At this point, LenDale White is virtually obsolete, because whenever I watch Johnson run a goal line carry he always gets into the end zone. Always. At this point, White is basically a light burden on the payroll that alleviates some of the wear and tear that Johnson would otherwise endure.
In the NFC, we have teams like Tampa, Carolina, Washington, Atlanta and Arizona all exceeding expectations. Atlanta and Arizona most notably. What do those two have in common? Rookies excelling in the backfield. Matt Ryan is actually on a lot of short lists for MVP consideration (though he’ll never win it) as he has led the Falcons to a 6-4 record after coming off a season mired by controversy. Actually, corruption would probably be a more fitting term. Controversy implies that someone was actually defending Mike Vick or Bobby Petrino.
Tim Hightower has done to Edgerrin James what Chris Johnson has done to LenDale White, except Whizenhunt isn’t giving James the benefit of getting the cheap touchdowns. He’s touched the ball maybe four times in the past three games, all on random third down plays when they were just playing for field position. Of all the rookies changing the landscape of the NFL, Hightower’s is the most surprising. For one, he really has a white person’s name. Secondly, he went to Richmond. Personally — though I doubt I’m alone in this — I had no idea the Spiders even fielded a football team. The Cardinals have been such a non-entity in the NFL for the past, well, sixty years or so; how does one not root for them as a franchise?
We could go on and on about all the rookies that are having a significant positive impact on their franchises and (depending on your perspective) and adverse impact on the fantasy season. So instead of dragging this thing out we’ll just list them (In addition to the three above):
Joe Flacco
Matt Forte
BenJarvus Green-Ellis
Peyton Hillis
Felix Jones
Darren McFadden
Jonathan Stewart
Kevin Smith (Though to be honest, no one is doing much to improve the state of affairs over at Lions camp)
DeSean Jackson
Steve Slaton
Fred Jackson
Eddie Royale
Dustin Keller
That’s fifteen if you include the three mentioned above, and we didn’t even mention Rashard Mendenhall, who would have well over 100 fantasy points if he were healthy. Nor did we mention Tyler Thigpen, who though technically a rookie was drafted in 2007. never the less, he has earned the starting position until the next time Kansas City takes another unsuitable quarterback high in the draft.
We’re not sure if this is a trend or just an aberration in an already screwy NFL season. Whatever it is, we are probably going to over-prioritize drafting rookies in 2009 as Michael Crabtree fails to average more than 30 yards a game because he has JaMarcus Russell throwing to him and Beanie Wells can’t break 50 yards a game because the Chiefs couldn’t block a nerf arrow. But it now has to be taken into consideration when drafting for your fantasy team. Just one more caveat for you to fuck up on.
















