Newsletter

Top 10 - Overvalued Players

#10 Adrian Peterson:  Although we believe there are some players that are more overrated that Peterson, we had to put him on here because he shouldn’t go #1 in fantasy leagues. Peterson was #3 in non-PPR leagues behind Turner and Williams and was #9 in PPR leagues behind a number of guys including Forte, Jones-Drew and Slaton. All three of those guys are young, like Peterson, but for some reason ADP is the consensus #1 pick. If we take a close look at his statistics, he had 363 carries last season, a number which will most likely drop this season since RBs who have between 340 and 390 carries in a season and play at least 15 games the following year average only 335 carries. On top of that, RBs with over 200 carries in three straight seasons and a yards per carry average of at least 4.5 in the first two, like Peterson, average only 4.4 yards per carry in the third one, a drop of 12% on average.  This drop is very likely to occur for Peterson since the Vikings have lost their starting center Matt Birk. If you put those two statistics together, Peterson should have around 1,450 rushing yards this season which would be 300 less than in 2008. To make up for those points, he would have to score six more touchdowns than last year or have roughly 15 to 20 more receptions and he still wouldn’t have as many points as the three guys I named above had last year. In our minds there is no reason to draft Peterson at #1 in PPR leagues and in non-PPR leagues we still prefer the upside of Jones-Drew; we believe he is only being drafted ahead of those guys because he is better known and he was a seventh overall pick.

#9 Tony Gonzalez: He has caught 195 passes in the last two years but any player moving to a new team after spending the first 12 years of his career with the same team is a risk. Gonzalez is a very good player but people are expecting him to be a top three tight end and catch over 90 passes again. However, Gonzalez is moving to a team that attempted 100 fewer passes than this previous team in 2008 and that has more talent at WR with Roddy White, Michael Jenkins and Harry Douglas. Gonzalez will still get his fair share of receptions but you can’t expect him to catch 96 passes again and there’s always the risk that he is used as a blocker more often than not or struggles to adjust like Alge Crumpler did in Tennessee.

#8 Vincent Jackson: Jackson had a breakout season in 2008 finishing the year as a top 20 WR in fantasy leagues. Jackson did catch 18 more passes than in 2007 but he also averaged 18.6 yards per catch and had four more touchdowns than in 2007, two numbers that will likely drop in 2009. Wide receivers that have at least 40 catches in two consecutive seasons and average between 18.0 and 19.5 yards per catch average only 16.1 the following year. Even if Jackson were to have 60 receptions like he did last year, he would have 15 fewer points simply because of the drop in yards per catch. Furthermore, based on similar averages, we can expect him to score two fewer touchdowns than he did last season. That means that based on those averages, he should have about 27 fewer points than last year . Moreover, Jackson probably won’t be targeted as often with a healthy Antonio Gates and a Malcolm Floyd who became much more involved in the offense in the second half of the 2008 season.

#7 Philip Rivers: The calculations we made above for Vincent Jackson seem to apply for Philip Rivers as well who is also being drafted way too early in our opinion. Last season, Rivers suddenly averaged 17% yards per attempt more than his average from the two previous seasons and also had 55% more touchdowns per pass attempt. Since 1983, 26 quarterbacks have averaged between 8.0 and 9.0 yards per attempt while attempting over 400 passes in a season, of the 15 that also attempted over 400 passes in the following season, seven averaged less than 7.2 yards per pass attempt in that following season. The only one that managed to have over 8.0 yards per pass attempt in the following year is Steve Young. When we look at the quarterbacks who had sudden increases in touchdowns per pass attempt like Rivers did in 2008, they average the same number of touchdowns per pass attempt than they did before their breakout year. Last season, we had Ben Roethlisberger 12th in our QB rankings (even though his average draft position was 6th) for the exact same reasons and we were right. The only way that Rivers can have similar fantasy stats as last year would be if he threw about 600 passes (25% more than last year) and for that reason we strongly recommend you to stay away.

#6 Kurt Warner: Warner had an excellent season in 2008 but you can’t forget that he was still fighting for the starting job at the beginning of the season and he still has Matt Leinart as his backup. Most of Warner’s statistics were pretty normal compared to the year before except one, pass attempts. The Cardinals attempted 630 passes in 2008 which ranked them second in the NFL behind the New Orleans Saints and they were last in running attempts with only 340. Since 2002, 11 teams have thrown over 600 passes in a season and the following year they averaged 558 and only two of them threw more than 600. Ken Whisenhunt will now be calling the plays after the departure of Todd Haley and we don’t expect Warner to throw anymore than 550 passes in 2009. That alone would drop his fantasy points by 8.5% and drop him outside the top five.