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Top 10 - Overvalued Players
(page 2)

#5 Vernon Davis: He is the perfect example of the inconsistency of TDs that we discussed in an earlier article. Davis had a total of 9 TDs and 103 catches in his first three NFL seasons and suddenly last year, he has 13 TDs with only 78 catches. His ratio of 0.167 TDs per reception is very high and there is no doubt that it will drop this season for two reasons. Not only is it hard to maintain such a high number of TDs but it would also be very surprising to see Michael Crabtree score only 2 TDs again this year. On top of that, with the emergence of both Crabtree and Morgan late last year, it would be surprising if Davis were to have as many receptions as he did last year. Davis isn’t worth his average draft position even if only his TDs drop so, since we also expect his receptions to drop a little, he makes our list of most overvalued players.

#4 Greg Jennings: The Green Bay Packers will have pretty much the same offense as they had last year with Rodgers, Grant, Jennings, Driver, Jones, Nelson, Finley and Lee. Driver will probably lose some receptions to the two young guys behind him and Finley will be the starter over Lee for the entire season but what about Jennings? He had 69 receptions last year and he would need about 80 to live up to his average draft position even if we account for the increase in TDs that he should have. The TE’s had 55 catches in 2008 and had 91 in 2009 and as a result of that, Jennings had 10 fewer catches in 2009 than in 2008. Everyone expects him to return to where he was in 2008, but we don’t see how that’s possible with all the WRs and TEs returning this year.

#3 DeSean Jackson:  In 2008, DeSean Jackson had 62 catches for 912 yards and 2 touchdowns and in 2009, he had only one more catch but he had 250 more yards and 7 more touchdowns. There are 19 receivers who, since 1983, have had a TD to receptions ratio of under 0.06 and went up to over 0.12 the following season (like Jackson). The following year, their average ratio was 0.091. This means that if Jackson once again has 63 catches, he should only have 6 receiving TDs instead of 9 which would give him 18 fewer fantasy pts than last year. If we do the same exercise with his yards per catch average, that number should drop from 18.5 to about 16 which would drop his fantasy points by about 15. Based on those averages, DeSean Jackson should have more than 30 fewer fantasy points than last year and this doesn’t even account for the risk of having a new quarterback. Just to live up to his average draft position of 10, Jackson would need about 75 receptions, a big reach considering he had only 62 and 63 in his past two years. He went up from 31st to 11th last year while catching only one more pass and yet fantasy players  are still drafting him as the 10th best WR, makes no sense.

#2 Shonn Greene: Shonn Greene is now the #1 running back on an offense that ran the ball over 600 times in 2009. We know that he averaged 5.0 yards per carry last year and that he should have close to 300 carries in 2010. Greene however didn’t have a single catch last season and had only 11 in his entire college career. Because of that, Greene won’t be on the field for many third downs in 2010 especially with Tomlinson as his backup. Let’s say we project Greene to have 10 catches for 75 yards and a respectable 4.65 yards per carry, he’ll need almost 350 carries and 10 TDs to live up to his average draft position. Moreover, because he catches very few passes, his upside is much lower than players like LeSean McCoy, Jamaal Charles, Pierre Thomas and so on, and he has also proven much less than all those players being drafted around him.

#1 Ryan Mathews: Ryan Mathews is in the same situation as Shonn Greene but he is being drafted even earlier. Mathews had 19 catches in three years in college so you can’t expect him to see much action on passing downs ahead of Darren Sproles who is one of the best in those situations. Norv Turner’s goal is to give Mathews about 300 touches in 2010 so that is an excellent indicator that he won’t be on the field very often on third downs. If we assume that Mathews will get 290 carries, 20 catches for 150 yards and 11 TDs, he would need over 5.0 yards per carry to be a top 10 RB. That’s an improvement of over 50% compared to 2009 when the Chargers averaged only 3.3 yards per carry. We also need to consider the possibility that the Chargers offense struggles with the loss of McNeill and Jackson, and that there’s a chance Mathews won’t even come close to those 11 TDs. There’s a lot of hype around Mathews this year and he’ll probably be a very good player but this doesn’t make him a good fantasy player. There are a number of running backs, like the ones we mentioned when we talked about Greene, that have more upside because of their pass catching abilities and who have proven a lot more.

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