There are a variety of tools and theories out there that will do so, but the simplest way is to find the number of points produced by the guy who would be the worst starter in your league at his given position and use that as your baseline. Using those baselines, Sanchez goes from being worth as much as Foster to producing just 12 points of excess fantasy value, making him roughly akin to teammate Shonn Greene, who was responsible for points, 13 ahead of BJGE.
Foster, meanwhile, creates points more than the average back and gets catapulted into the top 10, where he belongs. Last year, Gronkowski was responsible for fantasy points above the tight end baseline, which was the fourth-highest figure in the league; in other words, if you could redraft your entire league before last season knowing what they would do in , Gronkowski would be the rightful fourth pick, ahead of guys like Tom Brady, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Shady McCoy.
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Jimmy Graham would be the 12th pick, and Aaron Hernandez would have been tied with Adrian Peterson at 27th. It truly was the year of the tight end. And if their seasons do blend in with the rest of the tight end crowd, well, it materially changes the way you would value them on draft day. For Gronkowski, that would be a seasonal line of 67 catches, receiving yards, and 12 touchdowns, producing a total of fantasy points; Graham would be at and accrue points.
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This decline is already partly priced into drafts. If our logic holds true and the copycat NFL begins to focus more on using tight ends, could very easily be a year in which the production of the average tight end goes up, even as that of Gronkowski and Graham goes down.
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As a result, we could see the baseline for tight ends go past , which would drive down the value of the stars even further. Players with disproportionately high touchdown totals tend to be overvalued, as we suspect Gronkowski is this year, and the opposite is true for players who failed to find the end zone as frequently as you might expect. Understanding that and changing your values accordingly can give you that much-vaunted edge. Take Cam Newton, for example, who had 14 rushing touchdowns last season.
With the Panthers expected to pull into contention this year, this is also likely to be the season where the Panthers start talking about keeping Newton healthy for the long-term while limiting his designed carries. The same is true at wideout for Victor Cruz, who made an art of the big play last season. As the Football Outsiders Almanac notes, Cruz had five touchdowns of 65 yards or more last season. Jordy Nelson and Laurent Robinson scored at a rate greater than once every five receptions, which is also almost always unsustainable.
On the flip side, you might expect a little more out of Chris Johnson this year near the goal line. The same is also true for newly paid Steelers wideout Antonio Brown, who touched the ball 76 times in and produced just two touchdowns. The ultimate example of all this, though, is Jaguars tight end Marcedes Lewis. They each followed a relatively quiet rookie season with an enormous second-year campaign, and they were each valued at a roughly similar spot before the season began. Foster and McCoy were drafted at the end of the third round in fantasy drafts before their big , with Rice a couple of picks behind them in The only unproven back in that range is Buccaneers rookie Doug Martin, who is expected to start ahead of LeGarrette Blount.
Like those players, though, he could struggle to stay healthy or effective as a rookie.
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There is a decent crop of second-year backs who have some potential for breakout seasons lurking later in the draft. More promising are Mark Ingram and Daniel Thomas, each of whom struggled with injuries during their first season at the professional level. Thomas is particularly interesting. Thomas will split time with Reggie Bush, but Bush just finished the healthiest season of his career. What do I mean by that?
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With numerous statistical measures that go far beyond standard NFL stats, Football Outsiders Almanac gives NFL fans the kind of sabermetric-like statistical analysis that revolutionized the fan's understanding of baseball. It's also written with a knowing dry wit that gets under the skin of America's most popular spectator sport. Schatz and his team at FootballOutsiders. Football Outsiders Almanac also includes college football coverage featuring the innovative stats of Bill Connelly and Brian Fremeau.
There are stats and commentary on every team from the six BCS conferences, plus a baker's dozen of important independents and non-BCS programs. Like FO's NFL coverage, this college football analysis goes past just ranking the FBS teams to break down the strengths and weaknesses of each program. Football Outsiders Almanac also introduces two new writers to the Football Outsiders family. Saturday" on college football. If you've never bought Football Outsiders Almanac and want to know what it's all about, check out these two samples from this year's book:.
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