Fantasy Football Truths
Aaron Rodgers is already better than Peyton Manning
Peyton Manning is still a sure thing.
Arian Foster made an even bigger impact though.
It’s time to close the door on another fantasy football season. 2010 turned out to be one of the wilder ones in recent memory, with players who seemed like sure things offering next to nothing to their owners, even as unheralded free agents rolled up ridiculous numbers.
Let’s take a look back now on some of the trends that distinguished this wild and wooly year.
WHO ARE THESE GUYS?: If I told you at the start of the year that you’d have to field a team consisting with BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Peyton Hillis, Brandon Lloyd, Stevie Johnson and Mercedes Lewis as your starting skill position players, you likely would have broken your draft board in two over my skull, right?
Most of those guys were available for a song at the start of the season. Throw in the granddaddy of all free agent pickups, Michael Vick, at quarterback, and you actually had a team that would have been darn near unstoppable. It goes to show that nobody knows nothing in this game.
QUARTERBACKS ARE GOLD: While other positions weren’t so easy to predict, the Big Five of Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Philip Rivers lived up to preseason prognostications. They averaged 32 touchdown passes between them, none threw for under 3,900 yards, and only Rodgers missed a start.
Other QBs had similar stats, but none gave out the sense of security to their owners that these signal-callers did.
THE RUNNING BACK'S DEMISE HAS BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED: Two of the themes that I thought would dominate this year were the growing prevalence of running back-by-committee situation and the increasing subordination of the running game in general to the passing game. Yet at the end of the year, there were an equal number of running backs and receivers that reached the 1,000 yard mark (17 for both.)
How about you? Was 2010 a championship season, or one to forget?
Even more exciting is the sheer amount of explosive new talent on the scene at running back (Arian Foster, LeSean McCoy, Darren McFadden, Jamaal Charles, etc). This surprising turn of events means that you might not have to overpay for running backs next year.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TIGHT ENDS?: I also felt coming into the year that we were entering the golden age of tight ends for fantasy football purposes. But 2010 put a major stop to that. Dallas Clark and JerMichael Finley got hurt early, and Antonio Gates went down late. Vernon Davis and Jason Witten both slumped early on before catching fire, while Kellen Winslow and Greg Olsen never really got untracked. Zach Miller was off and on, and Visanthe Shiancoe and Owen Daniels disappeared.
At the end of the season, it was hard to find a reliable guy to throw into the lineup. It will be interesting to see if 2010 was an aberration or the beginning of a trend at this position. If it’s the former, the top guys may go a lot quicker next year.
Those are just a few of my thoughts on the year that was. I was happy with my teams’ performance this season. In two of the three leagues in which I competed, I ended with the most points in the league; in the third league I missed the playoffs by a tiebreaker. Not bad, but it could have been better.
How about you? Was 2010 a championship season, or one to forget?
If you’re like me, you’re glad that you can enjoy the playoffs without having to worry about individual performances. But again, if you’re like me, you’re already starting to formulate your strategies for 2011. I’ll talk to you then.
