Backup Quarterback Fantasy Mistake

Follow@cimini Many covet grabbing a top rated player and player’s in the first six to eight rounds of fantasy football drafts. We all know that injuries run rampant for starters because they are on the field the most. Grabbing other starters in the mid to late rounds with possible upside is the area owners lack preparation on. Complaining about injuries every year to why your team fell apart gets old. Pre-plan better and execute proper acquisitions in your entire fantasy draft. If a GM of a team became lackadaisical with their mid to late round draft picks, you’d see it on the field. Turnover of those draft picks would be evident. When it’s time to depend on those young athletes there is no one to properly do so, and the team morale dips. You’re in charge of your fantasy team, and it can’t all be revamped through a trade or the waiver wire. Josh Freeman is a fantasy quarterback that likely went undrafted in a large portion of drafts (Available in 63% of Yahoo Leagues). Freeman is a quarterback that I believe is going into 2013 vastly underrated. Everyone is high on Doug Martin, and the Buccaneers receivers in Mike Williams and Vincent Jackson. A simple premise would lead you to believe that Freeman could and should bounce back in 2013. He is in the second year with this Buccaneers core group and offense. A running game is supposed to open up the passing attack—and Martin is projected to be a top three to five running back. If Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams build upon last year—as they should—who is going to be a beneficiary of their success? Josh Freeman A lot of people believe Freeman is not the guy Schiano wants to back, and feel Freeman fits the old Jason Campbell mold. Solid but not good enough to garner a starting position in the NFL. Wait a minute. Just a few seasons ago Freeman quelled that speculation with 25 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Even last year his touchdown totals were not bad with 27. That total ranked him 7th in the NFL for touchdown passes. Sure his interceptions at seventeen were higher than people would like, but the fact is, Freeman can throw the football. I do not believe the Buccaneers will opt to bench Freeman in favor of Glennon. If they do it’s going to be much later in the season, when the Buccaneers are clearly out of playoff contention. The potential is there for Freeman to have a bright season and surprise some folks like he did a few seasons ago. We’re not talking about a quarterback I’d expect you to draft as a starter. Freeman is a backup fantasy quarterback just being overlooked. Do you really want Eli Manning, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, and several other quarterbacks drafted as backups over Freeman? All of the quarterbacks I just mentioned have shaky running back situations—in fact only Rivers has one that should be decent but has been tabbed rightfully as injury prone and inconsistent. Freeman may not cut his interceptions down dramatically, but a rise in touchdown passes could offset that. I’ll re-state that he threw 24 touchdowns in his first full year as starter, and then 27 last year under a new offense. You’d think the next step would be to reach darn close to thirty touchdown passes. He is in a contract year as well, with the burden of performing well on his shoulders. The veterans in the NFL are well established and then there is the budding talent of youth that has stormed the league. Guys like Josh Freeman are being overlooked far too much. He has better fantasy caliber than quite a few fantasy backup quarterbacks that were drafted over him. I don’t expect the Yahoo fantasy ownership numbers to be below 75-80% for far too long. In fact, I’ll boldly state that Freeman is one of the biggest percentage leapers from non-rosters before the NFL season to being an addition by week four.

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The calendar days are narrowing to September and the inevitable kickoff of the 2013 NFL season. Brigades of quarterbacks flying off the board in round one and two can be halted, as signal callers in your fantasy drafts are prevalent to be as deep as ever. Head back to your old ways of waiting on a quarterback as it looks to be a safe-bet this season. A fantasy starter and dependable point producer can likely be found in mid-round drafts.

Be sure to protect your quarterback with a safeguard backup. Injuries derail teams on the field and that cannot even protect the fantasy worlds of rosters. Here is the latest installment of fantasy quarterback rankings.

! Denotes Rising
^ Denotes Declining

1. Drew Brees
2. Aaron Rodgers
3. Matt Ryan
4. Matthew Stafford
5. Tom Brady
6. Cam Newton
7. Colin Kaepernick ! The trade for Jonathan Baldwin gives Kaepernick more of a promising threat than last year’s developing first round pick in Jenkins. Look for Kaep to produce as a top five quarterback quickly this season, and sustain it.
8. RG3
9. Peyton Manning
10. Andrew Luck
11. Tony Romo
12. Russell Wilson ^ The praise for Wilson is never-ending, but the ridicule seems to be impossible from the media and fans. I’m not impressed with the way the Seahawks offense has functioned in preseason. Even in their rout of the Broncos the over all ending was inflated. Wilson is a winner and so is Seattle, but I believe Wilson’s fantasy value will drift towards Eli Manning’s, Big Ben’s, and Joe Flacco’s. All winners but mediocre fantasy football quarterback options.
13. Joe Flacco
14. Andy Dalton ^ Cincinnati is one of those quiet teams that are good that no one wants to publicize. Besides AJ Green and the Law Firm many people would have are hard time to ascertain other names on the Bengals roster. Give Marvin Lewis credit. He has kept the Bengals relative and that was with quick transgressions of transforming the team. No team has went from an out with the old (Palmer, TJ Housh, Ocho Cinco, C. Benson and many others) and revamped on defense and offense without multiple years of losing as well as the Bengals.
15. Eli Manning
16. Carson Palmer !- It’s obvious that the Cardinals are going to attack to their strengths offensively. That will likely not be in the backfield with extracted former Steeler Rashard Mendenhall trying to supplant numerous young running backs. Palmer has a great set of receivers and an offensive minded head coach in Bruce Arians that will make Palmer fantasy relevant.
17. Ben Roethlisberger ^- It’s sad to see but Big Ben appears to be descending into the Philip Rivers stage of his career. He has resembled what most franchises want out of a young quarterback but has also paid the price. His nimbleness in the pocket is declining and so are his weapons. The Steelers have a conundrum to figure out at receiver and running back, as Roethlisberger will be without Mike Wallace, Plaxico Burress, and Heath Miller for a time period. This spells trouble as the make shift offensive line has been atrocious in the preseason.
18. Matt Schaub
19. Ryan Tannehill !- Miami is a team that is likely a year away from turning the corner as a playoff contender again. To blow past those expectations Tannehill can defy that by uprooting his own lofty goals for 2013. Do not forget it is Tannehill that led the Dolphins to a fourth quarter comeback victory over Seattle and Russ Wilson last year.
20. Mike Vick ^- He has the starting job now but the pressure is as high as the last row atop the Eagles stadium. Vick’s in a make or break season running a new system offense. It looked pretty in college for Chip Kelly, but the NFL is a different ball game where speed is neutralized. Last year Oregon’s first opponent was Arkansas State. Chip Kelly will learn first hand and unfortunately Mike Vick is his first test at this at quarterback.
21. Philip Rivers ^- At this point Rivers may need a new organization that he can grow with as San Diego seems absent minded at protecting Rivers.
22. Christian Ponder
23. Brandon Weeden !- You have to be pleased with Weeden’s progression in preseason. His play has been shined upon from the media conglomerates for his standout performances. I won’t get carried away just yet. This is the same quarterback that had cannon deep ball plays in several games last year, only to have hiccups on other drives. A quarter of play is one thing but can Weeden play four complete quarters?
24. Josh Freeman
25. Alex Smith
26. EJ Manuel
27. Jake Locker
28. Jay Cutler
29. Sam Bradford
30. Blaine Gabbert
31. Mark Sanchez
32. Matt Flynn

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Points, points, and more points are how fantasy leagues are going nowadays. I, myself still enjoy the more standard type of point system leagues. As tweaks and more innovative ways to gain points accumulates you can sometimes have individuals in leagues side one way versus other league participants. It’s going to happen and many could argue that additional points are futile to capturing a team’s true value.

To assuage owners there are certain point structures that just never go away. The category of turnovers is often overlooked when owners draft, but not on game day Sunday’s. Monster runs after high profile fantasy quarterbacks took fantasy drafts by storm last year. Only to see quarterbacks such as Cam Newton and Matthew Stafford plummet from their draft day value with inconsistency throughout the season. Making matters worse was the fact that both quarterbacks saw a rise in their turnovers. Stafford threw nearly as many touchdowns (20) as he did in interceptions (17) last season. The year prior he had an onslaught season with 41 touchdowns and just 16 interceptions.

Stafford owners that drafted him were hit with the double whammy of ineffectiveness last season. The big decline hit Newton as noted above dramatically as well. His was in a different area of expected continued production. Defenses adjusted to his open field running ability and clamped down on his number one skill-set. His drop from fourteen rushing touchdowns to just eight was a decrease of thirty six fantasy points. Not to mention that his consistent production from 2011 was not dependable, as he had some rough weeks the first eight to ten games of the season.

Fantasy owners need to dig deeper and realize that just because teams are throwing more does not mean your fantasy quarterback is going to ride the gravy train of double digit fantasy points every week. Predicting which quarterbacks are going to decline from a statistical stand point is almost impossible. I don’t care how many websites have a lineup helper or not. Turnovers are an area I would focus on.

Many of us have been in leagues where the point differential for any given week win/lose is by the slimmest of points. Quarterbacks can be the biggest detriment if they’re having a rough week by compounding your possible fantasy points with turnovers. Last year twenty six different quarterbacks threw ten or more interceptions, and fifteen had four or more fumbles. That’s a substantial amount of negative points from your fantasy quarterback on a season.

Rest assured without proper protection from your quarterback in the turnover department you will lose one to two games a season because of it.

Football is at a time where the guessing game on which teams are going to air out the football is over. The majority of teams have game plans tailored on winning their games through the air. In fantasy football you have diagnose which teams are on bad teams that will derail their performance as the season goes on with turnovers. Unlike receivers and running backs that accumulate garbage points playing from behind, quarterbacks tend to see a rise in their turnovers from more forced throws.

Here are quarterbacks I’d monitor with watchful eyes for a high amount of turnovers in 2013.

1. Matt Stafford
2. Russ Wilson
3. Philip Rivers
4. Jay Cutler
5. Eli Manning
6. Cam Newton
7. Tony Romo
8. Carson Palmer
9. Mike Vick
10. Colin Kaepernick

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The media has criticized, praised, and lambasted Tim Tebow continuously. His time as an NFL starting quarterback has come and gone, yet the media will strangle their hold on his publicity until he is completely off an NFL roster. Truth be told, quarterbacks come and go by way of their play on the field daily, weekly, and yearly. You’re not guaranteed to be a starter no matter what round you’re picked in or the size of your contract.

Unfortunately over in Tennessee they’ve dragged on with Jake Locker a bit too long. Every characteristic that has been attributed to Tim Tebow can be categorized the same for Locker. In college he was boasted as a supreme athlete that could do-it-all and he did. The four year starter was predicted to be an easy lock as a top five or even the number one pick.

He did not declare as a junior, and therefore, so his stock overall decline as a senior. Locker was still expected to be a first round pick but no one believed he be a top five pick, in fact most had him as a mid to late first round pick. Draft day came and the Titans believed Locker was their guy to not pass on with the eighth selection.

Legs and an ability to produce on the run and broken down plays have cast a few years to many as starting quarterbacks in the league. Vince Young was able to do it successfully to as a Titan before Locker. Locker’s inefficiencies with his arm were there in college, and have haunted him in his young career thus far. In college Locker’s completion percentage was just around 54 percent. Guess what it has been in sixteen games in the NFL? ….55 percent

Locker is not dropping back and throwing it 40 to 50 times a game either. The only quarterbacks behind Locker in completion percentage a year ago were Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman, Andrew Luck, and Chad Henne. All but Luck, who was a rookie, will likely be demoted after this season (Henne is a backup). Stats do not lie and the Titans will be faced with a tough decision soon on the amount of money they’ve invested in Locker.

He can probably be a solid backup or situational quarterback, but too succeed in the NFL you need to have a consistent arm. Those extra five to eight completions can be all the difference in winning a game.

I believe the Titans made a mistake by letting Matt Hasselbeck sign as a free agent with the Indianapolis Colts, as they’ll definitely need a different signal caller under center when Locker struggles. Hey Titans fans, does the name Ryan Fitzpatrick ring a bell?

Fitzpatrick is a quarterback that just finds himself in opportune situations time and time again, even though his skillset is not that of a starter. He has been on the Rams, Bengals, and Bills. With every team he was brought in as a backup and ended up starting games either due to injuries or poor quarterback play. There is no doubt he will start games for the Titans, his fourth team that he will do so. Frankly, I believe he gives the Titans a better chance to win on the field. The burden of a huge contract that the Bills mistakenly gave him is off his shoulders now.

By mid-October expect Fitzpatrick on the field and to actually play decent as he has notoriously done when called off the bench.

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There are certain teams in football that cannot stay away from the media dramatization in soap opera fashion. Chip Kelly is coming in with a revved up offense that the NFL has never seen before. Kelly is going to be testing just how much he can force the issue with play calls and wearing down opposing defenses. Wearing down a defense is one thing, but the speed advantage Chip Kelly had at Oregon is another. Speed is not an issue in the NFL. When you’re on that field it’s for the most part a sideline to sideline and end zone to end zone fierce athletic enclosed field.

All it’s going to take is for that one play to be called to quickly, and a missed block assignment for Mike Vick to end up right back where he is all too familiar with—on his back shaken and woozy. Mike Vick’s at the stage in his career where he can ill afford to consistently take hits. Do you really believe a new head coach in Chip Kelly is going to have the interest of Mike Vick’s health on his mind? He came in with a system in mind and he is going to run it.
The drafting of Matt Barkley and keeping Nick Foles in discussion for the starting quarterback job now is where his mindset sits. We all know that Foles will be sitting on the bench in favor of Vick once week one is here.

One area that should offset and protect Vick somewhat is the depth at running back with LeSean McCoy and Bryce Brown. Brown showed he can carry the load if he needs to in stints of starts with McCoy out in 2012. At Oregon, Kelly made it standard to run the football downhill with constant action.

My worries for that adaptation to the NFL is how Kelly calls that high pace action when the running game is not working or they’re losing? At Oregon they were in the lead the majority of the time and that made it a non-issue for 95 percent of Oregon’s games. Games they did lose like last year to Stanford were blueprints that NFL teams have used before in shutting down high octane offenses. Stanford milked the clock offensively and put all their might into winning the trenches on the defensive line.

It worked and it was a methodical low-scoring game that Oregon was unaccustomed too. The same thing has happened for run and shoot offenses in the 90’s with the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills. The Bills lost their first Super Bowl to the New York Giants because the Giants chose to sustain drives offensively and milk the clock as much as possible.

I just hope Chip has a backup plan in game situations that his play calling is not working. We all know Andy Reid’s was to have Vick drop back and take a mercilessly beating.

It does not bode well that before the Eagles first preseason game that Jeremy Maclin and Arrelious Benn are out for the season at receiver. The receiver that has to pick up the slack is none other than Riley Cooper. He has familiarity with the Eagles offense but there will obviously be a ton of pressure on him mentally each time he steps on the field and off the field. Will he be ready for that role?

That leaves Jason Avant who seems to have been on the team even before the pre-McNabb era. In actuality it’s only been eight years, but Avant is not the caliber of player that is going to be a threat in the three wide receiver sets. He is on the downside of his career and is just a serviceable receiver at this point of his career.

The rest of the Eagles receivers are unproven for the most part. Damaris Johnson from Tulsa had a decent finish to last season, but there is no possible way he can line up opposite DeSean Jackson. He is only 5’8 and 175 pounds, which would be opposite of Jackson who is just 5’10 and 175 pounds himself. The injuries may continue to mount at wide receiver—Jackson has not exactly proven to be able to avoid the injury bug.

We’ve seen college coaches race right back to the college ranks—Bobby Petrino, Nick Saban–. Chip Kelly may side step going back immediately because of the penalties facing him from Oregon, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do that down the road. It’s not for everyone and if his system fails in Philadelphia, he’ll go back to where he knows it’ll be successful.

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Familiarity in all walks of life can lead you in directions you would not expect. Complacency in a career is something you never want to happen. In the sports world free agency keeps most athletes on their heels. In San Diego that has not been the case at quarterback.

Philip Rivers at one time looked like he could very well be worth the trade value of Eli Manning. Heck, there was a time San Diego fans were even okay with the fact that Drew Brees was allowed to walk away. Those times seem ancient especially over the last couple of seasons were there seemed to be a non-existent attention to detail for Rivers or the offensive playbook.

Tracing the offenses woes to a couple of key areas is easy. The Chargers did not have LT and were trying to go with a platoon of running backs due to Ryan Matthews constant injuries. The offensive line that used to be stable a few years ago regressed. Rivers has seen his sack-ratio rise from an average of the mid 20’s from 2006 to 2009, to in the high thirties the last three seasons—including a whopping 49 sacks a year ago.

There was also a time the Chargers had big play receivers at their disposal. Vincent Jackson was a top receiver in the league, but for some reason the Chargers did not want to pony up the dollars to re-sign him and keep him a Charger. Antonio Gates redefined the athletic tight end and became an example for other teams to emulate. The same injury bug tune that has hit Matthews has plagued Gates the last few years. Literally the Chargers have done almost next to nothing to protect their franchise quarterback and build a nucleus of talent around him the past few seasons.

It is amazing Rivers has remained unscathed to time off the field because of injury. He has taken a severe beating, and a just like a boxer, at some point you’re going to make mistakes if you’re getting targeted frequently. Norv could never figure that out and there were a few times a year ago that you could see the two clashing visibly on the sidelines.

With Norv gone the familiarity of a coach that Philip obviously did not get along with is erased. Rivers is only entering his 10th year at quarterback, and eighth as a starter. His quest to get back to an AFC championship is not going to happen this year, but he can begin to regain confidence in himself and his teammates. Honing in on getting back to the basics needs to be his first priority.

He knows the talent at wide receiver is not the great in San Diego. They did not sign any key free agents and spent a draft pick on Keenan Allen. News today that Danario Alexander tore his ACL will only decrease the wide receivers value on the Chargers roster. They do have serviceable receivers though in Vincent Brown, Malcolm Floyd, Robert Meachem, and Eddie Royal. All have had their moments in their careers on different teams.

A big key too is that all have been Chargers for at least a year. Rivers should already have timing down with them, and a connection in the pocket to find them.
I think the AFC West will surprise some people with the possible emergence of Kansas City and a newfound actual veteran in Philip Rivers. He has the intangibles to be an elite quarterback in this league again. He needs to realize that each down does not need to be a home run play, and that he can hold back on a series when it is not there.

Numbers do not lie, and a tell-all stat for Rivers trying to do too much is how many fumbles he has had the last two years. He has had 24 fumbles, but only 12 were recovered. Rivers is not a scrambler anymore either. So it’s not like he is getting drilled ten to twenty yards down the field and losing the ball. He is holding it far too long in the pocket.

If Rivers would have played the way he has the past two years for different coaches other than Norv, he likely would have found the bench.

Rivers will reawaken this season and I expect a strong rise in his yardage totals, and for him to calm down in the turnover department both with fumbles and interceptions. If you are the type of fantasy draft owner that likes to wait on a quarterback, and then get two semi-decent quarterbacks (E. Manning, Romo, Roethlisber, etc) and having your choice of who to start each week—I’d include Rivers in that conversation.

By the end of September and early October, Rivers will have that green upward arrow on him as he ascends from the low teens range he is at right now for fantasy quarterbacks.