Fantasy Preview: the New Orleans Saints

The premise is simple: I'll tell you what players you can confidently start the season with, and what players should cause your stomach to wobble if you have to start them.

New Orleans Saints
2006 stats at NFL.com and pro-football-reference.com

Drew Brees (QB): Brees is one of the six best fantasy quarterbacks. The problem is there are players just a notch or two below his production that will go much later in snake drafts, or for much cheaper in auction drafts. Is it worth it to pass on a starting RB or WR in order to get Brees, which you’d have to do? I don’t think so. But if you do it, you obviously should be happy to start him.

Marques Colston (WR): There’s going to be too much fantasy hype on Colston; I’ll most certainly be staying away from him. I’m always leery of guys with a great rookie year coming back. Was it a fluke? I don’t know. I’d still be happy starting him, I just don't feel willing to pay enough to draft him.

Reggie Bush (RB): But this is the great dilemma, isn’t it? Bush or McAllister? I’d be willing to start Bush this season; he produces yards because he’s so involved in the passing game, he should do better running the ball, and he’s capable of a TD at any time.

Deuce McAllister (RB): And I’d also start Deuce McAllister happily if I could.

Now the real question: could you try draft McAllister and Bush and start them both? It’s a question you need to ask. There are still plenty of feature backs in the league, but a lot more teams are going to the combination backfield of two very good RBs. You can get burned if you pick one and the other one has a huge game. But is it worth it to start two RBs on one team instead of two feature RBs on two separate teams? Generally, you would expect two separate RBs getting primary back carries to produce more fantasy points than two RBs splitting carries on the same team--there are just more carries going around for two different teams than one. However, because those feature RBs will be in high demand, you may be able to get both of the sharing-carries RBs from one team relatively cheaply. This means you could bulk up your WR positions with elite WRs, then start a combo backfield. It’s a strategy that just might work: Bush and McAllister did combine for 2,562 yards from scrimmage and 18 offensive TDs last season.

In a snake draft, I wouldn’t do it: there’s going to be a lot of hype on Reggie Bush, so he’ll go relatively early. But in an auction league, you might be able to get both McAllister and Bush to be your primary starters and still get elite WRs, too.

The Saints should have a high-scoring offense, so you could also start kicker John Carney.