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.
San Diego Chargers
2006 stats at NFL.com and pro-football-reference.com
Ladanian Tomlinson (RB): It's not just that in 2006 he had arguably the greatest fantasy season for a RB ever, with 2,323 total yards and 31 TDs scored; it's that in the previous five seasons before his epic 2006 season, Tomlinson averaged 1,950 total yards and 16 TDs per season. He's the most dependable RB in fantasy football, and he has been for years. If you have the #1 pick in your draft, you must select Tomlinson. But the real question is what you should do in an auction league: should you resign yourself to missing out on Tomlinson, or should you spend 50% of your total money to get him? Last season he was as productive as two starting RBs--if you started Tomlinson, whatever points you got from your #2 RB were gravy. He always gets tons of yards and tons of TDs--the only way that slows down now is if he gets injured (he's only missed one game in his career so far). I personally have resigned myself to saving my money for other players; however, if you are willing to draft Tomlinson, you are likely to have a high scoring team, so he might be worth the major chunk of your auction money.
But if you do draft Tomlinson in either a snake draft or an auction draft, you might want to go ahead and draft Michael Turner too; if you've invested a crapload in Tomlinson, you don't want a competitor to benefit from a Tomlinson injury by starting Turner.
Antonio Gates (TE): I'm of the opinion that if you don't get Gates, you may as well wait and spend little to nothing on one of the many viable fantasy TEs out there. I also think Gates is more valuable in an auction league than a snake draft. If you select Gates in a snake draft, you're using an early pick on a TE, and that means you are passing on a starting RB, WR, or QB. If you draft him in an auction league, you can still attempt to manage your money to fill out a solid starting lineup.
Philip Rivers (QB): One of the solid fantasy starters: if he can pick up his yardage production, he'll be an elite fantasy QB soon.
Nick Kaeding (K): The Chargers were the #1 scoring team in the league last season: of course you want their kicker.
Defense: The Charger D was 7th in overall points and 1st in sacks last season.
Minor note: the kicker's name is Nate Kaeding.
ReplyDeleteA fear of pulling anyone other than LT for fantasy on the SD offense this year has to do with Norv Turner. Nothing good can come of him in charge of a team.
Learning these kickers' names is going to be the sickness of me (not quite the death of me, just a long illness).
ReplyDeleteYour complete disdain of kickers saddens me, PV. Why, what would the Vikings do if they didn't have anyone kicking those three points 3 times a game last season? On a team that has such trouble getting into the endzone, such as the Minnesota Vikings did last season (or the Colorado Rush did the season before) those measley offensive points are the only way to make progress to winning the game. The defense rarely wins the game for you, it mostly prevents you from losing.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of the Bears kicker (who ever the ef that is): EEEEEEEhhh YOU NEED A KICKER!!!!
hey buddy, I just checked out the link about Ladanian Tomlinson you posted here and it was awesome, I enjoyed reading about Ladanian Tomlinson because I admire him a lot, thanks!
ReplyDelete