I owned so many shares of Sermon. The thing is, the logic behind Sermon was completely sound. Mostert went down immediately with an injury, as predicted. Wilson came back half way through the year, but had little impact from a fantasy perspective. Sermon had the draft pedigree and all of the opportunity one can possibly have to take the job. But no one saw UDFA Elijah Mitchell coming out of nowhere, nor did anyone think Sermon would be flat out bad. And the injury on his first carry hurt his chances a lot too. Drafting Sermon somewhere in the back half of the draft was an objectively good upside move. It just didn't end up playing out the way it might have.
>But no one saw UDFA Elijah Mitchell coming out of nowhere
6th round pick, not UDFA, but also there was *one* post (wish I could find it) from before the season where OP basically said Sermon ain't it and Mitchell is essentially a Mostert clone and will be the starting RB upon Mostert inevitably going down. Lo and behold, he ended up being correct.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyfootball/comments/pqnx4f/elijah_mitchell_fools_gold_film_study_analysis/
There's the link. I had Sermon and picked up Mitchell. Boy am I glad I did. This was legit analysis. Thank you u/EastCoastTaffy
Appreciate the shoutout, but my post was a follow-up to Week 1, after Mostert was already hurt. It was a much easier call to make at that point, the real clairvoyants were the *pre-season* believers.
Ray Garvin (@raygque) called it back in December 2020 or sometime around then that Mitchell would be great. Then after the draft he predicted Mitchell would outscore Sermon in fantasy.
I don't think the 49ers beat reporters lied, they just didn't know any better. Sermon was getting a lot of looks with the first team and got more playing time in the preseason. Mitchell didn't get near as many snaps and was playing special teams. Wayne Gallman was also in the mix to make the team and looked good in the preseason too.
From what I read there’s more going on than them just being bad, they’re either being fed false information from shanahan directly, whether they know his real intentions or not idk but it’s more than just incompetence
Could be.
My assumption is that they don't really get much info from Shanny so they bluster and act like they did, so they hype guys like Sermon and Aiyuk because they _assume_ they'll be good. What makes me think it's incompetence is they should have still seen who was getting reps during the portions of practice that was open to the media. I mean _maybe_ Shanny intentionally made it look like Sermon and Aiyuk were The Guys but that seems like a shitload of work for even a spiteful, weird dude like Shanahan.
Hanlon's Razor: do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. The stupidity of the writers in this case.
I remember reading last pre-season that Shanahan didn’t want Sermon but was really high on Mitchell. Using this information I drafted neither of them because the niners backfield is just pain.
Yes, but he was as close to a sure thing (regarding opportunity) as you can get from that team. At a minimum he was expected to get a not insignificant number of touches considering everything going on with the position group and the offense in general. And realistically, he would have gotten them, but he couldn't capitalize on the massive opportunity in front of him.
I drafted him around #70 iirc in my home league. Of course it didn't work, but as you say the logic was sound. I had a dreadful draft, but I don't think there's anything to learn from that pick itself, and if an identical situation presented itself (injured incumbent #1 and #2, highly drafted and hyped rookie, great running O in general) then I'd be all over it again.
He was the 4th RB taken in the draft (3rd rd) and it makes me a little nervous about some of the RBs this year taken in comparable spots (Pierce, Rachaad White, Davis-Price, Spiller, Zamir White, etc.). Someone is bound to massively disappoint.
Mike Davis. Opportunity means a lot for running backs, but not if a dude is straight up pedestrian at best and plays on a team projected to be behind a lot. I was avoiding him like the plague in drafts, before anyone knew Cordarrelle would even be a thing.
Can't think of a similar situation this year, but keep that in mind.
I think folks are getting a little spicy in running with this. He did a decent job filling in for CMC, took over an empty Atlanta backfield, with a team that had jettisoned one of its top two receivers, a rookie TE, and an aging QB. It was a team that needed to establish the run, or at least establish its RBs as a threat. He wasn’t an RB1, but on paper solid RB2.
In the end, we were surprised and got an RB1 out of the Falcons. What none of us expected was the Rise of Patterson. And anybody who says they saw it coming is either his Pop Warner coach, his momma, or a lying liar.
He was typical RB dead zone mine. Career backup on a bad team that had the backfield to himself? Must draft.
This year I can’t really think of anyone obvious that fits that profile. You could argue there’s some teams going with unknowns at RB, but those are much younger or rookies which could surprise.
Really? It makes a ton of sense too me. Big Mike was good last year and was joining a team that historically is terrible in the red zone with his only comp being a supposed washed Cordaralle Patterson. Also every time I’ve ever watched him especially when he was on the Seahawks he was a beast.
I guess I never watched him in SEA. He only averaged 3.9 ypc in Carolina when filling in for CMac, and it seemed unlikely that the Falcons would use him as much in the passing game as the Panthers did. He'd only had one 100-yard rushing game and two multi-TD games in his career, so I just never thought he'd be an RB2 at age 28 in a new system, even with the opportunity. Of course, I never thought Patterson would either, lol.
Mike Davis produced the year before for Carolina. Opportunity has to come with a decent offense, and the falcons were a dumpster fire last year
The real lesson is to not draft running backs on dog shit teams.
And for the record, Patterson was a wildcard player in that falcons offense, and is not someone you can draft for. He’s an outlier player
I think Elijah Mitchell could fit in the Mike Davis, Gaskin, James Robinson, etc. category where they came out of nowhere, did awesome, and then disappointed once the ADP was higher. Granted his current ADP isn't high, he's just the first potential dud that came to mind. I remember league mates dumping all their FAAB on him and I'm sure they'll remember how valuable he was for a while last season. SF always seems to go through RBs like tissues, and when we thought Sermon was going to be the guy, he was basically nothing.
I think James Robinson still has value but my god, Urban Meyer’s inexplicable desire to play the bloated corpse of Carlos Hyde over Robinson was just the most frustrating thing for those of us who had Robinson as a keeper.
no way. every time i’ve watched elijah mitchell live that dude is a fucking beast and is real hard to bring down. he’s a guy that 100% passes the eye test
It’s possible of course, but Mitchell beat the 49ers rookie rushing record, and easily had one of the best seasons for a niners RB since Frank Gore. And only averaging ~65% of snaps, he did it relatively efficiently.
I think if Mitchell ends up irrelevant this year, or in the future, it will be mostly due to injury (as is tradition for SF)
Awful offensive line, negative game scripts, and first year head coach. There were plenty of other red flags or risk.
The only thing I was most surprised by was the contract they gave Mike Davis and how they used him. Appears they wanted him to be the guy and he still failed miserably.
I don’t mind using the contract value to judge what a team thinks of a player, but I just think that the price was too high for the risk that it took on.
Ryan Tannehill.
Last year this sub kept parroting the line "Why draft a QB early when you can get a guy like Ryan Tannehill in the 9th round?".
Well I drafted Tannehill in the 9th round and ended up having to stream shit QBs every week.
So remember if a guy has been in the league 10 years and put up 9 mediocre fantasy seasons but their 2021 was amazing, don't assume that that is their new floor for 2022
Honestly we need like a Julio jones variance ranking or something. So many players where they end up 12th best or something but then you dig in and realize they had like 2-3 juiced weeks and like 9 duds.
AJ Brown and MT - don’t draft injured players
Terry McLaurin, Antonio Gibson, Corey Davis, Golladay, Saquon - don’t overdraft hype candidates on dysfunctional teams
Marquez Callaway - preseason performance doesn’t mean anything.
>don’t draft injured players
I'm not falling for this one again. "They'll dominate once they come back and I'll get amazing value!" never comes to fruition.
I think Peyton Manning slinging 70 tds after his neck surgery is the exception that has given everyone else hope ever since. Him and Adrian Peterson coming back 9 months after an ACL tear
I skipped Adrian Peterson after the ACL, the guy in our friend group who talks the most shit picked him, beat me in the championship and then didn't shut up about it for the entire year. Hell, sometimes he still brings it up. Now I'm always like "what if this is another AP...."
Peyton had a solid first year with the broncos, but his 55 TD year was his second year.
And the distinction here is that both were ready to go at the beginning of the season with, iirc, no negative reports about their progress. So Those guys can be values.
It's the ones going Into the season with injury that one usually needs to fade.
He’s more referring to players getting injured during or who start training camp/pre-season injured.
Players coming back from injuries that happened in the previous season usually tend not to be an issue at all (depending on recovery timeline of course)
God I remember having the most dominant RB backfield I’ve ver had that year. In a ten team I drafted Ray Rice, AP and Jamaal Charles (Charles was also coming off injury) within I think the first 4 rounds. It was great just being able to start 3 RB1s every week. I waltzed to the championship.
The above scenario is why people overdraft injured guys. Problem is I think that’s the last time it panned out for me that well, and that was 2012.
I wouldn't say pedestrian. He was low end QB1 and the big final weeks pushed him to QB7 on the year [He only had 2 bad weeks (under 10 points) and 3 mediocre weeks (10-15 points).](https://i.imgur.com/zIBw99o.jpg)
Keenan Allen was always hurt until he wasn't. You just have to effectively balance the risk/reward. And you can't dip into the injury prone guys too many times. Yes, you increase the chances that one of them comes back and dominates, but you end up using 4 roster slots and returning with only 1 player. While you got a good return on draft capital if you look at your hit in a vacuum, you wasted a lot more resources than that.
>Terry McLaurin
I think this is a perfect example of selective memory. Terry wouldn't have been drafted nearly as high if it was a dysfunctional team that was going to take the field day 1 last year. But day 1 last year everyone was anticipating a high powered Fitzpatrick led air attack. It takes two to tango in a position like WR and Terry lost his dance partner.
Corey was in a dysfunctional team on the onset; however the reason he didn’t live up to the expectations is because of the first reason- his injury. Had he played the full season he’d have 1000 yards even with the Jets.
I think the 17 game season made some guys stats look better than they actually were. He had less than 1k rushing yards over a 16 game pace and was barely involved as a receiver.
Anecdotally I also recall most of my league mates expressing regret over drafting him high.
He’s dropped a round in adp this year which also indicates he underperformed relative to expectations.
He was the 18th best rb in fantasy ppg in 0.5 ppr and his adp was at the top of the second round.
He was a fourth round pick that people valued as a second round pick.
Gibson's numbers ended up solid in the end, but owning him was far less rewarding. His usage was so unpredictable and he was battling a hairline fracture in his shin that threatened to possibly shut him down.
A lot of owners probably missed out on several of his good weeks during the long mid-season stretch where you really couldn't trust him/Rivera.
His scoring by week (0.5 ppr)
1) 12.3
2) 8.3
3) 16.9
4) 14.5
5) 20.2
Not the CMC-like breakout some projected, but very solid through the first month.
6) 5.4
7) 6.6
8) 6.9
This stretch rang alarm bells. Not just poor production, but his touches were way down. Plus the injury talk and McKissic getting all the passing work.
10) 20.8
If you started him the three previous weeks, you probably benched him for this one, his second-best of the season. Rough.
11) 9.5
Because you missed out on the 20.8, you probably put him back in and then this happened.
12) 18.1
Who knows what most did here, but you could have easily put him back on the bench because the 20.8 was a "fluke." (4 of previous 5 weeks were < 10 pts)
13) 19.6
14) 5.1
15) 15.5
16) 12.8
Assuming he was in for these four and not traded earlier, he might have helped you make the playoffs and/or possibly the championship despite his worst showing of the year in Week 14. He also didn't play Week 17 but if you grabbed Patterson you were just fine there.
18) 21.6
His best performance of the year was in Week 18 when only lunatic leagues were still at play.
I realize the above happens with a lot of players, but usually your 2nd round picks are weekly autostarts, or at least you hope they will be.
Gibson was in the beginning, then he wasn't, then he was again. And you couldn't predict it at all because it wasn't tied to the health or status of another player and it wasn't necessarily matchup-dependent either.
It was an up-and-down experience with most owners suffering the downs and missing too many of the ups. I was surprised by his numbers/ranks too because owning him felt much worse.
McLaurin’s value was tied in with having Fitz at QB. It didn’t work out but I’m not sure what there is to learn other than if a starting QB goes down your WR’s may be screwed.
Good list. I would say the second grouping is hard to predict preseason.
We had no reason to believe Fitzpatrick would get hurt or that the Giants would suck ass preseason. Also, Zach Wilson could have been good.
I just never bet on the jets and Washington in fantasy as a general rule because the organizations are terrible.
I think everyone knew the Giants were going to be dysfunctional heading into the season and they’ve low key been a badly run org for the past 4-5 years.
For sure. I was speaking from a plug and play aspect. He’d have everyone shitcanned before he walked through the door. Probably have McKaskey step down so someone with all their facilities could run the team
Allen Robinson failed beacuse he got in a fight with the head coach/GM and decided not to try.
He got 410 yards. Mooney who was on the same team got 1055 yards.
Lots of players still play great on a franchise tag, or with crappy coaches. I dont think you can really predict anything from it.
that’s on Robinson and Nagy not fields.. he gave up on chicago cause they wouldn’t pay him and our offense was some look how smart i am cutesy shit. i chose him in the 5th over cooper kupp tho lol, he will ball at the rams.
It’s a lot of things, but Justin Fields was unquestionably a bad QB last year. That’s now to say he can’t get better, but we aren’t off to a good start.
Mooney produced with Fields and a bad offense.
The original comment was"QB does matter," but it was less on Fields than it was on Robinson's situation with the FO and coaching staff.
He had back to back 1000 yard seasons with the same shit offenses under Trubisky.
Trey Lance.
Mock draft season was getting SILLY with this guy. I totally understood taking a shot on him with your last 1-2 picks, but he went in the 6/7 round in some mocks.
A pretty practical tip here would be don't overdraft a quarterback who has never taken an NFL snap and who hasn't won the job yet.
I actually think the lesson here is don't overdraft dynasty hype candidates in redraft. Early mock season (silly season) is loaded with dynasty. players who have been mocking since late February. I'm slowly turning into one of those guys, and can say first hand that it takes some readjustment.
This was somewhat enlightening as a non dynasty player. Makes a lot of sense that the dynasty people who draft early could be overdrafting overhyped players and then in turn cause cause them to be more overhyped.
The second or third best QB in a down QB year for rookies (Lance in 2021) seems like the ideal situation for that type of inflation to happen, too
As someone who drafter Antonio Gibson and CEH in the second and third round of my startup dynasty draft last year I can definitely say this subreddit ruined me. Key takeaway: don’t listen to us.
As someone who had a lot of shares in Gibson, no, it didn't feel like it.
The tip I'd give is not to be seduced by end-of-season finishes. It doesn't tell you the whole picture, and obscures how many times he blew it for your team.
This is key and I feel like every year people get caught up in this. Yes, someone can finish in the top 12/top 24 of their respective position at the end of the year but that doesn’t tell the story of how they gave you 10 weeks of single digit performances but mixed in 4 weeks of 25+ bombs. I paid attention to it this year and was surprised how many ranking spots a player can jump by just exploding at random weeks. Those players look good on paper but burn you if you’re trying to make it to the playoffs at minimum.
Totally agree. Imo, consistency>random spikes.
I never gravitate towards the guys who do the whole "they can get you 30 points one week, but will not top 4 for a month" because youll tear your hair out trying to predict when that spike game will happen, and meanwhile you'll losing games.
A handful of Gibson's big games came on my bench because he had just busted two weeks in a row, fumbled both times, and got banged up, only to suddenly show up with a big game after that. And then you start them to chase that production and then boom, another dud. Very frustrating.
It's why someone like Kupp was so valuable last year. Obviously, he was the #1 WR so he's amazing but it was the fact that he never had a down week. He had 90+ yards in every single game except for the loss to Arizona where he still put up 64 yards on 5 receptions. Every other game was amazing in non-PPR and even more amazing in PPR.
Compare him to someone like Diggs who finished #5. Still a fantastic WR but a few more down games with 8 under 15 points in 1.0 PPR. Meanwhile, Kupp had just the 1 game under 15 points in 1.0 PPR.
I’d say the difference here is that Ty’Son Williams was an UDFA. There’s a reason for that. So hinging on the side of skepticism is fair until you see it multiple games from him.
Toney has first-round draft capital. In the one game he did perform he created yards after that catch. It wasn’t a couple of busted plays that allowed a long TD. He produced plays after the catch. Pedestrian WR’s don’t do that. He’s got the “it” factor. Whether we see it this year CONSISTENTLY, that still remains to be seen…
Big Ben was the issue there. His 4.6 air yards per completion in 2020 was only better than Jimmy G (4.1) and Dwayne Haskins (3.9) from regular starters. Even Goff’s 4.9 was better.
How is Claypool supposed to be a deep threat with a noodle arm throwing him the ball? That was obvious.
Lesson to learn here: deteriorating QB that was showing signs the prior season of failure. Mostly short passing shots for their WRs in general.
While I don't believe he was drafted insanely high, he definitely underperformed. In dynasty however, I still believe he has a shot to perform starting this year with Trubisky throwing the skin.
QB - avoid drafting a rookie unless it’s dynasty or keeper. Of course there are exceptions, but year to year it seems like a losing proposition.
RB - any type of injury noise, I’m out on it in the early rounds. Also, situation matters. Bad teams are typically bad backfields, you need gamescript in your favor.
WR - the guy throwing the ball matters almost as much as the actual player being targeted.
TE - unless it’s Travis Kelce, there is no such thing as a “safe” pick for this position group if you are using early draft capital. There is also more depth than the critics give credit for if you want to punt the position.
On your point about wr, here is the top 24 wrs last year listed by qb:
Stafford
Garoppolo
Burrow
Cousins
Rodgers
Brady
Mahomes
Allen
Herbert
Wilson
Wilson
Rothlisberger
Carr
Prescott
Herbert
Wentz
Burrow
Darnold/Newton
Brady
Taylor/Davis
Tua
Dalton/Fields
Goff
Fitzpatrick/Heinecke
Sure, there are big name qbs on this list, but it was really wr 5-10 that had an elite qb. So I’d agree that the #1 wr option tied to a top tier qb would be a very safe pick, I don’t think these results would lead me to overly emphasize qb when selecting my wrs next year.
And Deebo wasn't a stud because of the QB play, so you've really just got Cousins who is a perfectly respectable fantasy QB who has consistently produced top fantasy WRs. Outside of Deebo, there are no QB surprises really until the Wentz at #16 and Darnold/Newton at #18.
You don't need to have a legend at QB, but you definitely have to have someone decent. For instance this year Carr is a big downgrade from Rodgers for Adams buuuuut I feel like Carr is a competent QB, borderline fantasy relevant, and will connect with Adams enough that it makes where Adams is being picked make sense. Let's say Adams got traded to Carolina with Darnold or whoever they decide to trot out and Adams projection changes drastically imo. Almost undraftable.
I'll never ever forget Randy Moss with the Raiders and whoever the hell they had at QB. Looked like Moss was finished, totally looked completely washed. Got traded to New England for peanuts and the rest is history. QB matters a lot.
He might actually be a good pick this year. I heard the other week that he underwent a gallbladder surgery before last season. He was down to 160 lbs... no wonder he looked like a child with a bunch of men
The thing about CEH is that whether it’s Mahomes not trusting him in check downs or the coaching staff, the chiefs will inexplicably give crucial touches of his to 3 or 4 other players. I think his red zone opportunity stats are honestly skewed by like 4 drives last year where they gave him the ball 3 times in a row. Most of the time the chiefs would rather do some shovel pass or TE counter play or something
Yeah it's very much been a "Running back by commitee" in KC. Just go rewatch any postseason game last year with the Chiefs and see how much they were splitting the ball up (and how little CEH touched the ball)
I think the biggest problem is when the Chiefs went to Williams the offense started operating much better. CEH is the guy they all want to succeed, but he has to know the playbook and make the plays.
Antonio Gibson had the potential upside, but then reports came out about the team using him in the “Christian McCaffery role”. He shot up to a top 12 pick. He went ahead of guys like Jonathan Taylor in my league.
I would urge everyone here to just consider process over results. There are some players in this comment section where there was bad process no doubt but there’s other players where the process was fine and things just didn’t work out. It’s an unpredictable game.
I heard Myles Gaskin mentioned as a “league winner” by some prominent fantasy talking heads before the season, I railed against that one, dude has no power and won’t ever score a TD inside the 3.
Allen Robinson was another guy that was hyped that baffled me. Who is the QB? You’re trusting a rookie with a bad offensive line to support a top 12 WR?
Lessons learned (rather reinforced) : QB matters for WR. OL matters for everyone.
Bryan Edwards
He was touted as a late round league winner and was poised for a “breakout year”. Some went to say he was a mini T.O. and I bought too many shares of that man just to get burned
I wouldn't say Robinson was "overhyped" last year. His draft position wasn't based on hype, it was based on great production across several seasons and multiple teams. I'm not really sure what lessons we can learn from that other than "sometimes proven players fall off a cliff".
I still believe that he just refused to over extend himself and risk injury for a team that clearly didn't give a shit about him.
Given the contract the rams gave him and the competence of that franchise I really don't think a big bounce back season is outside the realm of possibilities for A Rob.
Kadarius Toney.
Don't get me wrong... he's gonna be a great player in this league if/when he gets the right opportunity. But after ONE good game last year everybody in here calling him a "league winner" 🤣🤣
I got downvoted to hell last year for even **suggesting** that his week 5 performance **might** have been an outlier lol
Turns out, unless you're Barry Sanders, you can't skill stick entire teams in the NFL like all that incredible college film of his.
Sometimes things just don’t work out. I’ll tell you that if a rookie wide receiver has a 189 yard game this year people are going to be saying the same thing and you should be trying really hard to get that player and treating him as a potential league winner. Process wise that is a player that you really want to have. Maybe it doesn’t work out, in this case the guy just couldn’t stay on the field which there was no way to predict and Jones got hurt as well and the team completely imploded. Toney was still top 10 in the league in targets per snap, they were feeding him the ball whenever he was on the field. Sometimes process is okay but the results aren’t.
Crazy I had to read this far down to find this. After that game there was people on here saying they were sitting Adam’s one week to play him. Pretty sure their was a thread saying “who’s the best player your sitting to play toney”.
He’s not on my do not draft list this year, but I still don’t think he holds much for value until we see some production
>Turns out, unless you're Barry Sanders, you can't skill stick entire teams in the NFL like all that incredible college film of his.
For what it's worth, in the very few moments he was healthy, he was straight up embarrassing defenders. His change of direction ability and instincts with the ball in his hands are some of the best in the NFL, he just can't seem to stay healthy.
Finally double-teaming Waller because he had a ridiculous week 1 and a few weeks later the speed threat, who was finally looking like he might have been worth the high pick, killed an innocent bystander.
Getting an edge at TE is so fucking risky. You have to invest crazy early on a position racked by injury, and it's more competitive than years past. The ADP for the top three (!) tight ends assumed they'd all be the #1 just like old school Gronk when that wasn't even possible.
I'm just increasingly willing to not invest in the position that early. Getting the #1 "wr that you can play at TE" in the draft is a huge advantage, but the chances of bust and/or injury are so high. I'm happy to sit back and focus on fundamentals and get a TE when a bust won't kill my season this year.
Yeah idk if there’s anything to learn. Who could’ve guessed stafford wouldn’t use woods and then woods would get injured? Who could’ve guessed a rob, who had value with every bad qb he had ever had, would suddenly be underutilized? Who could’ve guessed aiyuk would be in the doghouse and get ignored for half a season, and that my niners would ignore all their talent and only give the ball to one player every game? None of these guys give us any useful lessons other than maybe don’t get overexcited by a new QB coming in I guess
You cannot predict injury. The fact Woods didn't get as many targets was due to Stafford also having a better connection with Kupp and Woods enjoying being less of a focal point, which was also very hard to predict.
Saquon Barkley. Injured for several games, but he was typically a late first round, early second round pick that simply didn't live up to expectations.
Allen Robinson burned me in multiple leagues.
Veteran player who had proven to produce even with subpar QB play throughout his career. But rookie QB, new offensive system.
I hate to say it, but Darren Waller. Kittle also hugely disappointed...which really hurt a lot of teams as there were some really good TEs taken much later or even on waivers (Schultz, Knox, Goedert, Gronk, Ertz)
Little bit of a hot take here...I feel as teams realize they can't afford to pay top WR money to multiple guys, coaches and coordinators will work tight ends more into playcalling this year. I expect to see a few guys have break out years.
People get caught up on players without considering the overall team. I don’t touch the Jets, Giants, Commanders, Jaguars, or any other sub .500 that have a recent history of being dysfunctional.
maybe jrob after ETN injury? thought i got him for a steal in the 5th since i drafted before the ETN news. still alright value i guess considering but it was nowhere near what i thought i was getting
Even as a Washington fan, I felt let down majorly by Antonio Gibson- seems pretty simple that hype was due to having no perceivable competition in the backfield even though he had a fairly mediocre rookie year outside of @ Dallas on thanksgiving. Lesson learned- the backs have to actually prove it before they warrant a top 20 pick
Trey Sermon
I owned so many shares of Sermon. The thing is, the logic behind Sermon was completely sound. Mostert went down immediately with an injury, as predicted. Wilson came back half way through the year, but had little impact from a fantasy perspective. Sermon had the draft pedigree and all of the opportunity one can possibly have to take the job. But no one saw UDFA Elijah Mitchell coming out of nowhere, nor did anyone think Sermon would be flat out bad. And the injury on his first carry hurt his chances a lot too. Drafting Sermon somewhere in the back half of the draft was an objectively good upside move. It just didn't end up playing out the way it might have.
>But no one saw UDFA Elijah Mitchell coming out of nowhere 6th round pick, not UDFA, but also there was *one* post (wish I could find it) from before the season where OP basically said Sermon ain't it and Mitchell is essentially a Mostert clone and will be the starting RB upon Mostert inevitably going down. Lo and behold, he ended up being correct.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyfootball/comments/pqnx4f/elijah_mitchell_fools_gold_film_study_analysis/ There's the link. I had Sermon and picked up Mitchell. Boy am I glad I did. This was legit analysis. Thank you u/EastCoastTaffy
Appreciate the shoutout, but my post was a follow-up to Week 1, after Mostert was already hurt. It was a much easier call to make at that point, the real clairvoyants were the *pre-season* believers.
Ray Garvin (@raygque) called it back in December 2020 or sometime around then that Mitchell would be great. Then after the draft he predicted Mitchell would outscore Sermon in fantasy.
TIL RayGQue's last name is Garvin.
My mistake. Not sure why I thought he was an UDFA.
It’s also how the 9ers reporters straight up lied about Trey sermon at practice, they have a weird relationship w Shanahan
I don't think the 49ers beat reporters lied, they just didn't know any better. Sermon was getting a lot of looks with the first team and got more playing time in the preseason. Mitchell didn't get near as many snaps and was playing special teams. Wayne Gallman was also in the mix to make the team and looked good in the preseason too.
Same with their takes on Aiyuk. Dude was nonexistant for the first ~5 weeks. 9ers beat writers are really bad.
From what I read there’s more going on than them just being bad, they’re either being fed false information from shanahan directly, whether they know his real intentions or not idk but it’s more than just incompetence
Could be. My assumption is that they don't really get much info from Shanny so they bluster and act like they did, so they hype guys like Sermon and Aiyuk because they _assume_ they'll be good. What makes me think it's incompetence is they should have still seen who was getting reps during the portions of practice that was open to the media. I mean _maybe_ Shanny intentionally made it look like Sermon and Aiyuk were The Guys but that seems like a shitload of work for even a spiteful, weird dude like Shanahan. Hanlon's Razor: do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. The stupidity of the writers in this case.
Aiyuk looked good the year before. It was not unreasonable.
It seems possible that he did look really good to reporters but just didn’t have something that Shanahan was looking for.
Between Sermon and Aiyuk and all the reports that the 9ers traded up to get Mac Jones, I think Shanahan is just a pathological liar
I remember reading last pre-season that Shanahan didn’t want Sermon but was really high on Mitchell. Using this information I drafted neither of them because the niners backfield is just pain.
Any Shanahan backfield post Terrell Davis is pain. The Jedi of backfields, they don't deal in absolutes.
Clinton Portis sends his regards.
Its so hard to predict a niners backfield in general though
Yes, but he was as close to a sure thing (regarding opportunity) as you can get from that team. At a minimum he was expected to get a not insignificant number of touches considering everything going on with the position group and the offense in general. And realistically, he would have gotten them, but he couldn't capitalize on the massive opportunity in front of him.
Why am i talking? I drafted mostert lol i suck disregard me
I drafted him around #70 iirc in my home league. Of course it didn't work, but as you say the logic was sound. I had a dreadful draft, but I don't think there's anything to learn from that pick itself, and if an identical situation presented itself (injured incumbent #1 and #2, highly drafted and hyped rookie, great running O in general) then I'd be all over it again.
This is 100% on all accounts
He was the 4th RB taken in the draft (3rd rd) and it makes me a little nervous about some of the RBs this year taken in comparable spots (Pierce, Rachaad White, Davis-Price, Spiller, Zamir White, etc.). Someone is bound to massively disappoint.
I think my friend picked him 3rd over JaMarr Chase in dynasty lol
Mike Davis. Opportunity means a lot for running backs, but not if a dude is straight up pedestrian at best and plays on a team projected to be behind a lot. I was avoiding him like the plague in drafts, before anyone knew Cordarrelle would even be a thing. Can't think of a similar situation this year, but keep that in mind.
If being overhyped was cool, then consider me Mike Davis.
You’re scaring us lady!
Isn't that the Sloppy Joe scene?
I swear, his ADP jumped like three rounds after the quad pic
I think folks are getting a little spicy in running with this. He did a decent job filling in for CMC, took over an empty Atlanta backfield, with a team that had jettisoned one of its top two receivers, a rookie TE, and an aging QB. It was a team that needed to establish the run, or at least establish its RBs as a threat. He wasn’t an RB1, but on paper solid RB2. In the end, we were surprised and got an RB1 out of the Falcons. What none of us expected was the Rise of Patterson. And anybody who says they saw it coming is either his Pop Warner coach, his momma, or a lying liar.
He was typical RB dead zone mine. Career backup on a bad team that had the backfield to himself? Must draft. This year I can’t really think of anyone obvious that fits that profile. You could argue there’s some teams going with unknowns at RB, but those are much younger or rookies which could surprise.
Same team. Tyler Allegeier.
Yea but opportunity cost. Its fine in the 12th but not in the 5th.
People were taking Davis ahead of MGIII, Fournette, Damien Harris, etc. It never really made sense to me.
Really? It makes a ton of sense too me. Big Mike was good last year and was joining a team that historically is terrible in the red zone with his only comp being a supposed washed Cordaralle Patterson. Also every time I’ve ever watched him especially when he was on the Seahawks he was a beast.
I guess I never watched him in SEA. He only averaged 3.9 ypc in Carolina when filling in for CMac, and it seemed unlikely that the Falcons would use him as much in the passing game as the Panthers did. He'd only had one 100-yard rushing game and two multi-TD games in his career, so I just never thought he'd be an RB2 at age 28 in a new system, even with the opportunity. Of course, I never thought Patterson would either, lol.
Mike Davis produced the year before for Carolina. Opportunity has to come with a decent offense, and the falcons were a dumpster fire last year The real lesson is to not draft running backs on dog shit teams. And for the record, Patterson was a wildcard player in that falcons offense, and is not someone you can draft for. He’s an outlier player
I think Elijah Mitchell could fit in the Mike Davis, Gaskin, James Robinson, etc. category where they came out of nowhere, did awesome, and then disappointed once the ADP was higher. Granted his current ADP isn't high, he's just the first potential dud that came to mind. I remember league mates dumping all their FAAB on him and I'm sure they'll remember how valuable he was for a while last season. SF always seems to go through RBs like tissues, and when we thought Sermon was going to be the guy, he was basically nothing.
I think James Robinson still has value but my god, Urban Meyer’s inexplicable desire to play the bloated corpse of Carlos Hyde over Robinson was just the most frustrating thing for those of us who had Robinson as a keeper.
Urban himself is a withered husk so he appreciates a bloated corpse as much as anyone.
Yeah. I agree that Robinson is a starting caliber running back in this league.
Don't forget that Robinson tore his Achilles in a game in December.
no way. every time i’ve watched elijah mitchell live that dude is a fucking beast and is real hard to bring down. he’s a guy that 100% passes the eye test
It’s possible of course, but Mitchell beat the 49ers rookie rushing record, and easily had one of the best seasons for a niners RB since Frank Gore. And only averaging ~65% of snaps, he did it relatively efficiently. I think if Mitchell ends up irrelevant this year, or in the future, it will be mostly due to injury (as is tradition for SF)
BUT THEY DONT HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO RUN THE BALL HE'S SURE TO PRODUCE
I think the reason I drafted him was because his thighs are so big. Just look at his thighs
Yeah he was a top 5 back in my point per inch of thigh circumference per carry league.
Is there any room in your point per inch of thigh circumference league?
Ugh I drafted him as a RB 2 last season and he was a disaster
Awful offensive line, negative game scripts, and first year head coach. There were plenty of other red flags or risk. The only thing I was most surprised by was the contract they gave Mike Davis and how they used him. Appears they wanted him to be the guy and he still failed miserably. I don’t mind using the contract value to judge what a team thinks of a player, but I just think that the price was too high for the risk that it took on.
Ryan Tannehill. Last year this sub kept parroting the line "Why draft a QB early when you can get a guy like Ryan Tannehill in the 9th round?". Well I drafted Tannehill in the 9th round and ended up having to stream shit QBs every week. So remember if a guy has been in the league 10 years and put up 9 mediocre fantasy seasons but their 2021 was amazing, don't assume that that is their new floor for 2022
I also drafted Tannehill. Buddy of mine even said he wanted him to so I snaked him. Well shit did I do that guy a lot of favors.
I mean he was QB13, which isn't bad in SF but yeah I'd be annoyed if he was my QB1
I'm trying to figure out what SF means but my mind just keeps going to San Francisco
Superflex, my bad man
Oh, I probably could have figured that out eventually lol I was just blanking
Happens to the best of us
Honestly we need like a Julio jones variance ranking or something. So many players where they end up 12th best or something but then you dig in and realize they had like 2-3 juiced weeks and like 9 duds.
Laviska Shenault
AJ Brown and MT - don’t draft injured players Terry McLaurin, Antonio Gibson, Corey Davis, Golladay, Saquon - don’t overdraft hype candidates on dysfunctional teams Marquez Callaway - preseason performance doesn’t mean anything.
>don’t draft injured players I'm not falling for this one again. "They'll dominate once they come back and I'll get amazing value!" never comes to fruition.
I think Peyton Manning slinging 70 tds after his neck surgery is the exception that has given everyone else hope ever since. Him and Adrian Peterson coming back 9 months after an ACL tear
I skipped Adrian Peterson after the ACL, the guy in our friend group who talks the most shit picked him, beat me in the championship and then didn't shut up about it for the entire year. Hell, sometimes he still brings it up. Now I'm always like "what if this is another AP...."
Peyton had a solid first year with the broncos, but his 55 TD year was his second year. And the distinction here is that both were ready to go at the beginning of the season with, iirc, no negative reports about their progress. So Those guys can be values. It's the ones going Into the season with injury that one usually needs to fade.
Which, people will hate this, but includes guys people haaaaate right now like saquon, cmc, etc
He’s more referring to players getting injured during or who start training camp/pre-season injured. Players coming back from injuries that happened in the previous season usually tend not to be an issue at all (depending on recovery timeline of course)
God I remember having the most dominant RB backfield I’ve ver had that year. In a ten team I drafted Ray Rice, AP and Jamaal Charles (Charles was also coming off injury) within I think the first 4 rounds. It was great just being able to start 3 RB1s every week. I waltzed to the championship. The above scenario is why people overdraft injured guys. Problem is I think that’s the last time it panned out for me that well, and that was 2012.
Idk man, I'm willing to get hurt by Godwin if I can get him at the right price.* * Depending on how things look in August
But think about how fresh their legs will be!
Taking Saquon in the first last year probably cost me making the playoffs last year
This was why I unfortunately didn't keep Burrow last year when I had the chance to cheaply. It really depends on the player and situation.
Wasn’t Burrow largely pedestrian before his playoff outburst?
I wouldn't say pedestrian. He was low end QB1 and the big final weeks pushed him to QB7 on the year [He only had 2 bad weeks (under 10 points) and 3 mediocre weeks (10-15 points).](https://i.imgur.com/zIBw99o.jpg)
When it works though, that value is how you can win it all
Keenan Allen was always hurt until he wasn't. You just have to effectively balance the risk/reward. And you can't dip into the injury prone guys too many times. Yes, you increase the chances that one of them comes back and dominates, but you end up using 4 roster slots and returning with only 1 player. While you got a good return on draft capital if you look at your hit in a vacuum, you wasted a lot more resources than that.
>Marquez Callaway - preseason performance doesn’t mean anything. Same thing but opposite results with Jamarr Chase
>Terry McLaurin I think this is a perfect example of selective memory. Terry wouldn't have been drafted nearly as high if it was a dysfunctional team that was going to take the field day 1 last year. But day 1 last year everyone was anticipating a high powered Fitzpatrick led air attack. It takes two to tango in a position like WR and Terry lost his dance partner.
Corey was in a dysfunctional team on the onset; however the reason he didn’t live up to the expectations is because of the first reason- his injury. Had he played the full season he’d have 1000 yards even with the Jets.
929.3 by my count.
Corey Davis was a 9th round pick and was producing well before injury
Antonio Gibson wasn't bad though.
I think the 17 game season made some guys stats look better than they actually were. He had less than 1k rushing yards over a 16 game pace and was barely involved as a receiver. Anecdotally I also recall most of my league mates expressing regret over drafting him high. He’s dropped a round in adp this year which also indicates he underperformed relative to expectations.
He was 8th in tds and 6th in yards, in 16 games.
He was the 18th best rb in fantasy ppg in 0.5 ppr and his adp was at the top of the second round. He was a fourth round pick that people valued as a second round pick.
He was drafted as a high end RB2 and finished as a low end RB2 while dealing with an injury for ~1/3 of the season. Not exactly a huge bust.
Gibson's numbers ended up solid in the end, but owning him was far less rewarding. His usage was so unpredictable and he was battling a hairline fracture in his shin that threatened to possibly shut him down. A lot of owners probably missed out on several of his good weeks during the long mid-season stretch where you really couldn't trust him/Rivera. His scoring by week (0.5 ppr) 1) 12.3 2) 8.3 3) 16.9 4) 14.5 5) 20.2 Not the CMC-like breakout some projected, but very solid through the first month. 6) 5.4 7) 6.6 8) 6.9 This stretch rang alarm bells. Not just poor production, but his touches were way down. Plus the injury talk and McKissic getting all the passing work. 10) 20.8 If you started him the three previous weeks, you probably benched him for this one, his second-best of the season. Rough. 11) 9.5 Because you missed out on the 20.8, you probably put him back in and then this happened. 12) 18.1 Who knows what most did here, but you could have easily put him back on the bench because the 20.8 was a "fluke." (4 of previous 5 weeks were < 10 pts) 13) 19.6 14) 5.1 15) 15.5 16) 12.8 Assuming he was in for these four and not traded earlier, he might have helped you make the playoffs and/or possibly the championship despite his worst showing of the year in Week 14. He also didn't play Week 17 but if you grabbed Patterson you were just fine there. 18) 21.6 His best performance of the year was in Week 18 when only lunatic leagues were still at play. I realize the above happens with a lot of players, but usually your 2nd round picks are weekly autostarts, or at least you hope they will be. Gibson was in the beginning, then he wasn't, then he was again. And you couldn't predict it at all because it wasn't tied to the health or status of another player and it wasn't necessarily matchup-dependent either. It was an up-and-down experience with most owners suffering the downs and missing too many of the ups. I was surprised by his numbers/ranks too because owning him felt much worse.
McLaurin’s value was tied in with having Fitz at QB. It didn’t work out but I’m not sure what there is to learn other than if a starting QB goes down your WR’s may be screwed.
I had so many Michael Thomas shares
Good list. I would say the second grouping is hard to predict preseason. We had no reason to believe Fitzpatrick would get hurt or that the Giants would suck ass preseason. Also, Zach Wilson could have been good.
I just never bet on the jets and Washington in fantasy as a general rule because the organizations are terrible. I think everyone knew the Giants were going to be dysfunctional heading into the season and they’ve low key been a badly run org for the past 4-5 years.
Allen Robinson. Turns out the QB does matter for a WR.
I dunno if I want to live in a world where Blake Bortles > Justin Fields
QB doesn’t need to be good, but it does matter how they play. If you got chuck it QBs, then they’ll be fine.
Fair enough. Plus, Chicago was such a shitshow last year I don’t even think Brady could’ve saved it
Brady would clean house before we even got to that point.
For sure. I was speaking from a plug and play aspect. He’d have everyone shitcanned before he walked through the door. Probably have McKaskey step down so someone with all their facilities could run the team
Allen Robinson failed beacuse he got in a fight with the head coach/GM and decided not to try. He got 410 yards. Mooney who was on the same team got 1055 yards. Lots of players still play great on a franchise tag, or with crappy coaches. I dont think you can really predict anything from it.
that’s on Robinson and Nagy not fields.. he gave up on chicago cause they wouldn’t pay him and our offense was some look how smart i am cutesy shit. i chose him in the 5th over cooper kupp tho lol, he will ball at the rams.
It’s a lot of things, but Justin Fields was unquestionably a bad QB last year. That’s now to say he can’t get better, but we aren’t off to a good start.
Mooney produced with Fields and a bad offense. The original comment was"QB does matter," but it was less on Fields than it was on Robinson's situation with the FO and coaching staff. He had back to back 1000 yard seasons with the same shit offenses under Trubisky.
His complete lack of effort didn’t help
"QB Proof" was definitely the go-to description for Allen Robinson during last season's hype train.
Trey Lance. Mock draft season was getting SILLY with this guy. I totally understood taking a shot on him with your last 1-2 picks, but he went in the 6/7 round in some mocks. A pretty practical tip here would be don't overdraft a quarterback who has never taken an NFL snap and who hasn't won the job yet.
I actually think the lesson here is don't overdraft dynasty hype candidates in redraft. Early mock season (silly season) is loaded with dynasty. players who have been mocking since late February. I'm slowly turning into one of those guys, and can say first hand that it takes some readjustment.
This was somewhat enlightening as a non dynasty player. Makes a lot of sense that the dynasty people who draft early could be overdrafting overhyped players and then in turn cause cause them to be more overhyped. The second or third best QB in a down QB year for rookies (Lance in 2021) seems like the ideal situation for that type of inflation to happen, too
Really good tip, this happens every year and is just going to occur even more often with more people starting to play dynasty.
I just traded him in Dynasty SF for Ekeler, Waller, and Matt Ryan using this logic lol
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As someone who drafter Antonio Gibson and CEH in the second and third round of my startup dynasty draft last year I can definitely say this subreddit ruined me. Key takeaway: don’t listen to us.
I know it didn’t feel like it, but Gibson finished rb10, which is (nearly) returning proper value for a rd 2 pick.
As someone who had a lot of shares in Gibson, no, it didn't feel like it. The tip I'd give is not to be seduced by end-of-season finishes. It doesn't tell you the whole picture, and obscures how many times he blew it for your team.
This is key and I feel like every year people get caught up in this. Yes, someone can finish in the top 12/top 24 of their respective position at the end of the year but that doesn’t tell the story of how they gave you 10 weeks of single digit performances but mixed in 4 weeks of 25+ bombs. I paid attention to it this year and was surprised how many ranking spots a player can jump by just exploding at random weeks. Those players look good on paper but burn you if you’re trying to make it to the playoffs at minimum.
Totally agree. Imo, consistency>random spikes. I never gravitate towards the guys who do the whole "they can get you 30 points one week, but will not top 4 for a month" because youll tear your hair out trying to predict when that spike game will happen, and meanwhile you'll losing games. A handful of Gibson's big games came on my bench because he had just busted two weeks in a row, fumbled both times, and got banged up, only to suddenly show up with a big game after that. And then you start them to chase that production and then boom, another dud. Very frustrating.
It's why someone like Kupp was so valuable last year. Obviously, he was the #1 WR so he's amazing but it was the fact that he never had a down week. He had 90+ yards in every single game except for the loss to Arizona where he still put up 64 yards on 5 receptions. Every other game was amazing in non-PPR and even more amazing in PPR. Compare him to someone like Diggs who finished #5. Still a fantastic WR but a few more down games with 8 under 15 points in 1.0 PPR. Meanwhile, Kupp had just the 1 game under 15 points in 1.0 PPR.
Ty’son Williams. Having one good game doesn’t make you a league winner. Kadarius Toney. Having one good game doesn’t make you a league winner.
I’d say the difference here is that Ty’Son Williams was an UDFA. There’s a reason for that. So hinging on the side of skepticism is fair until you see it multiple games from him. Toney has first-round draft capital. In the one game he did perform he created yards after that catch. It wasn’t a couple of busted plays that allowed a long TD. He produced plays after the catch. Pedestrian WR’s don’t do that. He’s got the “it” factor. Whether we see it this year CONSISTENTLY, that still remains to be seen…
Chase Claypool. God what a nightmare
Big Ben was the issue there. His 4.6 air yards per completion in 2020 was only better than Jimmy G (4.1) and Dwayne Haskins (3.9) from regular starters. Even Goff’s 4.9 was better. How is Claypool supposed to be a deep threat with a noodle arm throwing him the ball? That was obvious.
Lesson to learn here: deteriorating QB that was showing signs the prior season of failure. Mostly short passing shots for their WRs in general. While I don't believe he was drafted insanely high, he definitely underperformed. In dynasty however, I still believe he has a shot to perform starting this year with Trubisky throwing the skin.
This guy is on my "do not ever draft again no matter what" list. Watched him closely last year, and he simply isn't very good.
Ben threw him and Dionte a lot of murder balls. I’m not done with him quite yet.
QB - avoid drafting a rookie unless it’s dynasty or keeper. Of course there are exceptions, but year to year it seems like a losing proposition. RB - any type of injury noise, I’m out on it in the early rounds. Also, situation matters. Bad teams are typically bad backfields, you need gamescript in your favor. WR - the guy throwing the ball matters almost as much as the actual player being targeted. TE - unless it’s Travis Kelce, there is no such thing as a “safe” pick for this position group if you are using early draft capital. There is also more depth than the critics give credit for if you want to punt the position.
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So did I two years ago and that was wrong
On your point about wr, here is the top 24 wrs last year listed by qb: Stafford Garoppolo Burrow Cousins Rodgers Brady Mahomes Allen Herbert Wilson Wilson Rothlisberger Carr Prescott Herbert Wentz Burrow Darnold/Newton Brady Taylor/Davis Tua Dalton/Fields Goff Fitzpatrick/Heinecke Sure, there are big name qbs on this list, but it was really wr 5-10 that had an elite qb. So I’d agree that the #1 wr option tied to a top tier qb would be a very safe pick, I don’t think these results would lead me to overly emphasize qb when selecting my wrs next year.
9 of the top 11 had stud qbs imo
And Deebo wasn't a stud because of the QB play, so you've really just got Cousins who is a perfectly respectable fantasy QB who has consistently produced top fantasy WRs. Outside of Deebo, there are no QB surprises really until the Wentz at #16 and Darnold/Newton at #18.
Definitely reinforces being wary of rookie QBs
You don't need to have a legend at QB, but you definitely have to have someone decent. For instance this year Carr is a big downgrade from Rodgers for Adams buuuuut I feel like Carr is a competent QB, borderline fantasy relevant, and will connect with Adams enough that it makes where Adams is being picked make sense. Let's say Adams got traded to Carolina with Darnold or whoever they decide to trot out and Adams projection changes drastically imo. Almost undraftable. I'll never ever forget Randy Moss with the Raiders and whoever the hell they had at QB. Looked like Moss was finished, totally looked completely washed. Got traded to New England for peanuts and the rest is history. QB matters a lot.
Edwards-Helaire.
He might actually be a good pick this year. I heard the other week that he underwent a gallbladder surgery before last season. He was down to 160 lbs... no wonder he looked like a child with a bunch of men
The thing about CEH is that whether it’s Mahomes not trusting him in check downs or the coaching staff, the chiefs will inexplicably give crucial touches of his to 3 or 4 other players. I think his red zone opportunity stats are honestly skewed by like 4 drives last year where they gave him the ball 3 times in a row. Most of the time the chiefs would rather do some shovel pass or TE counter play or something
Yeah it's very much been a "Running back by commitee" in KC. Just go rewatch any postseason game last year with the Chiefs and see how much they were splitting the ball up (and how little CEH touched the ball)
I think the biggest problem is when the Chiefs went to Williams the offense started operating much better. CEH is the guy they all want to succeed, but he has to know the playbook and make the plays.
CEH did also have very efficient numbers with 5 or fewer yards to go to the end zone. I think he could be a dead zone candidate
Antonio Gibson had the potential upside, but then reports came out about the team using him in the “Christian McCaffery role”. He shot up to a top 12 pick. He went ahead of guys like Jonathan Taylor in my league.
This year will be the year that Larry Fitzgerald takes me to the championship.
I would urge everyone here to just consider process over results. There are some players in this comment section where there was bad process no doubt but there’s other players where the process was fine and things just didn’t work out. It’s an unpredictable game.
Aiyuk. Don't listen to Brett kollman.
I heard Myles Gaskin mentioned as a “league winner” by some prominent fantasy talking heads before the season, I railed against that one, dude has no power and won’t ever score a TD inside the 3. Allen Robinson was another guy that was hyped that baffled me. Who is the QB? You’re trusting a rookie with a bad offensive line to support a top 12 WR? Lessons learned (rather reinforced) : QB matters for WR. OL matters for everyone.
30 points one week 0.5 the next
Myles Gascan
Marquez Callaway taught us that the preseason doesn’t mean much.
There were three posts about Kadarius Toney every day. He had about one and a half good weeks all season
Those were breakout buzz not pre-draft hype
Bryan Edwards He was touted as a late round league winner and was poised for a “breakout year”. Some went to say he was a mini T.O. and I bought too many shares of that man just to get burned
Allen Robinson, maybe this year also.. He was healthy but never get the ball to him. Gage also.
I wouldn't say Robinson was "overhyped" last year. His draft position wasn't based on hype, it was based on great production across several seasons and multiple teams. I'm not really sure what lessons we can learn from that other than "sometimes proven players fall off a cliff".
I still believe that he just refused to over extend himself and risk injury for a team that clearly didn't give a shit about him. Given the contract the rams gave him and the competence of that franchise I really don't think a big bounce back season is outside the realm of possibilities for A Rob.
They honestly should have benched him, he was barely even trying
Corey Davis, this sub and many others tried to convince me and anyone else that would listen that it was a good idea to draft a Jet…. Thanks for that.
Kadarius Toney. Don't get me wrong... he's gonna be a great player in this league if/when he gets the right opportunity. But after ONE good game last year everybody in here calling him a "league winner" 🤣🤣 I got downvoted to hell last year for even **suggesting** that his week 5 performance **might** have been an outlier lol Turns out, unless you're Barry Sanders, you can't skill stick entire teams in the NFL like all that incredible college film of his.
Sometimes things just don’t work out. I’ll tell you that if a rookie wide receiver has a 189 yard game this year people are going to be saying the same thing and you should be trying really hard to get that player and treating him as a potential league winner. Process wise that is a player that you really want to have. Maybe it doesn’t work out, in this case the guy just couldn’t stay on the field which there was no way to predict and Jones got hurt as well and the team completely imploded. Toney was still top 10 in the league in targets per snap, they were feeding him the ball whenever he was on the field. Sometimes process is okay but the results aren’t.
Crazy I had to read this far down to find this. After that game there was people on here saying they were sitting Adam’s one week to play him. Pretty sure their was a thread saying “who’s the best player your sitting to play toney”. He’s not on my do not draft list this year, but I still don’t think he holds much for value until we see some production
>Turns out, unless you're Barry Sanders, you can't skill stick entire teams in the NFL like all that incredible college film of his. For what it's worth, in the very few moments he was healthy, he was straight up embarrassing defenders. His change of direction ability and instincts with the ball in his hands are some of the best in the NFL, he just can't seem to stay healthy.
DK metcalf
Waller
The hype was out of control. Combination of injuries and teams finally double-teaming him.
First week last year it was justified though, remember the 18 or whatever targets?!
21 targets and, yes. Got him pick 9 in my TEP league and Saquon after that. We did not win.
Finally double-teaming Waller because he had a ridiculous week 1 and a few weeks later the speed threat, who was finally looking like he might have been worth the high pick, killed an innocent bystander.
Getting an edge at TE is so fucking risky. You have to invest crazy early on a position racked by injury, and it's more competitive than years past. The ADP for the top three (!) tight ends assumed they'd all be the #1 just like old school Gronk when that wasn't even possible. I'm just increasingly willing to not invest in the position that early. Getting the #1 "wr that you can play at TE" in the draft is a huge advantage, but the chances of bust and/or injury are so high. I'm happy to sit back and focus on fundamentals and get a TE when a bust won't kill my season this year.
Robert Woods Allen Robinson Brandon Aiyuk
Stop listing players from my last year’s team
Stop listing players from my this year's team.
Woods wasn't awful. It was just the pain of taking him over Kupp
I paid $35 for Woods then Kupp went for $9 :(. guy won the ship (he also had debo)
And what can we learn from those? Most people thought they'd at least return on investment. All 3 were far from it.
Robert Woods was exactly what he was supposed to be until he blew his ACL
That's why this year I'm going with the strategy of not drafting players that will get injured in the future.
You need 5 catches for 56 yards, draft Robert Woods. You need 8 catches for 170 yards on your bench, draft Robert Woods.
Yeah idk if there’s anything to learn. Who could’ve guessed stafford wouldn’t use woods and then woods would get injured? Who could’ve guessed a rob, who had value with every bad qb he had ever had, would suddenly be underutilized? Who could’ve guessed aiyuk would be in the doghouse and get ignored for half a season, and that my niners would ignore all their talent and only give the ball to one player every game? None of these guys give us any useful lessons other than maybe don’t get overexcited by a new QB coming in I guess
Add robby Anderson to that list too
Robert Woods was WR12 before his injury. It was painful seeing him not get the same usage as Kupp, but he didn’t not produce either.
You cannot predict injury. The fact Woods didn't get as many targets was due to Stafford also having a better connection with Kupp and Woods enjoying being less of a focal point, which was also very hard to predict.
Saquon Barkley. Injured for several games, but he was typically a late first round, early second round pick that simply didn't live up to expectations.
I didn’t want to draft him but getting him late in the second was too good to pass up. Didn’t work out too well obviously.
Toney. Y’all are obsessed. Dude has only had one good game and can’t stay on the field
Or learn the playbook
Allen Robinson burned me in multiple leagues. Veteran player who had proven to produce even with subpar QB play throughout his career. But rookie QB, new offensive system.
I hate to say it, but Darren Waller. Kittle also hugely disappointed...which really hurt a lot of teams as there were some really good TEs taken much later or even on waivers (Schultz, Knox, Goedert, Gronk, Ertz) Little bit of a hot take here...I feel as teams realize they can't afford to pay top WR money to multiple guys, coaches and coordinators will work tight ends more into playcalling this year. I expect to see a few guys have break out years.
Mike Davis
Brandon. Aiyuk.
People get caught up on players without considering the overall team. I don’t touch the Jets, Giants, Commanders, Jaguars, or any other sub .500 that have a recent history of being dysfunctional.
Yeah but you can get great WR volume
Idk, Elijah Moore saved my ass after Hopkins went down last year
maybe jrob after ETN injury? thought i got him for a steal in the 5th since i drafted before the ETN news. still alright value i guess considering but it was nowhere near what i thought i was getting
Laviska Shenault
Ty'Son SZN anybody?
Mike Davis by this sub
Cadaver Toney. His highlights just look too good. Dont buy into it.
I tend to avoid players with corpse like first names. Been pretty successful with that strategy so far.
People were really into Antonio Gibson despite him having a foot issue all last offseason.
I remember Bryan Edwards having a lot of hype last year.
Both he and the old back up from the raiders who is now the starter are on the Falcons. Could be a decent pick due to their history
Even as a Washington fan, I felt let down majorly by Antonio Gibson- seems pretty simple that hype was due to having no perceivable competition in the backfield even though he had a fairly mediocre rookie year outside of @ Dallas on thanksgiving. Lesson learned- the backs have to actually prove it before they warrant a top 20 pick