TFR: Looking Back

The regular season is winding down for a vast majority of fantasy football leagues, with two to three weeks left before the playoffs start. As is true with most fantasy football seasons, if you are close to making the playoffs, you already know what your roster looks like, and there are not many people left on the waiver wire. For the next few weeks, we will look back at the 2013 Fantasy Football season, wrapping up some awards, looking back on predictions, before settling on some roster advice for the final few weeks of the season, in hopes of helping you win the playoffs.

This was the first year of in-depth weekly predictions for much of the SnoTap Fantasy Team, so it’s important to look back and see how the predictions fared. We’re definitely going to brag about the calls we got right, but do not worry, we will make fun of ourselves a little bit for the places we went wrong. As always, if you see anything that we missed, let us know.

Quarterback

Where we went right:

Andrew Luck is the quarterback you want from the four young guys. Many had RGIII, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, and Luck as a grouping of QBs going into the year, but each fantasy player had their favorites, whether it was the intangibles of Wilson, the running ability of Griffin, or the all-around ability of Kaepernick. Here at SnoTap, we advised that Luck had some running ability, it just was not as startling as his peers’. We also advised his passing would be superior. He’s had a tough few games since Reggie Wayne went down, but there have been bigger issues with those he has been compared to.

Terrelle Pryor has sneaky value. Early in the season, we talked about Pryor as an under the radar fantasy option. His passing stats were not going to be great every week, but he could make up for it when it comes to running the ball. He threw the ball better than anyone expected early in the year, and when that started to fade, he broke off long touchdown runs. He’s not a top-10 QB, but he clearly brought value.

Where we went wrong:

Carson Palmer is a sleeper: It all made sense, Palmer was a decent value in Oakland, Oakland had subpar receivers, Palmer went to Arizona, Arizona has better receivers. For some reason, Palmer just took a dive this season. He has not produced as was expected in Arizona, and for those that took a risk on him as a starting quarterback, they have not been rewarded.

Stay Away from Phillip Rivers: All offseason, we discussed how Phillip Rivers was done, and he should not even be owned in leagues. For a few years, I thought he would bounce back from subpar seasons, and he kept letting me down so we were not going to be caught again. But then he bounced back. He’s cooled off a bit after a fast start, but Mike McCoy clearly deserves some credit for the way the Chargers have looked on offense.

Running Back

Where we went right:

Marshawn Lynch is a very safe RB option: It was obvious to everyone who played fantasy football that Adrian Peterson was the best choice at running back for anyone with the first pick. However, those who had the second pick in the draft had a difficult decision: Ray Rice, LeSean McCoy, C.J. Spiller, Doug Martin, Arian Foster, or Lynch. We argued Lynch was a very safe option, while many others went the route of Rice as the safest. If you listened to our advice, you’re probably decently happy with that pick.

CJ Spiller and Doug Martin are huge risks: We ranked them high, more on that later, but we discussed Spiller and Martin had huge upside, although we indicated a large chance of them having unsuccessful season. Both have battled injuries, Spiller had an ankle that keeps him in the lineup but less than effective, and Martin had torn labrum (Shoulder) that put him on Injured Reserve. Although the injuries hurt, they were not all that effective before suffering them.

Where we went wrong:

CJ Spiller and Doug Martin are worth the risk: Despite all the risk, we said that Spiller and Martin were worth the first round draft pick it would take to acquire them.

LeSean McCoy as the number 12 Running Back: McCoy was coming off injuries at the end of last season, and Chip Kelley’s offense receiving tons of hype, and Bryce Brown, a touchdown vulture, still roams in Philadelphia. It had all the makings of a time-share disappointing season for McCoy. We ranked him a little lower than others had him at, keeping him at 12. Right after the rankings went live on the site, McCoy pulled that ridiculous cutback against the Panthers in the preseason, it was obvious at that moment that we had some doubts about this ranking.

Wide Receiver

Where we went right:

Randall Cobb as the number 23 Wide Receiver: Massive hype for Cobb coming into the season, especially here in Wisconsin, and for good reason. We preached a bit of caution, warning that injuries and less than expected targets could keep his value down. When Cobb was healthy, he played like a beast, but unfortunately he took a rough hit against the Ravens and leaving owners high and dry. Cobb is an incredible talent, and it is likely that we will be higher on him than others next season, but caution would have been helpful coming into this year.

Eric Decker still has fantasy value: In the preseason, Decker became the popular choice to lose value with the addition of Wes Welker in Denver. People were saying that Welker would take Decker’s routes, targets, and that Decker could not keep up the touchdown pace he had from the previous season. We discussed Peyton Manning certainly had the ability to keep three wide receivers happy (Apparently a tight end too) and Decker was a solid number two fantasy receiver. People whom picked him up late were certainly happy with a strong stretch of games. He’s slowed down a bit in the past few weeks, so it will be interesting to see how the cold weather affects Manning.

Where we went wrong:

Larry Fitzgerald as the number 5 Wide Receiver: We got all of Arizona wrong. The addition of Carson Palmer did not help Fitzgerald be more consistent or productive. He’s still one of the more maddening players to own, because if you sit him, he has a big game, and if you start him, he struggles. For the rest of his career, we are going to avoid being too positive on his outlook.

Roddy White over Julio Jones: For the fantasy playoffs, we would much rather have White over Jones, for the obvious reason of the injury, but early in the year, Jones won this battle. He produced like crazy, and Roddy served as a decoy. This year marks the year Julio officially took the mantle as Atlanta’s best receiver from Roddy (Ed. Note: I found it interesting in one of my leagues someone picked up Julio this week to keep him for next year, I assume - CT). It will be interesting to see how the targets develop next year.

Tight End

Where we went right:

Gronk will get you points: We had Gronk at number six for tight ends coming into the year, and there was some disagreement within the SnoTap writers. In the end, we discussed that although Gronk would be out for the beginning of the year (and it was longer than expected) once he returned healthy to the field, only Jimmy Graham would stay close to his production. This ended up being the case, with Gronk racking up the points upon his return. Now getting a solid backup with upside needed to happen to execute the Gronk strategy (Jordan Cameron was among our recommendations).

Jordan Reed should be owned: A few weeks into the season, Bryan Reynolds wrote an article about deep sleepers for the rest of the season. He argued Jordan Reed would be a top option moving forward, and since that post came out, Reed has done nothing but produce.

Where we went wrong:

Brandon Pettigrew at number 9: We thought that Pettigrew would bounce back  from a disappointing season the year before. That ended up not being the case at all. Pettigrew has had flashes of production here and there, but Joseph Fauria took much of his production.

Zach Sudfeld is a sleeper: This one was bad. We thought Sudfeld would fill the gap for Gronk, and that Brady would be able to find him for some touchdowns. We even argued that when Gronk returned, Sudfeld would still have value in the Patriots offense. Sudfeld had exactly zero catches for the Patriots, and has four for the Jets in the last two weeks. This one was awful.

The strongest article of the year was probably the Free Agent Finds Article, where we gave you some advice on guys to keep an eye on early in the season. We wanted to help you with the first few waiver claims of guys that were not drafted in your league. If you followed our advice, you were able to snatch these players up before their production started. The guys we included in this article were: Terrelle Pryor, Danny Woodhead, Bilal Powell, Joique Bell, Mike Tolbert, Harry Douglas, Kenny Stills, Jericho Cotchery, Julius Thomas, and Jordan Cameron. Obviously this would not win your league, but if you added these guys as depth, you had a good year. 

-Adam