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Three & Out

Three and Out will be a weekly column here at RotoViz featuring some quick hitting fantasy football food for thought. Every week I will cover three topics featuring facts, stats, projections, player profiles, ADP updates, draft strategies, tips and the latest news from around the fantasy football world. Think of this as a 5-Hour Energy for your fantasy brain. With that said…lets get it.

FIRST DOWN

425.1 – The most points ever put up in a fantasy season. Ladanian Tomlinson had that historical season in 2006, putting up over 2300 yards and 31 touchdowns. The following year he disappointed his owners with only 1900 yards and 18 touchdowns. I’m just kidding. That year was 2007. Since then, no running back has finished back-to-back years in the top spot. Jamaal Charles is the reigning king of grid iron grinders, but recent history tells us not to expect a repeat. I reference Tomlinson above to illustrate how a follow-up season can still be statistically good and leave owners in the top spot feeling disappointed. While there is no reason to expect Charles to have a bad season, he may not be the top dog if you draft first overall.

SECOND DOWN

The TE Whisperer. Norv Turner’s offenses have produced a top 7 fantasy TE in 6 out of the last 7 seasons. Jordan Cameron was the latest to put up career numbers under the guidance of Norval. Kyle Rudolph recently made waves for saying he is the best tight end in the league, although Jimmy Graham and Gronk might have something to say about that. Current MFL10’s show Rudolph going as the 10th TE, which seems like fair value. At 24 years old, with a Pro Bowl appearance and 9 touchdown season under his belt, it’s quite possible Rudolph sets new career highs this season. My advice is to target him in dynasty leagues as Turner coached offenses love 2 TE sets. The RotoViz TE Sim Score App has Rudolph with a median score of 9.6 ppg and a high of 11 ppg in PPR leagues. Rudolph actually rates higher than Gronk in Jon Moore’s weight adjusted agility rankings.

THIRD DOWN

Desperate in D.C. –  At least Desean Jackson might be next year.  D-Jax had a career high 5.1 catches per game in Chip Kelly’s fast paced offense on 119 targets. Pierre Garcon lead the Redskins in targets (182) and catches (113) this past season. Jay Gruden offenses have averaged 543 pass attempts per season. 30% of which is taken up by the WR1, with 17% going to the WR2. For Jackson’s career, he has averaged 17.2 Yp/C on a 54% completion percentage. If those numbers held up in Gruden’s offense next year, Jackson would put up about 854 yards. Even if we bump up Jackson’s targets to what he saw last year with the Eagles, he is still only looking at about 1100 yards. Personally I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, which brings us to Jackson’s career averages of 957 yards and 5 tds per season. Another thing to note is that in 2 of 3 years with the Bengals, Jermaine Gresham was the second most productive receiver in Gruden’s offense. A lot of this is just spit-balling possible outcomes based on the past history we know about Jackson and Gruden. The WR Sim Score App shows an 80% chance of regression next season based on the plot below. In MFL10 drafts, Jackson is going ahead of the likes of Michael Floyd, Vincent Jackson and Torrey Smith, all of whom I would choose over Jackson at this point.

Fourth Down

As I punt it over to you, I’m putting the over/under on Jackson at 1000 yards and 5 touchdowns. Do you think he will top that mark? Tell me what you think in the comments section below. For more stats and projections check out our RB, WR and TE Sim score apps. If there is something you would like to see in this column in the future, let us know.

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