Chip Kelly’s offense and how it will transition to the NFL is one of the great questions of our time. How much will he use spread formations? And will his offense use at least five donkeys? We’ll have answers soon enough. Patience, friends.
But one question involving DeSean Jackson surfaced through, um, DeSean Jackson earlier this offseason: will he become De’Anthony Thomas?
Surely there’s no fear of an actual shortage of footballs in the greater Denver area. But, you know, if a Super Bowl can be halted by a power outage, an NFL stadium can run out of footballs. It could happen.
We’re wondering about the amount of fantasy footballs that can be distributed, and specifically the ones that will land in Wes Welker’s hands in his new NFL home. He came from a place with plenty of other offensive talent, but not an abundance at his position. It was a system that worked the middle, with Tom Brady hitting Welker up the seam often, and the likes of Brandon Lloyd used in a much lesser role.
Now Welker moves to a more dynamic offense with diverse skillsets among the top three receivers.
The St. Louis Rams will likely, probably, almost definitely add to their running back depth chart during the draft. That happens when the team in question just lost a running back who had been with the franchise for 10 seasons, nine of which ended with at least 1,000 rushing yards (Steven Jackson), and the other two guys in line have a combined 108 career carries (Isaiah Pead and Daryl Richardson).
But unless a gift falls to them in the perfect spot, it’s unlikely that a running back will be an early focus after some expensive draft real estate was spent on Pead last April when he was a second-round pick. Which is nice, because that gives Pead an opportunity, and it’ll give us a chance to capitalize on another late-round fantasy sleeper. I love me some discounted running backs.
The list of free agent running backs available this year is long on, well, length, and short on top tier value. That makes it the same as most years, and similar to the 2013 wide receiver free agent class that we looked at yesterday.
If, for example, Peyton Hillis isn’t re-signed by the Chiefs, he’ll flounder for a while until the second tier of free agency begins. Then someone, somewhere will decide that some running back depth would be nice, and he’ll saunter off to his new NFL outpost and provide replacement level running back service, and give the starter a blow for a few carries a game. He’s the sort that’s destined to be at best a low-end platoon runner, and the RB free agent list is highly populated with Hillis types (Jackie Battle, Bernard Scott, Chris Rainey, Felix Jones, Javon Ringer, Cedric Benson…I could do this for a while).
Depending on their future places of employment, most of those names will matter for fantasy purposes as flex options in only the deepest formats, or more commonly as handcuffs and injury replacements. That’s cool and all, but what about the guys who will have true, honest fantasy relevance? That list is much shorter.
Let’s look at it together. Or rather, I’ll look at it for you and dream about dream destinations, and you can disagree vehemently. Sounds like fun, yes? And a reminder/disclaimer: this is a wishlist for the best-case fantasy scenarios, and not a reflection of what will actually transpire when the market officially opens next Tuesday.
We live in sad times. It’s been 18 days since the Super Bowl, which is nearly three long, cold weeks without football. Most of us have used the survival methods of a recently dumped high school girl: a steady diet of cookie dough, and repeated viewings of A Walk to Remember. Yes, sad times indeed.
Sure, we filled much of that space two weeks ago by re-hashing the Super Bowl and wondering whether or not Beyonce pulled a very large Superdome plug. And personally, I burned a week turning various shades of orange on a Dominican beach, which was swell. But now the Combine has arrived, with coaches and players beginning to talk to people who hold microphones and notepads today.
So dammit, give us something, and maybe even something to make us think warm and fuzzy fantasy football thoughts in late February.
Munchak said finding a running back to help Chris Johnson needs to be more of a priority
— Jim Wyatt (@jwyattsports) February 21, 2013
Oh cool, thanks.
In a word, no, especially not if John Abraham isn’t John Abraham at all this weekend, and is instead the limited shell of himself we saw Sunday when he re-aggravated his ankle injury and only appeared in 15 plays. But since a post that’s one word long isn’t a post at all, I thought it would be fun to look back at recent case studies, and what this edition of the Atlanta Falcons defense has given us when it’s been faced with a quarterback who excels at propelling his body down a football field quickly with the use of his feet.
Colin Kaepernick is quite good at that, we’re told.
Let’s begin by confessing that at this point although the rumors are growing and they’ll quickly reach a nauseating level Monday once Andy Reid is officially canned, the Chip Kelly to Philly talk is little more than, well, talk. Hearsay and speculation. We are the guys at the bar yelling things about a local sports team.
And while we’re having confession/truth telling time, let’s throw out another one: regardless of who’s hired to be the Eagles’ next head coach, the odds of Vick sticking around in any meaningful capacity still seem exceedingly slim. The most telling sign of his impending departure came last week when Vick was inactive, and he wasn’t even Nick Foles’ backup (Trent Edwards is alive?). Vick will start Sunday due to Foles’ hand injury, but his exit will likely still come because of his age (he’ll turn 33 this offseason), his infamous brittleness (he’s played only one full season in his 10-year career), and his salary (he’s due $15.5 million next year).
But if there’s even a reaching, clawing, dreaming long shot of Vick staying in Philadelphia and regaining fantasy relevance there, it’s tied to one man.
Kelly.
