Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff
Below is part two of my rundown of first-thought impressions of every team. See last week's column for part one; this week we move to the NFC.
Beginning next week we'll go more in-depth, position by position, as we pare the various challenge games' salary lists down to a core of players you should think hard about owning.
Dallas
Under most scoring formats, fantasy football is all about accumulation. You want points, plain and simple, and you want them piled on top of other points. That's true of most challenge games, but not all of them -- and in games that use category scoring, like Fanball's Football Challenge, players who pile up points in other formats can do real damage to one category in particular: receiving average.
The poster children for such good-there-not-great-here players are Wes Welker (223 catches at a measly 10.5 yards each over the past two seasons) and Marion Barber (catches everything thrown at him; 7.4 career average). I'd recommend Barber ahead of Welker, because Welker catches the far-higher volume of passes and eats up a WR slot -- one of six slots that must be used, in part, to offset the damage your RBs (and a TE or two) will do to your team's receiving average. But I'd recommend many others ahead of Barber. If you can't live without him -- and his $1480 Football Challenge salary will draw interest -- choose your receivers very carefully.
New York Giants
... whereas Brandon Jacobs might properly be considered the Anti-Barber.
The Giants' Earth, Wind & Fire running game is down to Earth & Fire after Derrick Ward departed for Tampa Bay -- and note that it slowed considerably after Plaxico Dumbass shot himself, and the team has no real proxy for Plax. But more carries for Jacobs would be more than welcome, and he only caught 6 passes in his 13 games in 2008. At that rate his receiving average can be 0.0 and it won't really hurt a challenge team.
Philadelphia
Still want to be rid of Donovan McNabb, Eagles fans? Better load the gun with silver bullets -- and even then you might want to wait a year. With Brian Westbrook increasingly gimpy and unsettling rumors that the team is looking at Warrick Dunn (unsettling because they say something about either Westbrook's health or the early perception of second-rounder LeSean McCoy's ability), I see this as a pass-happy team in 2009. McNabb himself is fairly expensive in most games, but DeSean Jackson isn't yet fully-priced, and with the team having made good use of Jackson as a rookie, Jeremy Maclin could be in play as well.
Washington
Rashard Lewis of the NBA's Orlando Magic is a 6'10" forward who's made a couple of All-Star teams. But if that was all you knew about him, you'd have the wrong picture in your head. Lewis does his best work behind the three-point line. Plays a little defense, shoots a good percentage from everywhere -- that's pretty much the extent of his talent. But there's one other crucial descriptor: On the night of the 1998 NBA Draft, Lewis was the last kid left in the Green Room. He came to the NBA straight from high school in Houston, but had to sit and wait (and cry) while his hometown Rockets used three first-round picks on scrubs before he was finally taken by Seattle in the second round.
Of course, as it turned out, that was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. I mean, tall forwards who don't like the paint don't tend to become All-Stars. I'd bet dollars to donuts that his Green Room experience was the biggest push Lewis ever got in the direction of maxing out his game. Sometimes a little humiliation goes a long way.
Enter Jason Campbell, who hasn't been good enough to keep his team from coveting Jay Cutler or even Mark Sanchez. For all anyone knows, Dan Snyder may have checked in with Brett Favre this offseason. And yet, at least for now, Campbell remains entrenched as a starting quarterback. And what I'm really saying is this:
I've written several times before that I like Campbell, that I think he'll become a serviceable starter and maybe (at least in his breakout year) a legitimate fantasy play. I've believed that since he was a beleaguered starter at Auburn, and I've believed it the whole time he's been a beleaguered starter in Washington, and I'll keep believing it until ...
Well, until 2009. It happens right now or I was wrong all the while.
Chicago
Chicagoans are right to be excited about Jay Cutler, but you can't own him in 2009. To do so is to pay a salary set by Brandon Marshall, Eddie Royal and an excellent young offensive line to Devin Hester, Greg Olsen and a middling old one.
That said, you can (and perhaps should) pay Hester and/or Olsen the salaries set by Kyle Orton.
Detroit
I'm fairly certain Calvin Johnson's 2008 season is one of the ten best seasons any receiver has ever had, and I'd prove it to you if it were possible to make precise statistical adjustments for context. Yes, an 0-16 team will necessarily pass a lot, but it was Dan Orlovsky -- and worse -- throwing the passes. The Lions scored 18 touchdowns through the air. Megatron caught 12 of them. No reason to expect him to tail off at 23, no matter who's taking the snaps.
Green Bay
The way the salaries fell in most challenges a year ago, I wasn't just having a fling with Aaron Rodgers; by Week 9 I had popped the question. No ability whatsoever to sit him, no real contingency plan if he hurt himself. So naturally he played 16 games and threw for 4,038 yards and 28 touchdowns. That kind of production is worth a little loyalty as Rodgers enters his second season as a regular. He's not even fully-priced yet.
Minnesota
Laveranues Coles and Jerricho Cotchery are better than any receiving tandem the Vikings will use in 2009 unless Percy Harvin is sensational from the get-go. Actually, even if Harvin is great I have my doubts -- he's a waterbug, and Bernard Berrian is a down-the-field guy; the team lacks an ideal chains-mover to fill in between the styles. All in all I'd say Brett Favre is 100 percent certain not to earn his challenge salaries, even if he comes back better than he did in 2008.
Of course, Favre's still an upgrade over Gus Frerotte and Tarvaris Jackson, and Harvin will spread defenses out even if he's not getting his own numbers. Which may mean, absurd as it may seem, that Adrian Peterson will see one more big statistical jump.
Atlanta
If Matt Ryan is 75 percent as good as Falcons fans are expecting, the team has the makings of the next Greatest Show on Turf. Ryan himself is pricey in challenges, where you're basically flipping a coin between him and Aaron Rodgers, and Ryan's favorite target, Roddy White, ain't cheap either. But there are other pieces in place. Michael Turner is another Brandon Jacobs, sure to guard your receiving average (only 6 passes caught all year) while he piles up his rushing numbers. Tony Gonzalez comes aboard as a safety option for Ryan -- important for a team that will never throw to Turner -- and there may even be a playable second WR in Michael Jenkins. Fantasy considerations aside, the takeaway is that the Falcons will be fun to watch. That's a godsend for a franchise that was so far down on its luck when Bobby Petrino and Mike Vick both detonated in 2007.
Carolina
DeAngelo Williams didn't just look great on paper last year. Don't get me wrong; his numbers were astounding, but he looked great on the field, too. He looked special enough that I daresay the Panthers wouldn't have drafted Jonathan Stewart if Williams' breakout had come a year earlier. But it didn't, and they did, and now they have Stewart, and I'm with Ian Allan on this: Stewart's presence will cost Williams carries no matter how special he seems to be. It's the way of the present if not the future -- teams don't feed their lead dogs like they used to. So Williams' numbers were good enough that he shot way up the salary lists, and now those numbers are coming back down. Not the year to own him unless Ian (and me, too -- but let's blame Ian) is wrong.
New Orleans
I don't see a Saint worth owning in most challenge formats. Drew Brees played his way past his rightful salary range in 2008. Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas will continue to cannibalize each other in the backfield (and neither may be especially good). Marques Colston wasn't hurt long enough to drive his salary way down, and Lance Moore will surely cede some of his 79 catches back to Colston if Colston plays more games in 2009.
Tampa Bay
First-time feature back Derrick Ward has more Michael Turner in him than you might think. Much like Turner in San Diego, when Ward got on the field for the Giants the last couple of years he looked like an uncaged beast. It's not just any back who turns a scant 182 carries into more than 1,000 yards. The key difference between Ward in 2009 and Turner in 2008 will likely be the quarterbacking in Tampa Bay, which ought to fall well shy of what Matt Ryan did in Atlanta. If the Bucs' QBs can keep defenses honest, Ward has a shot at 1,400 yards and 10 TDs on the ground. If not, it'll be a loooooong year for the team, and Ward may catch enough dumped-off passes to obliterate your Football Challenge team's receiving average.
Arizona
How shocking is it that Larry Fitzgerald is 25 years old? I do a rough draft of each of these columns off the top of my head, just spilling out things I believe to be true and then trying to prove myself wrong (usually by checking the numbers) when I clean the columns up for publication.
And?
And my first draft of this Arizona blurb opened with the following sentence: "Larry Fitzgerald is just 26 years old, and will not turn 27 until XYZ."
XYZ turns out to be August 31 -- and August 31, 2010 at that. It turns out Fitzgerald is not 26 this year but 25. It only seems like he's been around forever, and for that reason it may only seem like we've already seen his best. It's conceivable that there's another level yet to come. So he's not overpriced, exactly, at the top of the salary lists in 2009, but one shudders to think of what he may cost next year.
Separately: Tim Hightower is a non-talent, and this offense is SCREAMING for a real feature back. I'm not sure how I expect Beanie Wells' game to translate to the NFL, and he doesn't seem to be the ruggedest sort, but he bears watching in the preseason.
San Francisco
I know the 49ers were better under Mike Singletary and everything, but Shaun Hill? Really? Or even back to Alex Smith? Own Frank Gore at your own peril; do not own anyone else here.
Seattle
With apologies to my colleagues (Fantasy Index HQ is located in sunny Seattle, WA), this is the one team I'm least excited to see play in 2009. The core of skill positioners -- free agent signee T.J. Houshmandzadeh is the instant headliner -- is just so ... blah. Jim Mora and Greg Knapp have a history of fashioning great running games, but always out of great pieces: Mike Vick and the perennially underrated Warrick Dunn. I'm just not seeing it with Julius Jones and T.J. Duckett.
St. Louis
If the Rams are improved in 2009 -- and they should be -- they won't be 11-5 improved. More like 8-8. And not a scintillating 8-8, either. Steve Spagnuolo will build a defense and then build a team around it, and that means the offense may be all Steven Jackson, all the time. Much safer to get excited about that in points games, where Jackson's yards-per-carry-and-catch won't hurt you while the sheer bulk of his carries and catches helps.
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