Fantasy News
Some news and notes from the Fantasy Football Camp with John Clayton. This is the annual event hosted by the Seattle sports radio station ESPN 710.
Clayton doesn’t play fantasy football, but he’s been to 21 NFL camps and has a lot of opinions about players and teams. Some of his comments that stood out to me (mostly, areas where he sees things much differently than I do):
Dez Bryant will lead Dallas in touchdown catches this year. Clayton said Bryant blew him away at the team’s spring minicamp. Bryant, however, shouldn’t catch a ton of passes this year.
C.J. Spiller is just a glorified third-down back – not capable of carrying the ball 16 times per game. Clayton hates this draft pick by the Bills.
Clayton says that Brett Favre doesn’t have any confidence in Bernard Berrian – no rapport. That Favre didn’t like playing with Berrian last year. Clayton doesn’t think Berrian will do anything for the Vikings this year, even with Sidney Rice hurt.
Clayton is also way down on Jabar Gaffney, calling him a journeyman type who does just enough in August to make the team but then isn’t good enough to make any kind of impact in the real games. Those weren’t his exact words, but he doesn’t like Gaffney at all.
Guys that Clayton feels are too old: Terrell Owens and the Dallas Cowboys offensive line.
Clayton has a lot of NFL contacts – agents and general managers – and it’s his firm belief that Vincent Jackson isn’t going anywhere. Jackson won’t be traded, and he won’t play for the Chargers any time soon.
Mike Wallace was the first guy Clayton mentioned when asked for a sleeper.
He envisions Chicago’s offense putting up big passing numbers under Mike Martz, with Johnny Knox leading the way at wide receiver.
Clayton doesn’t think that Arizona will necessarily start Derek Anderson on opening day. The team could still go with Matt Leinart, he thinks. Clayton doesn’t believe that Anderson can be an effective quarterback – that he’s any better than Leinart. On the Cardinals’ front, he agrees with my opinion that Beanie Wells won’t simply kick Tim Hightower to the curb; Hightower should continue to start.
Players that Clayton is down on include Ronnie Brown, Wes Welker (injuries with both of those guys), Tim Tebow (wasted draft pick), Alex Smith and Eric Mangini as an NFL coach.
—Ian Allan
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Posted by JOHN RUPPE | Aug. 28 at 02:12 AM
Ian, do you remember when you guys did this last year what players you differed on in opinion? And who ultimately ended up being on the right side? There's a couple guys I've already drafted on his "do not like list." I hope he's wrong.
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Aug. 28 at 04:33 AM
I remember he thought Brett Favre would be very good, and I thought the Vikings would have more of a run-based offense. So he beat me on that one. He was very high on Javon Walker, which obviously didn't work out at all. He also thought Larry Johnson would have a big year, which crapped out. But I don't recall where else we differed.
Posted by JOHN RUPPE | Aug. 28 at 06:24 AM
Since you do FFL for a living, and have helped guide me to the finals in 2 of 3 leagues the last 3 years, I'm going with you sir. Now if we can just actually win one of those finals. lol