Fantasy Football Collective

Look, every year or so there's a great rookie. A Randy Moss,  an Adrian Peterson, a Clinton Portis, or an Edgerin James. There's usually only one. Sometimes there might be two, but never more than that. Some years there aren't any. We make a big deal of the rookies coming into the NFL every year, but the truth is, at least for fantasy football, that they're not much help most of the time. We might pick one or two in the later rounds, hoping for some magic. Someone with big upside to try and help you win a championship. Most of the time, they sit on your bench, burning up space.

Since the rookie back has the best chance to make a difference, let's look at them 1st. If you put the bar for rookie runners at 1200 yards, you don't get very many. Let's look back at how many runners we've had in the last ten years that have made it to that mark. Let's see, we should start last year and work our way back. We had Adrian Peterson in 2007, he had 1321 yards. We didn't have any from 2006 back to 2003. We had Clinton Portis in 2002, he had 1508.  We had LaDainian Tomlinson the year before that in 2001. He had 1236 yards that year. We had two in 2000, the only year with more than one in the last ten.  Mike Anderson had 1487 yards and Jamal Lewis had 1364 yards in 2000. To wrap-up the ten year period, we had Edgerin James in 1999 with 1553 yards. That makes six ball carriers to hit the mark in ten years. We had two only 10% of the time.

We've only played three games this year and two teams have only played two. It would be fun, though, to see how this years rookie running backs stack up so far. Let's take the yards per game rushing for each rookie back and multiply that out to a full year and see what happens. Matt Forte is on pace for 1620 yards. Chris Johnson is on pace for 1472.  Darren McFadden is on pace for 1344. Steve Slanton is on pace for 1272. It absolutely must be the year of the rookie if you have four guys that hit the mark that only six guys hit in ten years. All four of these guys have the talent and are in good enough situations, that they should keep producing.

Let's also take a look at the wide receivers. There have only been three receivers that were able to put up 1000 yards receiving in the last ten years. In that time frame, there has never been more than one receiver to go over 1000 yards. Marques Colston had 1038 yards in 2007, Michael Clayton had 1193 yards in 2004, and Anquan Boldin had 1377 yards in 2003. This year we have two that are on that pace. DeSean Jackson is on pace for 1364 yards and Eddie Royal is on pace for 1035 yards. Both of these guys also have the talent and are in good enough situations, to keep producing all year. This is all very, very strange, really unheard of.

I realize that it's still early and some of these guys may get hurt or their production might slip as the year goes by. You have to admit, though, that they're all on pace to hit the mark after three weeks. Let's hear it for the YEAR OF THE ROOKIE!

All the rookies we talked about above should keep making an impact. Keep starting them. We haven't even talked about Felix Jones, Jonathon Stewart, Ray Rice, and Tim Hightower. All of these guys are quality players that are making a mark on their team. They should make an even bigger impact as the season goes on and they become bigger parts of the offense. Get these guys on your team.

Author Brad Hess (soflraiders)