Quarterback Carousel

             With the start of the free agency period, players began to move from team to team, but unlike other years in the NFL. Many quarterbacks moved as teams looked to the upcoming draft and couldn’t help but notice the lack of talent at quarterback in the upcoming class. Although that sounds kind of harsh to the new rookies, but if you can recall to last year’s class it is kind of hard to compare. That being said any time there are movements in the NFL it’s going to affect your fantasy game, which we all know is more important than the actual game.

Jason Campbell-Cleveland

              

               I already know what you’re thinking, “in what world are you starting Jason Campbell as your fantasy quarterback?!!!” Well I only put him on the list because with how awful Brandon Weeden played last year it’s quite possible that Campbell starts. (Weeden had a QBR of 26.6, the only other player to have a lower QBR was Mark Sanchez. Also Weeden scored 154 fantasy points last season, compare that to the 337 fantasy points that Drew Brees had. Plain and simple Weeden is awful.)

               

              In the seasons that Jason Campbell has started he hasn’t been horrible, but at the same time he hasn’t been great. Best case scenario for you, if you HAVE to own Jason Campbell is he doesn’t do anything to hurt your team.

Ryan Fitzpatrick-Tennessee

               

                Ryan Fitzpatrick played phenomenal in 2011……until he signed a contract extension with the Buffalo Bills. After that his play tanked. He continued to play awful in the 2012 campaign. Fitzpatrick has never thrown 25 touchdowns or more in a single season and he’s never had a season where he has thrown less than 10 interceptions.

               

                 That being said Fitzpatrick won’t see the playing field as long as Jake Locker stays healthy and plays well enough. Playing the older Fitzpatrick wouldn’t make any sense for the Titans. If Fitzpatrick does see the field, at best he’s a bye week fill in, but in all circumstances avoid Fitzpatrick at all costs.  

Kevin Kolb-Buffalo

              

             Kevin Kolb was traded to Buffalo after only two seasons in Arizona. In those two seasons Kolb played in only 15 games.  Injuries have plagued Kolb throughout his career. Kolb has never played in more than 9 games in a single season. After signing Kolb the Bills drafted E.J. Manuel in the 1^st round, so even if Kolb can stay healthy it doesn’t look like he’ll be starting in Buffalo this season.

                Kolb fantasy value is very limited and like Fitzpatrick I wouldn’t draft this guy in any format in any league. E.J. Manuel will be starting in Buffalo this year and if he can play decent Kolb won’t see the field.  

Carson Palmer-Arizona

               

                Larry Fitzgerald was the happiest guy in the whole NFL when Arizona signed Carson Palmer. Palmer has proven himself as a competent quarterback with a big arm. Last year, playing for Oakland, Palmer threw for 4,018 yards, 22 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He did this without an elite receiver and with Darren McFadden in and out of the starting lineup. My point is this Palmer will be effective in Arizona.

Matt Flynn-Oakland

               

               After just one season as Seattle’s backup quarterback Flynn is on to bigger and better things…..oh wait he’s going to Oakland where quarterbacks haven’t played extremely well despite Carson Palmer having a decent year last year. We all remember how high the expectations were with Jemarcus Russell and look how that turned out for Oakland. Stability and consistency is what is needed for Oakland at the quarterback position and they believe that’s what Flynn brings to the table.

                 

                Determining Flynn’s fantasy value is extremely difficult for me because I’m an avid Packers fan and really like Flynn. That being said I’ve probably watch more of his games than anyone else and what I’ve seen is a high ceiling. Everyone remembers what he did to Lions in week 17 in 2011. He completed 31 of his 44 passes for 480 yards, 6 touchdowns and 1 interception. However he did lose the starting job in Seattle to Russell Wilson.

                Flynn will be worth a late round draft pick in your fantasy drafts.

EJ Manuel-Buffalo

                

                Now to the rookies, E.J. Manuel had the honor of being the first quarterback off the board in the 2013 draft. Whether you agree or disagree with Buffalo’s pick you have to think that the starting job in Buffalo is Manuel’s to lose.

              

               Manuel had pretty impressive numbers in college but as we know that doesn’t always translate to the pro game. My advice when you think about drafting Manuel is to proceed with caution. Rookies are always worth a flyer in the finishing rounds of drafts. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t.

Geno Smith-New York Jets

               

                 Geno Smith must look like Aaron Rodgers to Jets fans after the season they had with Mark Sanchez at the helm. Well not to burst your bubble Jets fans but he’s not.  There is a reason why he lasted all the way to the second round and that reason is he didn’t impress enough NFL teams to take a chance on him. However he will most likely win the starting job in New York and will have his chances to play well.

               

                 My rule still applies here; rookies are always worth a pick in the later rounds of fantasy drafts as long as your other positions are set.

Welker - Amendola.......A Good Move for New England? Good Move for You?

Some of the biggest news to come out of free agency this year was Wes Welker leaving Tom Brady to travel westward into the waiting arms of Peyton Manning, as well as the subsequent arrival of Welker 2.0 in New England, Danny Amendola.This news made it seem almost obligatory that we compare the two and see what projections we could make about their upcoming seasons.

Let us start in New England, if Amendola can remain as sure-handed with the Patriots as he was with the Rams we could see incredible improvement in his fantasy numbers this season. For the whole of the 2012 season Amendola had a drop rate of 3.13 drops per 100 catchable balls while Welker came in with a rate of 11.27, a number 8.14 drops in favor of Amendola, meaning for every 100 catchable balls thrown Amendola will catch 8.14 more of them than Welker.

Assuming that Amendola will get the same number of catchable balls in 2013 that Welker received during 2012 we would project Amendola to have an even more productive season than Welker did last year, our projections would indicate 129 catches for Amendola this season. If Amendola maintains his yards per catch (YPC)  from STL then we could project based off Welker’s number of catchable balls a season total of 1,363 yards, nearly the same output Welker had this season.

   If Amendola can even be close to maintaining his production level from 2012 with the increased talent from his new quarterback we would look for Amendola to have a career year in all categories. His health does linger as the major question mark for his upcoming season, Amendola has played just 42 games in 4 seasons.. But think of this, Welker runs more than 70% of his routes over the middle meanwhile Amendola runs more than 80% of his routes in the same area, is it possible that on those additional 10% of over-the-middle routes that Amendola has been getting hurt? If so then perhaps injuries won’t be a problem for Amendola in New England.

Ravens: From First To Worst

To begin let me congratulate the most recent Super Bowl champions, Baltimore Ravens. Now let me apologize to Ravens fans for the upcoming 2013 season. Not only will the Ravens be the defending world champions with a big target on their back, but they will have to defend against their charging opponents without many key players from their 2012 team. 

Ray Lewis: Retired

Ray Lewis had a good and productive career. As the face of the Ravens organization for several years Lewis provided the Ravens defense with an intensity that other defenses in the league only dream of (yes I’m talking to you New Orleans Saints).

The 2012 season for Ray Lewis was filled with injury and controversy. Ray Lewis only played in six games last season with only one sack, one fumble recovery, 44 tackles, and 13 assisted tackles. What Lewis lacked in statistical relevance he made up for with inspired leadership. Before the Ravens made their surprising playoff run, Ray Lewis announced that this would be his last season in the NFL. This provided motivation for his teammates, who adored Lewis, to help him win one more Super Bowl.

Now the Ravens look for another player to anchor their team that has been known for their defense. Filling the shoes of Ray Lewis won’t be an easy job, however if the Ravens have any kind of shot of repeating, somebody will have to step up.

Paul Kruger: Cleveland Browns, 5 years - $40 Million

On Tuesday March 12th, Paul Kruger signed a 5-year, 40 million dollar deal with the Cleveland Browns. Although many people might argue that Cleveland is kind of dumb for offering Kruger that much money for a season in which he only had 9 sacks and 30 tackles, both of which were career highs for Kruger. Kruger earned his paycheck with 4.5 sacks in the playoffs. He established himself as a dominant pass rusher in the playoffs and on football’s biggest stage he sacked Kaepernick 2.5 times.

Argue about whether or not Kruger’s contract is earned or a result of hype, Kruger will not be playing on the Ravens team next year so the Ravens will have to get nine sacks from someone else.

Dannelle Ellerbe: Miami Dolphins, 5 years - $35 Million

Dannelle Ellerbe had a tremendous 2012 campaign. Ellerbe capitalized on the fact that Ray Lewis was out for the majority of the season. Ellerbe was second in tackles amongst Ravens with 66 solo tackles and he assisted on 23 others. Although the Ravens attempted to pursue Ellerbe there was no way they could not match offers made by other teams.

Anquan Boldin: San Fransisco 49ers, 4 years, $25 Million

Baltimore Ravens what are you going to do now that you’ve won the Super Bowl?  Here’s an idea let’s get rid of the wide receiver that helped us win that Super Bowl to the team that we just beat. Well that’s exactly what the Ravens did. Anquan Boldin will be playing for the Super Bowl favorites San Francisco 49ers.

This might possibly be the biggest loss for the Ravens. Boldin tore it up in the playoffs. With him gone the Ravens look to Torrey Smith to step up and make up for the slack that Boldin left behind.

What do all of these losses mean for the Baltimore Ravens from a fantasy perspective? I’ll be avoiding anyone in a Ravens uniform at this point in free agency.

Flacco finished 14th among quarterbacks last year and 15th in 2011. In 2012 he scored 227 fantasy points  (ESPN standard scoring) and 195 points in 2011.  Josh Freeman, Andrew Luck, and Russell Wilson all scored more points than Joe Flacco last season. So don’t let Flacco’s big paycheck fool you, he is a mediocre quarterback.

That being said Flacco will have to throw a lot more because the Raven’s defense has weakened considerably, so the potential for big numbers are there for Flacco. However losing Boldin will hurt Flacco considerably. Boldin is a possession receiver, which means when Flacco needed a completion he targeted Boldin.

The below table shows passing plays on 3^rd down, as you can see Boldin was targeted 10 more times than any other receiver on third down. Boldin also caught 92.3% of his target for almost two times more yards than any other receiver. To say that Flacco lost a valuable target for him is a huge understatement.

Player	T	C	Pct	Yds	TD
Anquan Boldin	26	24	92.3%	450	1
Jacoby Jones	13	9	69.2%	231	3
Dennis Pitta	14	13	92.9%	204	3
Torrey Smith	14	10	71.4%	170	2
Ray Rice	12	9	75.0%	143	0
Ed Dickson	4	4	100.0%	79	0
Tandon Doss	3	2	66.7%	54	1
Deonte Thompson	1	1	100.0%	25	0
Bernard Pierce	1	1	100.0%	5	0
Anthony Allen	1	1	100.0%	5	0
Totals	89	74	83.1%	1366	10

I look for Flacco to finish worse than 14^th that he finished in 2012. He even has a chance to finish outside of the top 20 fantasy quarterbacks in 2013.

With the defense being bad, the Raven’s will have to play from behind a lot. This means that Ray Rice will see a decline in his carries. Although Rice will still probably be the best fantasy players on the Raven’s team, I would look to draft running backs like Doug Martin or Trent Richardson before I drafted Ray Rice.

Also it goes without saying but you will not be starting the Raven’s defense during the 2013 season. Look for the Raven’s defense to finish in the bottom of the league on the defensive end.