Jul 25, 2009
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Being consistent and dependable is important in many aspects of day-to-day life. It’s comforting to know that, for example, after waking up in the morning and taking a refreshing shower, you can retrieve the paper and read it with a nice cup of coffee. But, what if, after getting out of bed one day, your water didn’t work, the paper wasn’t out front and you come to find out you were out of coffee? Chaos would ensue. Without the paper, you would be uninformed about whatever your co-workers were talking about around the water cooler that day, but that’s only if you don’t get fired first for coming into work smelling like you spent the night in a dumpster. Now, see how important consistency is? Well, it’s equally important in fantasy football. What good are those 20-point performances if they’re followed up by three consecutive six-point outings? If you don’t want that to happen to you, here are some players you may want to avoid in your upcoming drafts.
QB Eli Manning (New York Giants): Unlike his brother, this Manning is quite possibly the most overrated fantasy player in any sport, not just football. Yeah, those 21 touchdown passes are nice, but nearly two-thirds of them (13) came in five games, which is less than one-third of the contests on the season. See the problem there? Also, Manning threw multiple touchdown passes in consecutive games just one time all season. After every other game, he fired off one or zero scores. He was equally inconsistent with his passing yards, with a whopping 10 sub-200 yard contests, including five of fewer than 165 yards.
RB Jonathan Stewart (Carolina Panthers): Many experts thought that at some point in Stewart’s rookie season, he would easily supplant DeAngelo Williams as the starter. Clearly, that was not the case. Stewart had very solid overall numbers, with over 800 rushing yards and 10 scores, but couldn’t do it on a weekly basis. Six times he ran for fewer than 30 yards in a game, and he accumulated more than 10 receiving yards or scored a touchdown in just one of those contests; which means Stewart’s fantasy owners got five separate weeks of less than five fantasy points.
WR Chris Chambers (San Diego Chargers): Name recognition will keep Chambers afloat in fantasy drafts this summer, but it shouldn’t. His fluky start last year, when he had four touchdowns in the season’s first three weeks despite having just six catches, won’t be repeated. What likely will be duplicated are the eight weeks last year that Chambers accumulated fewer than 50 receiving yards and no touchdowns. Unfortunately, his worst stretch came directly before, and then during, the fantasy playoffs. From Weeks 13-16, here’s how many fantasy points Chambers got his owners: four. Four points! In Weeks 13 and 14, he didn’t get any points, snaring just one pass for two measly yards. Seeing as how this was done during a career year by Philip Rivers, things could only get worse for Chambers.


Pete
Posted at 4:13 Jul 25, 2009
Fellas,
you forgot Chad Ocho Stinko and his 3 HUGE games every year while he gets 3 receptions for 30 yards for the other 13. But in those three big games he gets 30 receptions for 650 yards and 8 TDs. Never draft that guy. Last year he just flat out stunk.
Bruno Boys Kyle
Posted at 6:06 Jul 27, 2009
Pete, good point. I was thinking about using him, but felt that last year wasn’t necessarily fair due to his QB situation. But he certainly qualifies for his inconsistency.
Kearnsy
Posted at 12:06 Jul 28, 2009
Eli’s fantasy stats are based on the offensive scheme of the Giants. He has never been drafted as a QB1 in any league I’ve ever been in because the GMen are a run first offense. In fact, he’s one of the last QB2’s taken every year. This isn’t anything new. Anyone who drafts Eli knows it’s ONLY for a bye week or against a good matchup against a solid run defense and weak secondary-a team that has a chance to stop Jacobs and Eli is forced to throw. Until Kevin Gilbride is supplanted as the Offensive Coordinator in NY, and the Giants (God forbid) lose Jacobs, Eli will never be more than a weak QB2 in fantasy league’s.
Instead of playing the role of Captain Obvious, you should’ve focused this article on oft-injured players and/or those who’ve consistently underperformed—those who were highly taughted either because of their talent, surrounding cast, or lack of depth in front of them. A few names that come to mind—Ocho Stinko, Jamal Lewis, Redskins WR’s, etc.