Marcus Allen was a Heisman Trophy Winner at USC, a MVP with the Los Angeles Raiders, a Hall of Famer in both the Pro and College Hall of Fame and now he lends his expertise to RealGM as an analyst.
You didn’t ask for it; you got it. It’s Buster Gunning’s 3rd Annual Guide to Fantasy Football. This year promises to be full of busts, and if you follow this simple guide, you are guaranteed not to pick one*
Many factors go into a player having a breakout season. Sometimes guys higher on the depth chart leave via free agency or get hurt in training camp or early in the season, providing the opportunity for increased playing time and production.
It’s been a few months since we updated our rankings as we allowed the NFL Draft and some last-minute free agent moves to settle into each of the league’s cities. As workouts continue and the summer heats up, these rankings will likely shuffle often.
Why is Art Monk in the Hall now, and Cris Carter isn't? Well, you have to understand the selection process first, where media representatives make the case for their players.
With the 2007 regular season fully in the books, it is little surprise that the Patriots, Colts, and Packers are in the top-three.
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Not only do NFL teams spend the months leading up to the draft evaluating hot shot college prospects, they also spend the time evaluating savvy veteran players on their current roster as well. The evaluation process for most NFL teams regarding players on their player roster usually begins as soon as the season ends. Once teams are fully aware of the market available to them, they can then start making the decisions of whom they should keep and whom they should kick out the door.
Unlike other professional sports that bind teams into paying players by giving them guaranteed contracts, NFL teams can cut whomever they want, whenever they want, and not be obligated to pay them another dime. This gives teams a lot of flexibility in the off-season.
Teams look at each player on their roster and evaluate them using a customized formula that intended to predict the current and future market value of each player and the future production that can be expected from them. If a team believes it can get the same or more production from a potential draft prospect over the next three years for a cheaper cost, than that current player on their roster is expendable. Teams usually won’t cut players who they gave big signing bonuses too in the first couple of years of their contract agreements, however after the third year, they will eat the bonus money and cut you if they feel they can get a replacement at a lower market value, and same production output.
Every team spends their off-season putting together a puzzle. They look for the right pieces to fit their team with hopes they all fit together.
With the parity that exists in the NFL today, most NFL teams don’t have to recycle their entire rosters in order to go from worst to first. This is what makes the NFL draft the most unpredictable draft in professional sports, because teams are looking to draft players based on what weaknesses they feel they need to improve on from one year to the next.
The Houston Texans, who had the first pick in last years NFL draft, elected to draft Mario Williams with their number one pick instead of the more popular Reggie Bush. Bush was, without a doubt, the most talented player in the draft, but the Texans felt they needed help on defense more than they needed a game breaking running back. Here we are a year later and it would appear that the Texans made a huge mistake, but if Williams puts up big numbers this year and the Texans defense improves enough to make it to the playoffs, should our judgment of the Texans draft decision change from bad to good?
The NFL draft process is run a little different than the NBA process where teams are looking for that one player that can be the main component of that franchise for years both on the court and off the court. Greg Oden, who has just declared for the NBA draft after one dominating freshman year at Ohio St. and will more than likely be the number 1 pick will give immediate help to any NBA team who selects him. If you look at past NFL drafts, I don’t think you can point to one player coming out of college football that can impact an NFL team the way Oden can and NBA team. That is the different nature between sports and drafts.
It is much more important for NFL teams to get 5-7 impact players through the draft and free agency during the off-season. That why teams like the Saints went from being a team who didn’t come close to making the playoffs in 2005, to playing in the NFL divisional championship game in 2006. Not only were the Saints lucky enough to get Reggie Bush in the first round, they also picked up Marques Colston in the 7th round, they also signed Lance Moore as a rookie free-agent, both of these guys along with Bush had a huge impact on the Saints going from a team that didn’t even sniff the playoffs to a team living in it. NFL teams need to look at the NFL draft as a marathon not a sprint.
We all remember the Dallas Cowboys of the late 80’s and early 90’s when Jimmy Johnson first took over the team and immediately traded star Hershel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for a number of first, second, and third round draft picks. At the time football critics thought Johnson and his owner Jerry Jones were crazy, after all no one in the NFL had ever traded away a proven veteran star like Walker for the right to draft players that may or may-not turn out to be solid NFL players. Johnson used the picks he received from the Vikings to build the Cowboys into the team of the 90’s. Players like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin were all compliments of the Walker trade. Johnson and Jones knew that as good as Hershel Walker was, he couldn’t snap the ball to himself, pass the ball to himself, or block for himself, and he surely couldn’t keep the other team out of the end-zone.
So as we judge teams on their 2007 draft selections remember that the players they draft in rounds 4,5, 6 and 7 will be the ones that help teams exceed next year’s expectations.
