This is not going to be a column where I talk about how wonderful Brett Favre is. In fact I really have nothing positive to say about him nor do I want him or the Vikings to be successful this season. The past five years have been the sad unveiling of a narcissistic sociopath. From a Fantasy standpoint, however, I have been secretly cheering the entire time that he would play.
Last season, coming off a poor finish in New York, Favre fell down the draft boards. He was exceptional value for his owners, posting over 4,200 yards and 33 touchdowns to 7 interceptions. Let’s put this in context a little bit. Favre threw for more yards in a season than he had since 1998. His 33 TD passes were the most in a season since 1997 and the TD to INT ratio was the lowest of his career. The only thing even close was in 1996 when he had 39 TD’s to 13 INT’s. His QB rating of 107.2 dwarfs every other season; the closest was 1995 when he posted a 99.5 rating.
The magnitude of what Favre did during the regular season in 2009 can’t possibly be overstated; think Barry Bonds or Rogers Clemens accomplishments without the steroids. The dream season of 2009 has created the optimum culture for cagey Fantasy Footballers. There is no way that Favre will be able to duplicate what he did last year. It’s literally impossible.
How do we turn this situation to our advantage? Step one: don’t drink the Kool-Aid! Most everyone believes that Favre will have a season similar to what he had last year. Aside from the fact that he won’t be able to repeat the same numbers healthy, the ankle is a real reason for concern. I’m not bold enough to predict an injury but you can bet every team the Vikings face will come after him with his limited mobility.
Jones and I have been doing mock drafts for about a month and a half on a regular basis in an attempt to formulate an inexact science. One of the issues we have discussed and experimented with most is what to do about Quarterback in 2010. Initially we were grabbing Matt Ryan, Kevin Kolb, Jay Cutler, etc. When it was announced that Favre WOULD NOT come back this season grabbing these QB’s became more difficult because people who would normally take Favre were taking “our guys.” We started drafting teams where we would grab an elite QB (Brees, Rodgers, Manning) early on if the volume was right. The teams we were ending up with just weren’t strong enough at RB or WR for our liking. This is when I started to cheer for Favre to come back again.
Now that the old man is back, comfortably in the top 10 for QB’s, the world is back to normal. If it gets toward the middle/end of the 2nd round there’s definitely some merit to grabbing an elite QB. Outside of that, however, we’d prefer to wait on our QB targets in the middle rounds. With that in mind, here are the QB’s beyond Favre’s ADP (50) we like, along with their Yahoo ADP’s:
Kevin Kolb (72)
Jay Cutler (73)
Joe Flacco (83)
Matthew Stafford (93)
Matt Ryan (94)
Carson Palmer (102)
Ben Roethlisberger (130)
I like the idea of getting a 2nd Tier Quarterback more than ending up with the guys on this list. At the same time if I end up with one of these dudes at QB, must be I’m stacked at RB and WR. In addition to that, I’d rather have ANY of these dudes than Favre; especially when you consider the ADP of 50. I guess what I’m trying to say overall is that if you take Favre this is how each day will be.
