LOGIN

jay-cutler-josh-mccown

There are two C’s in my last name buddy.

The first question you should ask yourself while you’re doing your best Taxi Driver impersonation in the mirror is– really, are Jay’s rankings crazy? Or am I just crazy? (Check them out… Razzball Football rankings). The ole’ smoke dog is here to just squeeze water out of a stone, take the dog down the block… or whatever the appropriate wit of wisdom is. So I will first look today at quarterback and will be using the half-PPR scoring formats in the RCL’s as the backbone for discussion. The class is as deep as the minds of Minolta. The good ole theory of waiting, or sorta waiting, comes into play.  The top-12 QB’s from a year ago had a range of  154.8 points between them, no thanks in large part to the ridiculous all-time season of Peyton Manning. With that, I’m going to focus on how Josh McCown could be a fantasy forgotten in TB.  The same Josh McCown who basically scored 25 pts less than Jay Cutler did all year, but only in 5 1/2 games.  Stay after the bump we get deeper and deeper into the proof or lack of it.

So who likes pudding? Because the proof is apparently in it, and it doesn’t affect the flavor. Weird, but true. So in the 5 1/2 games that McCown got some burn as the Bears QB, he averaged 22 fantasy points a game. I know that seems like an insignificant stat; and he has a different offense, different players, and a new game plan… but back to those 22 points a game he averaged. If you extrapolate that over the entire season of 2013, he would finish ummm… 3rd among QB average scoring per week. Only Peyton and Brees had a higher average scoring per week. Yeah, I hear ya, if and buts were soup and nuts. So lets look at the different numbers that you may not know, and how how the talent that he has isn’t that much different than what the Bears had.

So the Bears have a prolific fantasy triumvirate of Marshall, Forte and a blow-up season from Alshon.  So now with Tampa Bay, McCown has a big-play, deep threat in Vincent Jackson, a top-flight rookie with possession and red zone appeal in Mike Evans, and a RB, Doug Martin, that has shown the ability (when healthy) to be a great PPR and standard league stalwart. Now, if I just wrote that and didn’t put Jackson’s or Evan’s or Martin’s name, would you think they were any different than the combo the Bears have?

The key to McCown’s value is his effectiveness as a vertical passer.  He was 2nd in the league in QBR on said vertical passes, which is music to V-Jax’s ears. You know what else I like? Lovie Smith has brought in a QB guru to run the offense with Jeff Tedford. All of these things look shiny and new and are all a “well if this goes right maybe situation,” but look at it this way– In drafts, McCown is basically going after Michael Vick and Teddy Bridgewater, or for those into numbers, somewhere in Rd 15.  So where is the gamble?  I don’t necessarily think that he is a QB1, but he has the appeal and weapons to be one if last year wasn’t a fluke. Which it wasn’t!

Smokey’s Stat Prediction: 3800 YDS, 27 TD’s, and 12 INT’s