Fantasy Football Midseason Report

by Ryan Henry

We have arrived at the halfway mark of this NFL season, and with it come a number of fantasy football booms and busts. Let’s take a look at what I got wrong, what I got right and who you should be targeting going forward.

Busts

Matthew Stafford has pretty universally disappointed fantasy owners. He went into the season as basically the consensus number 5 quarterback, and many had to spend a second round pick in order to get him. The hype surrounding Stafford was enormous.
He was coming off a 5000 yard 41 touchdown season, had the number one wide receiver in football, and was finally healthy for an entire season. Unfortunately, he has been dreadful. With 7 interceptions and only 8 touchdowns, he hasn’t been the stud that many expected him to be. A lack of a consistent offensive line play and a hampered Calvin Johnson go a long way to explain his struggles. However, Titus Young, another popular sleeper pick, also failed to emerge as the bona fide number 2 option. Going forward, Stafford needs to be a matchup play at best.

Shifting to wide receivers, Hakeem Nicks, Greg Jennings and Antonio Brown has all suffered from the injury bug, but that doesn’t make them any less of a bust. Nicks and Jennings have struggled to get on the field, while Brown has floundered on it. There have been reports that Brown has been playing through injury, and the high ankle sprain he suffered in Week 8 certainly won’t help, but what has really been plaguing the Steelers offense has been a lack of a consistent running game. With the revolving door of Isaac Redman, Rashard Mendenhall and Jonathan Dwyer at running back, it is small wonder that Pittsburgh hasn’t managed to get anything going on the ground. Nicks and Jennings’s situations are much easier to analyze. Both got reinjured trying to come back too early. Jennings should no longer even be owned until we know for certain when he will return, a long fall for someone regarded as a top 10 receiver during the preseason. Fortunately, wide receiver is the deepest position so drafting any of these guys probably hasn’t killed your team this season.

Running back is another story. Many of the experts thought that this was the year that Chris Johnson, formerly CJ2k, would make his triumphant return. However, this season he has looked more like CJ.5k. At one point this season, his average point of contact was the negative two yard line. That means that he was being hit, on average, two yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Booms

Robert. Griffin. The Third. This rookie quarterback out of Baylor has surprised everyone, and those that were fortunate enough to get him in the draft (he was around the 12^th quarterback taken) are either starting him every week or have traded him for a ton of additional value. He is the number two overall scorer in ESPN standard scoring behind only Aaron Rodgers. And he has been doing it without his number one receiver, Pierre Garcon. Helped by the emergence of Alfred Morris, RG3 has both run and pass his way into the hearts of Washington’s faithful. He should be the rookie of the year…

…unless Doug Martin continues his record setting trend. Coming off of a 251 yard 4 touchdown game at Oakland, Martin is poised to take off. Despite suffering injuries to both of their starting guards, the Buccaneers have managed to put together a solid ground attack to go with the re-emergence of quarterback Josh Freeman. While I don’t expect any more 51 point games, Martin is definitely a top 10 running back the rest of the year.

Eric Decker has done a great job showing us why he was picked as a popular sleeper. His rapport with Peyton Manning has really paid off, and having Demaryious Thomas starting opposite him hasn’t hurt. Decker leads the Broncos in targets, receptions and touchdowns. Moreover, the Bronco doesn’t seem to be slowing down with a 8 reception 99 yard 2 touchdown game last week. Expect more of the same week in and week out as he has a pretty softball schedule the rest of the way.

Midseason Sleepers

I mentioned him while talking about Doug Martin, but if Josh Freeman is still available in your league, then grab him now. He seems to have returned to his 2010 form, which made him the vogue sleeper choice last season. Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams have proven to be surprisingly effective and Martin gives them a solid running attack. This adds up to a top 10 second half.

Mikel Leshoure astounded his owners last week when he went off for 3 touchdowns, and while he won’t score three times every week, he should still see some success as the Lions use him more and more. Their passing game is struggling because teams are daring Detroit to run on them. Calvin Johnson is seeing double and triple teams all game and teams are dropping 6 into coverage. So until Leshoure gets something going, then Stafford and company will continue to struggle. Fortunately, head coach Jim Schwartz has gone back to the basics and shown that he isn’t afraid to run the ball, especially in goal line situations.