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Fantasy Fact No. 4: The numbers don’t add up
Cold, Hard Fantasy Facts for August 14, 2007
FEARLESS FANTASY FACT NO. 4: The projections don’t add up.
Projected numbers are a cornerstone of the fantasy football industry, even though they're not worth the paper they're printed on (or the computer screen they're displayed on, more likely).
Our all-time favorite projection came back in the salad days of 1993, when our go-to magazine projected some guy named Tony Hargain to catch eight touchdown passes – after a 17-catch, 0-TD rookie season with Kansas City in 1992.
Instead, Hargain caught zero TD passes (and never played in the league again).
In the Cold, Hard Football Facts dungeon, any receiving prospect from then on was said to have the potential for “Hargain-like” numbers.
Projected numbers are theoretically good to have, but as Tony Hargain proved, they’re not always useful.
Even less useful are the projected numbers provided by your friendly worldwide leader in sports, ESPN.
The ESPN.com fantasy projections have one very major flaw – they don’t add up. In fact, it seems their sole purpose is to get you, the fantasy football geek, all juiced up over imaginary projected stats.
Considering that ESPN.com's fantasy projections are part of the In$ider package, you should probably expect more for your money.
Example: The
St.
Louis Rams have all kinds of big-name weapons in the passing game – Torry Holt, Drew Bennett, Isaac Bruce, Randy McMichael and even RB Steven
Jackson
out of the backfield.
And ESPN.com has all of those guys projected to do well … to the tune of 4,996 receiving yards! Unlikely, especially since they project Marc Bulger to get all the snaps and throw for 4,030 yards.
Contrast those numbers with the projected stats of Drew Brees and his no-name receivers in
New Orleans.
ESPN has Brees throwing 26 touchdowns, which sounds about right. But ESPN preducts just 19 TD catches among the skill players – perhaps they expect linemen-eligibles to come up with the other seven TD grabs.
Same goes for
Seattle,
where QBs Matt Hasselbeck and Seneca Wallace are projected to throw 25 TDs, only 15 of which are accounted for when you look at the projections of the rest of the team.
Problems are also to be found in the running-back projections. ESPN has St. Louis's Jackson carrying the ball 355 times, nine more times than last year. However, they also have rookie RB Brian Leonard carrying it 85 times, and two other backups toting it 56 times. This totals a whopping 523 runs – 100 more than they attempted in 2006. That seem very unlikely to anyone else?
Overall, they have the Rams coming up with 7,077 yards of total offense. If that sounds like a lot of yards, well, it is. That would set a new NFL record, topping the mark of the 2000 Rams by two yards.
It's unlikely, unless your really believe that this Rams team will be the greatest offense of all time. Even coach Scott Linehan doesn't believe that.
Like we said, there's a reason it's called fantasy football.
If you want projections that make sense, do your own. Take the total yardage and TD stats from 2006 and update them based on your own thoughts for the 2007 season. Then try to figure out how they’re going to be divvied up.
If the Seahawks are going to throw 25 touchdowns, more than likely someone will have 8 or more receiving touchdowns. Find that guy, and you’re golden.
Unless his name is Tony Hargain, of course.
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