I’ve been putting down some things regarding my draft thought process in a slow mock that I’m currently doing as a part of the Something Awful forums. My strategy with this is very similar to how I approach most of my Fantasy Football drafts; RB-RB, then fill in the rest. I pulled this off with the first two picks, going with Doug Martin and Reggie Bush with my first two picks. I was pleased with them, I believe they are both solid picks.
When I was making the Bush pick, I had a Wide Receiver queued up mentally that I would be targeting with the third pick of round three. As I noted there, there were many WR available that I would be happy to have on my team (Percy Harvin, Larry Fitzgerald, Randall Cobb, Michael Crabtree, Andre Johnson), but only one WR that I truly wanted on my team at that spot:
Percy Harvin, WR, Seattle Seahawks
Don’t get me wrong, I hope that Percy has a terrible season, as a 49ers fan. As a football fan and a fantasy football player, I am giddy and excited by the opportunity that Lamborghini Percy is going to have this year in the Seattle offense. He gives them an additional element (a real wide receiver, no offense, Golden Tate) and a playmaker who can line up all over the place. Harvin gets an additional bump in leagues with return yards and TDs, like my main Sacramento Boys league (Harvin went for $50 last year, to me, in that league). The rest of this post has the disclaimer that I have a big fat man crush on Percy Harvin.
Percy Harvin has a reputation for being an oft-injured player, one who you can’t depend on to play at least 14 games. Throw out last season and the freak injury that led to an IR stint (that had more to do with his feud with the coaching staff than any actual injury). Go look at his games played. Go ahead. I’ll wait here.
15, 14, 16 and 9 games played. That’s right, throw out last year’s injury and Harvin has been one of the more dependable players in the league since 2009. Harvin has a reputation for being an oft-injured player due to his migraine issues that led him to be questionable pretty much weekly since he came into the league.
Harvin has averaged almost 1,000 yards per scrimmage per year, including his injury-shortened 2012 campaign. A lot of the time, the Vikings offense was “give it to Adrian Peterson and stand around” then “give it to Percy Harvin and stand around.” Harvin made Christian Ponder, QB in name only, look good last year. Harvin had 62 receptions for 677 yards, for a modest 10.9 yards per catch, which puts him in the same realm as luminaries such as Danny Woodhead and Josh Morgan. Why do I have such a mancrush on Harvin? Well, no two passes are built alike.
Last year, Percy Harvin’s average catch point was 2.71 yards past the line of scrimmage. In the top 40 WRs for YAC (yards after catch), this was the lowest yards past past scrimmage. That means that for Harvin to get his 10.9 yards per catch, he had to do A LOT of work. Over 75% of his receiving yards came after he had already caught the ball. This means that Harvin was doing most of the work. This was by far the highest yards after catch percentage for any wide receiver. Second was Andrew Hawkins at about 66%. For reference, Victor Cruz, YAC poster boy, had only about 30% of his yards after the catch. These calculations were mine from data for YAC I received off ESPN.com
What does this mean for Harvin in 2013? Well, given the tricky nature of the Seahawks’ offense, I think it means big things for Harvin in 2013. I honestly think that Harvin can launch his way into the top 5 fantasy WR discussion. The Seahawks offense starts with versatile Russell Wilson, whose dual threat run/pass ability gives opposing defenses fits. Add power runner Marshawn Lynch and you already have a great start for a versatile, dangerous offense. The Seahawks rode that offense and a top-3 defense into the playoffs last year. Now they’re adding, in my opinion, the most explosive, versatile offensive threat in Percy Harvin. This team will be dangerous, and Harvin will be a big piece of that.
Harvin will be given every opportunity to succeed in 2013, and the name of the game for fantasy is finding the combination of opportunity and talent. Harvin has plenty of talent, and will be given plenty of opportunity in 2013. He, with Beast Mode and Wilson are the future of the Seahawks offense, and it will be a dangerous offense.
In lieu of making this 100% about Percy Harvin, I will talk a bit about the other players I could have taken there. Harvin was essentially an auto-draft for me, so I don’t want to say I considered these players per se, but a different person may have drafted them here.
Tom Brady, QB, New England
I don’t really trust Brady this year, and my aversion for drafting a quarterback early played itself out here. Brady, Peyton Manning and Cam Newton would all have been decent picks in the third round for some people, and all were available. The issue is I don’t know how much I trust Brady this year. Aaron Hernandez can’t stay on the field, Wes Welker has become Danny Amendola, who can’t stay on the field and Rob Gronkowski can’t stay on the field. He has a ton of talent around him, but who knows how often they can put it all together. I would consider Brady a late-third/early-fourth value pick.
Darren Sproles, RB, New Orleans
Sproles is the prototypical player whose value skyrockets in a PPR. In a standard format, he is a low-end RB2 prospect, and the more points per reception, his value boosts. In a half-PPR league like this one, he ends up around 15-16 overall. He is one of the players I would consider going RB-RB-RB for, due to the shallowness of the position and the depth at WR, TE and QB.
Now that I have my first wide receiver, giving me Harvin as a dynamic WR1, I must wait about 20 picks until my 4th round pick. I am trying to go 2 RB, 2 WR and a WR/RB depending on talent in my first five picks. The 4th and 5th round ADP shows that there are a ton of good to great WR and good RB still available to me.
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