It was summer 2014, the sun was shining, the kids drank soda pop, and Montee Ball was being drafted in the middle of the first round. There I was at ninth thinking I could be one of the lucky ones. Those were my intentions going in anyway. Come draft time it turned out I was more concerned with craft beer than the league I had gotten thrown into. I committed the cardinal sin of not knowing the draft client and suddenly it was my pick. With no queue set up and seconds to go I panicked, scrolled at the next 5 visible guys in the window of auto-rankings, and chose. Minutes later I was cursing my friends name as I saw him pick the still available Montee Ball.
This trip down memory lane teaches us two crucial lessons. 1: Always know your draft client and test for compatibility BEFORE you draft. And 2: The only thing as important as drafting the right guy, is avoiding the wrong one. Spending expensive draft capital on a player who puts up mediocre numbers hurts your team. Worse yet, as my friend found out, spending a high pick on a guy who does nothing is a season killer. Demarco Murray ended up carrying me to a league championship, while Ball left my friend in relative obscurity. Of course this was unbelievable luck on my part, but had I of been thinking with avoidance strategy, I never would have attempted to torpedo my season in the first place.
Enter 2015. Lesean McCoy's line is worse, Brandon Marshall is a Jet, and more than a few of leagues best running backs are all dangerously close to 30. Because it is so often a make or break decision, today we will go over the choices available to us in the first round. It's easy to pass on Maclin in the 4th or Peyton in the 3rd, but its bold to choose from the cream of the crop and say nay.
Listed below is the first round with potential red flags as it stands on June 24th in 12 man standard Yahoo leagues.
Name Potential Red Flags
Jamaal Charles Nagging injuries in 2014, age
Eddie Lacy Concussion history, time split with Starks toward middle of last season
Adrian Peterson Rust, age
Marshawn Lynch Heavy workload in past, violent runner, age
Le'Veon Bell Suspension history
Antonio Brown None
Rob Gronkowski Injury history
Dez Bryant Contract issues
Odell Beckham Jr Sophomore regression, hamstrings
Matt Forte Age, less receptions with loss of Trestman
Demarco Murray Incredible previous year workload, injury history
Andrew Luck Often sacked/hit
The world needs another Demarco Murray workload article about as much as it needs a third World War, so let's go in a different direction. Lets be daring. Let's select Odell Beckham Jr. Why? As I will explain, OBJ was the perfect player at the perfect time on the perfect team. I'm not trying to take anything away from the man, I just don't think he'll perform up to his lofty draft position, and that you can get similar production out of your second round pick.
The Perfect Team
The 2014 Giants were flat out awful. Compiling a 6-10 record, five of those wins came against the dregs of the league. Bad teams fall behind early and generally abandon the running game. This was very much the case for Eli Manning who broke his career high with 601 attempts. The G-men were near the bottom of nearly every defensive statistic one can take pride in, and couldn't move the ball on the ground. Their dismal 3.6 yards per attempt was 30th in the league. Their terrible rushing and worse defense set up beautifully for Odell, as he was the only talented offensive player left on a team that was constantly falling behind. Reuben Randle did not play well and Larry Donnell cemented his flash in the pan status. The addition of Shane Vereen should help as Eli will have a talented pass catching HB (and underrated runner) out of the backfield. Factor in the return of Victor Cruz and one can foresee the massive targets for Odell leveling out to normal.
The Perfect Player
The Dez's and Calvin's of the world amaze us year in and year out. Teams know they are good, gameplan around them, and yet somehow they still produce. As an unknown commodity, Beckham benefited greatly. Cue the sophomore slump. Teams know who he is now and will gameplan around him specifically. When defensive coordinators have a whole year of film on you, its incredibly how they can use it against you. So you're thinking, well why didn't teams gameplan around him once they saw what he could do? I'm glad you asked. Let's take a look at his production starting in week 5, his first game.
Week 5 vs Atlanta 4-44-0 – A pretty normal game
Week 6 vs Philadelphia 2-28-0 – Non factor
Week 7 vs Dallas 4-34-2 – The touchdowns are impressive, but still little jumps off the page
Bye
So, heading into week nine, coordinators have little reason to believe he is a game changing offensive juggernaut. The Dallas touchdowns aside, he has whimpered to begin his NFL career. Dallas' dirty secret from 2015 should also be mentioned at this point in time, the defense was terrible. How terrible? In 2013 the Cowboys defense was described as “historically bad” by writers all over the football universe. That defense gave up 6.1 yards per play. The 2014 division winning Cowboys? 5.8 yards per play. The reason this went largely unnoticed is solely because the Cowboys managed to keep their defense off the field. A top 3 time of possession stat (21 seconds behind #1) had them cooling off on the sidelines. After beating this awful unit for two touchdowns on a modest 34 yards, Beckham slides into his bye week to rest those hammys.
The Perfect Time
Our sneaky OBJ slides out of the bye supposedly healthy and ready to go. As we discussed above, coordinators still have little reason to focus an entire gameplan around this young man. For the rest of the season he would light a fire on the NFL world, and win many a fantasy player his or her championship. Lets look at how he did it
Week 9 vs Indianapolis 8-156-0
Week 10 vs Seattle 7-108-0
Week 11 vs San Fran 6-93-0
We start off with a shootout versus Indianapolis which saw the Giants lose 40-24. OBJ performs well in what would turn out to be a 64 point slugfest, illustrating the above narrative perfectly. He racked up tons of yards in awful games by the Giants. Against Seattle he plays well, that is a great line against that team, and the same can be said for the game against San Francisco.
Week 12 vs Dallas 10-146-2
Week 13 vs Jacksonville 7-90-0
Week 14 vs Tennessee 11-130-1
Week 15 vs Washington 12-143-3
Week 16 vs St. Louis 8-148-2
From week 12 on is where the legend was truly made and the main reason I'm ducking him this year. Again we see him annihilate a bad Cowboys defense. For this we cant knock him, after all he'll see them twice next year, but the remaining games must be taken with a grain of salt. He faces all bad teams that had been knocked out for the year and had nothing to play for. Jacksonville and Tennessee ended at 3-13 and 2-14, with the 26th and 27th overall defenses. Washington stank up the NFC East with a 4-12 record and, you guessed it, gave up a whopping 5.8 yards per play (where did we hear that number before?). The Rams hardly played better giving up 5.6 themselves. The point being that it is highly unlikely that he will see such a lucky stretch of awful teams again. A quick glance at this seasons final six games tells us the same.
There is a very good chance that Beckham will play well this year, and I'm not here to disagree. I'm recommending avoiding him based on how fortunate his situation was last year and where he is going in this years drafts. If you're drafting late middle the likes of Julio, Calvin, and Jordy could all be available with your second pick. Do you truly believe the second year man will outpace the likes of that trio? Is it possible that the legend of OBJ was written on the backs of the worst teams and defenses in the NFL at a most memorable time? And finally, lets not forget that he already missed this years mini camp with yet another hamstring injury. Seasoned players will tell you just how nagging and reoccurring those can be. If they act up this year, you just might be telling the guy behind you who grabbed him about the legend of Miles Austin.
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