Avoid Paying Up for Chicago Bears RB Matt Forte

Value is a tricky buzzword in fantasy sports. Understanding how to navigate its meaning in each sports increases your odds greatly. For instance, in baseball you have half of the year where games that generate new data are played daily to piece together a championship team. Baseball also (usually) has deeper rosters and more opportunities to extract value.

Football is different. For you, the savvy fantasy football manager looking for a leg up on all of those other stooges, knowing how to utilize those first several picks is instrumental. This is a spot where I could harp on why you shouldn’t take a quarterback early. You don’t want to be the one taking Andrew Luck, Aaron Rodgers or Peyton Manning early on (context rules the day though, if they are falling in your draft, be my guest to abuse your foolish leaguemates if it is Round 4 and Luck is still there).

You also don’t want to be the one to take the plunge on Matt Forte in 2015.

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If you want to pay the market price right now to take Forte, you are probably using your first round pick in a 12 team league to do so (Forte holds an ADP of 7 according to FantasyPros, and 2.01 according to FantasyFootballCalculator). Do you want the guy who is turning 30 in December, who averaged 3.9 yards per rushing attempt in 2014, to be the heart and soul of your team? Better yet, do you want this to be the player you rely on to return first round value?

This is where you interject with: “Wait! Forte is so much more than just a running back, he’s practically a wide receiver as well! You can’t possibly hate on him and the versatility he brings.”

Okay, everyone knows that Forte has always been utilized as a solid pass catching option out of the backfield for Chicago. Last year he saw 130 targets, tallying 102 receptions for 808 yards and 4 touchdowns. Well that’s impressive. Almost too impressive. It’s almost as if he had a coach and system that was checking down to him ruthlessly, like a guy who just started his Madden Superstar mode and was hell-bent on feeding his created player the ball. Well if you could visualize Marc Trestman on the sidelines during Bears games with a controller, Forte’s button would be so mashed in that whoever pried it lose would be the next King of England.

Let’s provide some context, since Trestman is no longer there and we need a reality check…unless Marc has voodoo dolls for John Fox and new OC Adam Gase. Get back to me after Week 1 on that.

For the first six years of Forte’s career (2008-2013), here are his averages, which I took the liberty of rounding for clarity:

So you’re a few levels of awareness deep now, because expecting last year’s gaudy passing stats out of Forte should not be in your mind. However, you’re probably looking at me a little funny right now, because those numbers really aren’t anything to scoff at. Well if you could draft “peak Forte” then yes, you might have a case, but you’re drafting a bit of an elder statesman here as far as RB years go, and you always need to be conscious of this. ESPN Stats & Information put together “Age vs. Production” data a while ago, which can be viewed here, that shows how running backs peak at 27, and then fall off a pretty sharp cliff. Again, you’re a savvy fantasy vet, you knew that general idea, but we all need reminders sometimes.

Forte is getting older. Forte doesn’t have Trestman anymore. I’m not going to tie my first round pick to him in the hopes that the new system features getting Forte in space as often as Trestman did. Look again at Forte’s numbers and notice the rushing TD number. He’s just not that great of a pure between the tackles rusher, and the Bears really don’t have an above average line to pave the way for him. You’ll be hurting when you realize just how much of his value came from catching a lot of dump off passes, and how that really buoyed the loss of pure rushing numbers he brought to the table with that 3.9 YPC.

Do yourself a favor, and invest elsewhere in 2015, because people are still paying way too close to prime Forte price, and when that veil is lifted on what numbers he’ll provide when he isn’t the obsession of the offense, you don’t want to be the one to have paid for that ugliness.

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