RADIO
It would be a lot easier to win a fantasy football league if you owned a crystal ball.
Crystal balls are hard to come by these days, at least ones that are 100 percent accurate. Fantasy football owners would love to get their greedy hands on a working one. It would make life much simpler for them when it comes to making draft and lineup decisions, along with saving them more time to do things like the mow the lawn, shop for groceries and spend extra hours with their significant others. Alas, we must instead rely upon the wisdom of veteran fantasy players and experts for our prognostications.
So what are the three questions about the upcoming 2017 NFL season that fantasy owners wish they knew the answers to today? If you had the answers to these questions, you could easily win your fantasy league.
Ed. Note: Keep tabs on Rotoballer's NFL page for the latest reaction and analysis to free agent moves in order to stay ahead of the game!
Question One
Are Andrew Luck and Marcus Mariota really going to be ready for the start of the season?
Luck had offseason shoulder surgery, while Mariota had surgery for his fractured right fibula after getting injured last December. Both are top-10 fantasy quarterbacks when they are healthy, with Luck being a top-five fantasy franchise guy and Mariota on the verge of ranking right up there with Luck if he continues improving as steadily as he did last season.
Luck had surgery on a torn labrum that hampered him throughout the 2016 campaign. The surgery was five months ago, yet there is still no timetable on when he will be able to throw a pass. Luck and Indianapolis owner Robert Irsay were saying all the right things about rehab going well and that Luck will be ready when the season starts, but fantasy owners who own Luck in dynasty or keeper leagues have to be a tad concerned that he has not even attempted to throw yet. Now Luck is sounding like he might not be ready for training camp. If Luck is reduced to Ryan Fitzpatrick-like arm strength because his shoulder does not bounce back right away, or he is not ready for Week 1, a 5,000-yard year with 35 touchdowns will be a pipe dream.
Mariota has had all offseason to recover from his surgery, and word has been positive that he will be all systems go when Tennessee has its first meaningful game. Mariota threw for 3,426 yards and 26 touchdowns and added another 349 yards and two scores running the ball. He is on the cusp of superstardom and becoming a fantasy stud thanks to the dual threat of his running and throwing, but if his scrambling will be hampered by his broken leg, his fantasy value takes a hit.
Question Two
Which rookie quarterback should fantasy owners build their teams around?
Three quarterbacks were taken within the first dozen picks of this year’s NFL draft, but that does not mean this trio is going to be as successful as the threesome from the 2004 draft of Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger. If the latest rookie QB class is as successful as 2004’s, fantasy owners will be happier than a Kardashian with a camera aimed at her.
The Chicago Bears stunned several million people (and the man they gave $45 million to) when they drafted Mitchell Trubisky. Kansas City traded up to land Patrick Mahomes, and Houston used their 12th pick overall on Clemson standout Deshaun Watson. All three will be wanted in fantasy leagues, especially keeper and dynasty leagues where fantasy owners can hold onto them for several seasons.
Watson looks like the fantasy favorite this season since he has less competition for the starting spot on his team. Watson only has to fend off touchdown-less Tom Savage to run the show in Houston, while Trubisky has to overtake newly-signed multi-millionaire Mike Glennon and Mahomes has to leapfrog game manager extraordinaire Alex Smith. Trubisky and Mahomes were drafted ahead of Watson, though, so they might be the better long-term gets in dynasty leagues. Picking the right rookie could mean the difference between making the fantasy football playoffs or shifting your attention to fantasy hockey and hoops because your football season ended early.
Question Three
Are Jordan Howard and Jay Ajayi one-year wonders?
It is highly doubtful that Chicago’s Howard and Miami’s Ajayi were drafted in any 10-team leagues before the beginning of the 2016 season. Howard was a fifth-round pick stuck behind Jeremy Langford in the Bears backfield, while Ajayi was slated to back up veteran workhorse Arian Foster in Miami’s revamped running attack. Both Howard and Ajayi were probably only drafted by fantasy vets as handcuffs or as late-round longshots.
When the dust settled from the season, Howard finished second in the NFL rushing race and Ajayi finished fourth. Howard sprinted for 1,313 yards and a half-dozen touchdowns, while Ajayi barreled for 1,272 yards and eight scores. Both men went from being early-season waiver picks to fantasy forces that were instrumental in millions of people winning their leagues. Now they enter the 2017 campaign as first or second-round fantasy picks in redraft leagues or as cornerstones in keeper and dynasty leagues.
But are Howard and Ajayi one-year wonders about to become fantasy blunders? Both look like top-tier running backs, but so did Cincinnati’s Jeremy Hill and Denver’s C.J. Anderson coming into last season and look what happened. Howard and Ajayi have one humongous thing going for them, however, and that is the lack of completion behind them on their teams’ depth charts. Howard reversed roles with the underwhelming Langford, so he should not be pushed out of his starting spot. Meanwhile, all Miami has backing up Ajayi is little-used Damien Williams and change-of-pacer Kenyan Drake. So Howard and Ajayi will either have to get injured or fail miserably not be the top tailbacks on their teams all season long.
Fantasy owners would probably love the answers to other questions, too, such as if 2017 will finally be the year Father Time catches up to and tackles Tom Brady and Drew Brees, will Le’Veon Bell keep himself off the suspended list or pull a Josh Gordon, and will the NFL’s allowing of touchdown celebrations mean more scores for Odell Beckham Jr.? Well, we can only guess, fantasy owners! Or we can always buy a Magic 8-Ball and see if it can predict the future better than we can.
