Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

I went to the Patriots-Bucs game last Thursday and saw something that struck me as odd -- and struck me, in turn, as one key to anticipating how the coming season will unfold. Much more on that below, but first things first.

Hello; welcome. My name is Justin Eleff. I have been writing for this website for more than ten years now, and have gotten several things right in that time.

For the next however many weeks, continuing through much or all of the regular season, my columns here will pertain primarily to national challenge-type fantasy games. I always get a few complaints (in the comments sections below the columns, which I do check regularly, so feel free to use them) that my rankings of certain players look screwy. There is often, though not always, a good reason for that.

While much of what I write here should help you to win leagues of all kinds -- when I really like a player, I almost always want to own him across formats -- my rankings are specific to the games I write about. The challenges differ from traditional fantasy formats in two crucial ways:

First, these are national contests, not office leagues, so no player is owned exclusively by any one team. There is no draft or auction. I fit whichever players I like best under a salary cap set by the challenge (using player salaries also set by the challenge), you fit whichever players you like best under the same cap, and then it's my players vs. yours. The ones we have in common cancel each other out; the other ones separate our teams in the standings.

Second, because the salary cap is inflexible, yes, my player rankings will sometimes look screwy. You and I might agree that Andre Johnson is a better player than Hakeem Nicks, for instance; maybe not by much, but say it's not in doubt between us that A.J. is better. Still, at a salary of $2,070 he is clearly not better than Nicks at $1,580 -- not if we each have 20 roster slots to fill under a $30,000 salary cap -- and when I rank players, I will be accounting for their salaries.

I tell you this not to discourage you from reading these columns -- even if you don't play the games I write about, there will be plenty of general interest here -- but to encourage you to read them with the proper perspective. If you don't play the challenges, you'll have to look for the bits of information and opinion that are of most use to you.

(And I don't just write these columns, either. During the season I'll be making occasional appearances at our Facebook page, I'll be doing regular live-blogs of Sunday and Monday night games, and I'll be tweeting all the while. Follow me on Twitter (@FantasyIndexJE), and feel free to hit me up with any quick questions you have. I try to answer them all.)

And with all of that said, odd is a pretty good word to describe this football year so far. The offseason was nothing if not that: an odd, unrelenting suckfest that turned Adam Schefter into a droning bore and did damage that cannot yet be calculated to dozens of businesses like, well, the one I work for …

… and yet, did it come to anything in the end?

It was an offseason. One measly preseason game was lost. The schedule did not change otherwise, for 2011 or any other season. The upshot of the whole thing is that ten years from now, Roger Goodell will have presided over fifteen straight seasons without losing a game that counted. That, at least, is something.

But past that, our long national nightmare of an offseason was just so much nothing. It's over now. It had no meaning.

Except, perhaps, in one respect. Which brings us back to last Thursday, New England at Tampa Bay, my dad and I trying hard to enjoy the game.

It wasn't easy.

You know how teams sometimes script their first few plays of a game? The Bucs' whole first quarter on offense went like this: incomplete, run for 1, incomplete, punt, run for -3, incomplete, pass for 5, punt, pass for 12, penalty, sack, incomplete, pass for 7, punt, incomplete, run for 2, sack, punt. The Pats' first quarter (by drive, not by snap) went like this: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown.

But none of that struck me as odd, especially.

What did was that Tom Brady was still playing in the second quarter. Nearly all of New England's first-teamers, in fact, played the whole first half. In Week 2 of the preseason. Despite having built a huge lead. (And not only in points; midway through the second quarter, the Patriots' edge in rushing yards was 101-1.) Brady attempted 19 passes in all. In Week 2 of last year's preseason, he'd attempted 12.

Why the extended look?

I won't pretend to be inside Bill Belichick's head, but I did have a theory -- and just a few nights after Pats-Bucs, Tom Coughlin suggested that my theory was probably right. From Coughlin's post-MNF press conference: "You extend the play time a little bit to take full advantage of the fact that we literally had no offseason and a very small preseason, very short preseason. So, we extended a little bit of play time tonight." Coughlin, of course, was lamenting the injuries suffered by several Giants in their extended "play time," but my theory was that Belichick had kept Brady in the game I'd attended for the same reasons. No offseason. Very short preseason. Even veteran players are not where they'd normally be this late in August.

So forget about rookies.

The draft was odd in its own right, no? We knew Kevin Kolb would be some team's starting quarterback this fall, but which one? Same with Donovan McNabb. Didn't the Vikings reach in taking Christian Ponder at No. 12 overall? Would they have made the same pick if they'd already had McNabb in the fold?

And never mind the draft itself; what of its usual aftermath? We had a draft but no rookie minicamps. We had a draft, but now it looks like we have an awfully thin crop of rookies.

Not that this year's draftees will be worse in the long run than any other year's; I don't necessarily believe that. But will they be as good in their rookie seasons as last year's rookies were? Or as next year's rookies will be?

This, I have to believe, is why Belichick kept his starters in as long as he did. To the extent that any team has new players in 2011 (and Chad Ochocinco, acquired on July 28, may start for the Pats), those new players have gotten precious little work with their teammates so far. Roster cuts are approaching already, but teams cannot possibly know as much as they usually do about which guys can play and which guys can't.

Which means, it would seem to follow, that a bunch of decisions will be made more or less blindly. Players will make rosters as much because of where they were drafted as anything else, with much about their abilities and ultimate roles yet to be determined. So early in the regular season, at least, frontline veterans will be more important than ever before. Most of this year's rookies are simply not ready to play.

Nowhere is that more obvious than at the positions that matter most for fantasy purposes. Most years a handful of rookies make defensible challenge plays at the start of the season -- but, really, who would those guys be now?

Rookie quarterbacks are essentially never worth considering; this year is no exception. Ponder and Jake Locker are backing up McNabb and Matt Hasselbeck, respectively. Blaine Gabbert and Colin Kaepernick look clueless. Andy Dalton may play more, but at the moment he looks even worse -- he isn't even playing like a functional college quarterback. And if top overall pick Cam Newton starts for Carolina, it will only be because the alternative is Jimmy Clausen. In short, you can safely scratch every rookie quarterback from your challenge consideration.

Rookie wide receivers are seldom worth considering, but occasionally a Mike Williams (TB, not SEA; Southeast, not Northwest) or DeSean Jackson turns the preseason into a personal showcase, making clear that he'll be ready to go early in his rookie season. This year's answer to those guys is Julio Jones, who looked NFL-ready to me as a true freshman at Alabama, but (a) even as impressive as he is, Jones' preseason so far comes to 4 catches for 73 yards, while a guy he'll be fighting for catches, slot receiver Harry Douglas, has 5 catches for 134 yards and 2 touchdowns; and (b) as the No. 6 overall pick, Jones isn't carrying bargain-basement challenge salaries anyway.

And where we're really hard up at the moment?

Running back.

Usually multiple rookie backs are worth at least speculative roster slots. This year there was no obvious stud in the draft to begin with -- no Adrian Peterson, not even anyone who ran a sub-4.3 at the combine -- and the best of the rookie runners would be facing bigger obstacles than usual even if the lockout had never occurred.

Mark Ingram went to the Saints, who continue to rotate every part of their offense save Drew Brees; Ingram will share carries with Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles and probably Chris Ivory, too. Ryan Williams went to the Cardinals, who could use a better back than Beanie Wells, but Williams just suffered a season-ending injury. Mikel Leshoure went to the Lions, but he suffered his own season-ender a few weeks back. And the other rookies are stuck in committees (as in New England) or odd-job roles (as in still-Wildcatting Miami), or stuck behind veterans with more talent (as in Dallas) or at least with vastly more experience doing exactly the things their coaching staffs will ask of them (as in Washington). If I had to lock in my challenge rosters right now, I'd own Felix Jones and Tim Hightower but not Ingram or preseason sensation Stevan Ridley.

Bottom line: for now, to a greater extent than ever before, I'm convinced that the best indication of how the coming season will play out is how the last season played out. Job turnover from veterans to rookies is essentially nil. At least for the first few weeks of the season, I'll be looking backward much more intently than I'm looking forward.

So for today, this is how we should start to think about our challenge rosters. If we need running backs, and we can't pick ones who weren't in the league at all in 2010, where should we look instead?

At the numbers, of course.

One thing we know we want is players who'll carry the ball a lot. Production comes from opportunity. Toward that end, below are a couple of lists for you.

First, how all teams ranked in rushing attempts per game in 2010:

1. KC 34.8
2. NYJ 33.4
3. JAX 32.0
4. OAK 31.5
5. ATL 31.1
6. BAL 30.4
7. NYG 30.0
8. PIT 29.4
9. SD 28.6
10. NE 28.4
11. MIA 27.8
12. MIN 27.6
13. TB 26.9
14. STL 26.8
15. CAR, CIN, DAL, PHI 26.8
19. HOU 26.4
20. GB 26.3
21. CHI 25.9
22. CLE 25.8
23. TEN 25.4
24. DET 25.3
25. BUF, SF 25.1
27. DEN 24.9
28. IND 24.6
29. SEA 24.1
30. NO 23.8
31. WAS 21.9
32. ARZ 20.0

Second, how they ranked in rushing attempts per game by their lead backs only (and, note: (a) I have defined "lead back" to mean whichever player makes sense to me personally; I picked Jamaal Charles over Thomas Jones based on production, but Ryan Mathews over Mike Tolbert based on how the Chargers used them when both were available; and (b) in each case, the numbers below are the carries the lead backs got per game actually played, not their total carries for the season divided by their respective teams' 16 games):

1. JAX (Maurice Jones-Drew) 21.4
2. ATL (Michael Turner) 20.9
3. STL (Steven Jackson) 20.6
4. HOU (Arian Foster) 20.4
5. PIT (Rashard Mendenhall) 20.3
6. CIN (Cedric Benson) 20.1
7. TEN (Chris Johnson) 19.8
8. BAL (Ray Rice) 19.2
9. MIN (Adrian Peterson) 18.9
10. SF (Frank Gore) 18.5
11. NYG (Ahmad Bradshaw) 17.3
12. OAK (Darren McFadden) 17.2
13. CLE (Peyton Hillis) 16.9
14. WAS (Ryan Torain) 16.4
15. TB (LeGarrette Blount) 15.5
16. CHI (Matt Forte) 14.8
17. NYJ (LaDainian Tomlinson) 14.6
18. CAR (DeAngelo Williams), IND (Joseph Addai) 14.5
20. KC (Jamaal Charles) 14.4
21. NE (BenJarvus Green-Ellis) 14.3
22. DEN (Knowshon Moreno) 14.0
23. BUF (Fred Jackson) 13.9
24. PHI (LeSean McCoy) 13.8
25. SEA (Marshawn Lynch) 13.8 (excluding 4 games with BUF)
26. SD (Ryan Mathews) 13.2
27. MIA (Ronnie Brown) 12.5
28. GB (Brandon Jackson) 11.9
29. DAL (Felix Jones) 11.6
30. NO (Chris Ivory) 11.4
31. DET (Jahvid Best) 10.7
32. ARZ (Tim Hightower) 9.6

Key takeaways:

1. Only a few teams are certain (or even especially likely) to have new lead backs come Kickoff Weekend: Washington, the Jets, Miami, Green Bay, Arizona, probably New Orleans and possibly Buffalo. I assume cooler heads will prevail in the Chris Johnson contract standoff; if so, barring injuries, the seven teams I just named are the only possibilities.

Washington may succeed in making chicken salad out of Hightower. The Jets will turn more of their carries over to Shonn Greene (which they probably would have done last year had he not fumbled twice in Week 1). Miami will do what it can with whatever remains of Reggie Bush. Green Bay will decide between mostly-recovered Ryan Grant and always-recovering James Starks. Arizona will go back to Wells (if only for want of any alternative). New Orleans is far more likely to split carries several ways than to give a majority of them to Ingram. And Buffalo seems to prefer C.J. Spiller in theory but incumbent Fred Jackson in practice. Exciting stuff, all of this, I know.

2. What Jamaal Charles did with his carries last year is just remarkable (of course, he'd done much the same thing with his carries in 2009). But Todd Haley sounds confident that he's already using Charles to his best advantage, and is therefore unlikely to use him the way fantasy owners would prefer.

Besides, we have recent-as-could-be evidence to suggest that backs do not always maintain their explosiveness across extra carries. Witness Felix Jones, whose rushing attempts have moved from 30 to 116 to 185 in his three-year career, while his rushing average has moved from 8.9 to 5.9 to 4.3. It's hard to imagine Charles not getting at least a few more carries in 2011 (Thomas Jones just turned 33), but it's easy to imagine Charles being less effective with his carries by enough to hold his value below where it was.

3. Last year was not much better for rookies than this year seems likely to be. Which sticks us twice in the challenges, because the usual crop of not-fully-priced young backs is just not there.

Ryan Mathews and Jahvid Best were passable at times in 2010, but both were dinged up for almost the whole season. Now Mathews has 9 carries in two preseason games and Best is lightly concussed.

Spiller was an even bigger disappointment as a rookie. He did occasionally show the burst he'd always had at Clemson -- but mostly on returns. Chan Gailey barely used him otherwise; Spiller got a total of 98 offensive touches all year.

That was hugely frustrating -- I root for the Bills -- but in retrospect it wasn't hugely surprising. Early last preseason it became apparent that Spiller could not even pretend to block an NFL pass rusher. I still believed his giddy-up was worth a roster slot, but by halftime of Week 1 it was clear that Gailey didn't trust him. Spiller's 2011 role is not yet certain; for now I cannot imagine carrying more than one of Mathews/Best/Spiller.

And, no, I am not forgetting a certain 2010 rookie. Keep reading.

4. We made a big deal in this year's magazine -- go here and buy it right now -- of the fact that Chicago attempted fewer passes than any other team in 2010, a remarkable show of restraint from a Mike Martz offense. But the Bears also ranked just 21st in rushing attempts. That offense wasn't on the field much.

So if you thought you were sneaking Matt Forte past your competition this fall, know that he's unlikely to dominate the way the best backs can. (Especially now that his primary backup is an actual threat to opposing defenses. No offense, Chester Taylor.) Forte is a good player, but not quite a great challenge pick.

Nor is LeSean McCoy, says me, for much the same reason. Philadelphia tied for 15th in team rushing attempts last year, but McCoy was down at 24th among lead backs. He's no Charles, and the Eagles have this quarterback ...

5. So are there any great challenge picks?

Honestly, that may depend on the challenge.

In points-style games, where accumulation of bulk stats is all that matters (and bulk carries are thus most valuable), we're probably stuck hoping that any one back will take over Ryan Torain's workload. Hightower is the early leader, but one 2011 rookie worth watching is Roy Helu. After that, the big questions are how close Jones will get to full-time work in Dallas, and whether the other good offenses at the bottom of last year's list of lead backs will consolidate their carries. For the record, I count those other good offenses as including Green Bay, New Orleans, probably Detroit and possibly Arizona -- although I am roughly 15 trillion times more likely to roster Best than Wells to start the season.

In rotisserie-style games, however, things are substantially brighter. Those games count more than yards and touchdowns; in the CDM-then-Fanball-now-CDM-again Football Challenge, for instance, running backs also help or hurt according to their yards per rushing attempt and yards per reception. The latter is especially worrisome, as even the best pass-catching backs seldom hang with typical wideouts in receiving average -- so catching the ball well, which usually means catching it often, is generally bad. One back contributing 500 or so receiving yards at some cost to a team's receiving average is fine. Two or three, not fine.

Why are things brighter?

Take another look at that second list above. At least three teams figure to give 15 or more carries per game this season to backs who cannot catch at all. Michael Turner continues to reach 20 carries per game without reaching 20 catches per season. The Jets' new lead back, Greene, rarely even caught a pass in his days as a Hawkeye. And the no-hands team got a new member in 2010. LeGarrette Blount: 201 rushing attempts, 5 receptions. Just how we like it.

Enough for one column. I got a very late start this preseason after a calamitous move from New York to Florida left me with limited computer access for several weeks. But I'll be making it up to you with several more posts between now and Kickoff Weekend. Look for them soon.

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