I’ve been in a reflective mood over the last couple of weeks about the 2019 fantasy season. It was a rollercoaster, like many seasons before, but I was more involved in the community and more involved in the dynasty league formats. So, I have been looking back and reviewing my successes and failures, trades I “won” or “lost,” and most importantly for today my hits and misses. That is, the players I ended up being right or wrong about based on my analysis prior to the regular season.
Let’s jump right in!
Hits
Being right about a player doesn’t make you a genius and no one is here to brag or gloat. This exercise is meant to be helpful and introspective. It’s not necessarily that we were right, but why we were right and reviewing some of the processes that got us there.
Austin Hooper (TE)
I’ve been a Hooper fan for a couple of years now. He’s improved every season and 2018 proved to me that he’d broken out. Austin Hooper’s appeal during the draft season was where he was being drafted. Hooper had around 10 ADP which made him the 11th TE taken on average. This was crazy to me considering he finished the 2018 season as the TE6 securing 71 receptions on 81 targets for 660 yards and four touchdowns. Well, he sure didn’t disappoint, Hooper once again finished as the TE6. He caught 75 of 97 targets 787 yards and six touchdowns while starting just 10 games due to a knee injury.
I’m not sure why he didn’t receive the respect based on his 2018 performance, but it’s possible the community thought there were too many mouths to feed in Atlanta. The Falcons have been top five in passing attempts three of the last four years, so I had very little concern about volume. Hooper was the TE1 until he got hurt, even then he held the top spot for a few weeks after. This is the “hit” I’m most proud of in 2019.
John Brown (WR)
John Brown caught a bad rap mainly due to his injury history. From 2014-2017 Brown played less than seven games in three of those four years. He suffered a concussion early on but was then diagnosed with the sickle-cell trait that plagued him for a few years. He found a way to successfully manage his sickness but Brown claims the larger issues were related to a cyst on his spine that was finally drained in 2016, curing him of most of his ailments. Either way, the time he missed and lack of availability put a bad taste in the mouths of fantasy owners.
I, however, saw an opportunity because he had just started 15 of 16 games in 2018 with Baltimore and was an effective weapon. If fantasy owners were fading him, I was swooping in. He finished 2018 with 42 receptions for 715 yards and five touchdowns. He also hit a career-high 17 yards per reception in his first fully healthy year. I also knew that Josh Allen has a monster arm and Brown is the best deep threat he’d have. It seemed like a favorable situation.
He finished as the WR20 this year and was one of the most consistent fantasy players. Brown had just two games under 10 fantasy points in PPR leagues. The moral of the story is some players can be injury-prone but do your research as to why they missed time and if they’ve found a way to manage it for future success.
Chris Carson (RB)
There was a ton of offseason debate last year about the Seattle running back situation. Would Chris Carson maintain the lead back role or would former first-round pick Rashaad Penny make the second-year jump?
I thought it was fairly clear Carson proved himself the more talented back even though he has turnover troubles. He’s fumbled the ball 10 times in the last two seasons. That said, he rushed 247 times for 1,151 yards and nine touchdowns in 2018. Two statistics stuck out to me in particular in 2018, his catch rate (83.3%) and yards per attempt (4.7). He only received 24 targets but proved he could be utilized in the passing game. Carson was also extremely successful on the ground.
If you’ve ever watched him play, he runs with zero regards for his own body. He gives each attempt his all and head coach Pete Carroll loves passionate football players. I truly believe that played a role. I also considered Seattle’s rushing attempts in 2018. They led the league in attempts with 534, so I knew he would receive a heavy workload regardless of Penny improving or not. There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with Penny. He averages 5.3 yards per carry, but he never looked nearly as good as Carson.
Carson ended up finishing the season as the RB12 with 278 carries for 1,230 and seven touchdowns. He suffered a serious hip injury late in the season but reports indicate he will be back next season. I think the fantasy community tends to hype up young players at times and overshadow talented veterans. Caron’s 2018 numbers, the volume he was destined to receive, and the lack of Penny’s development early on should have been all the signs we needed to see he would be THE guy in Seattle.
The Misses
We can’t always get it right and we shouldn’t be ashamed to admit it. This year I was very wrong about most of the running backs this year, some for different reasons. The good news is: you stand to gain a lot from evaluating your failures. Here we go.
Joe Mixon (RB)
I wrote an article last July suggesting Mixon could be a top-five fantasy running back in 2019. Well, I was wrong but there were certain factors I certainly couldn’t have predicted, like A.J. Green missing the entire year or half their offensive line crumbling to pieces. Still, Mixon succeeded behind an abysmal offensive line. He finished the year with 278 carries for 1,137 yards rushing, 35 receptions for 278 receiving, and eight total touchdowns. You would understand how impressive that is if you watched the Bengals play a single game this season. He even persevered through multiple quarterback changes. The team leaned on Mixon in tough times, including 30 carries in rookie Ryan Finley’s first career start.
I missed on Joe Mixon because I didn’t consider how poor the Bengals offensive line was. I thought the insertion of veteran talent and youth would improve the run protection but underperformance and injuries plagued Cincinnati all year. Another grave mistake was believing A.J. Green would miraculously have a healthy season–something I don’t generally do as a risk-averse competitor. Mixon ended a rough year as the RB13, not bad. I still believe Mixon has the talent and opportunity to be a top-five back but the players surrounding him will need to significantly improve for that to happen. This was an encouraging season as much of a miss as it was for me.
Derrick Henry (RB)
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong about Derrick Henry. I know I’m not the only one. If you asked me during the draft season last year, I would tell you his 2018 season was an outlier. I’d tell you he couldn’t sustain the kind of success he was having with that kind of running style, being that big and sluggish, in that situation with Marcus Mariotta at quarterback. I expected Ryan Tannehill to take over at some point but I surely didn’t anticipate it to benefit Henry as much as it did. I also held onto the idea Dion Lewis would receive more work in both the running and passing game, but he actually received far less in 2019. In return, Henry received 85 more rushing attempts this year. He was also much more productive in the passing game with two receiving touchdowns on the year.
He finished the season as the RB5, rushing for 1,540 yards and a league-high 16 touchdowns. I was never a big Henry guy and didn’t want to believe what I was seeing at the end of the 2018 season. I’m not ashamed to admit I let personal bias get in the way of great fantasy value. Let that be a lesson to all of us.
Aaron Jones (RB)
Injuries don’t tend to scare me away often, but Aaron Jones’s history of knee injuries gave many the confidence to avoid him. He has had a grade two MCL sprain each of his first two years in the league and never started more than eight games. Injuries aren’t predictive, but that’s a small pattern I wasn’t comfortable with. He was a value in drafts which makes it even worse. You could easily get him in the third or fourth round and in some cases even later.
I figured Green Bay would limit his workload in an effort to keep him healthy for full 16 but they instead fed him all year long as if he’d never been injured. He received over 100 more carries and 33 more targets this year than the last. Jones matched Derrick Henry with 16 rushing touchdowns and added three receiving scores as well. Many viewed Jamaal Williams as a serious threat to his fantasy production, as did I, but that simply wasn’t the case. I think we all thought the Packers passing game would improve, but again Aaron Rogers had few weapons at wide receiver. This provided Jones with an even greater opportunity to be used all over the field. Aaron Jones finished as the RB2 on year and comes in as my biggest whiff for the 2019 season.
Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts or would like to discuss, you can find me on Twitter @WillieBeamanDFF
