If you're in a fantasy football league this fall, and you have the first overall pick in your draft, then you have an interesting decision ahead of you. Do you take Michael Turner or Adrian Peterson? The majority of experts seem to lean towards Peterson. I, on the other hand, am leaning toward Turner (though I doubt that I'll be lucky enough to have a shot at either in my fantasy drafts this year); so too, it seems, is Matthew Berry—a.k.a. "The Talented Mr. Roto".Although not as bad, relatively speaking, as he was two years ago, Peterson again wasn't great down the stretch in 2008, posting a couple of so-so games when you needed your stud the most. Taking out Week 17, when many fantasy leagues don't play, AD scored 11 fantasy points or fewer in three of his final seven games. Turner had just one such performance. Peterson had two games with single-digit fantasy points in that seven-game stretch. Turner had none.
Give me the guy who plays alongside a great quarterback (Matt Ryan), an elite wide receiver (Roddy White) and, as of this offseason, a premier tight end (Tony Gonzalez) to open up the passing game even more, over the guy who still has a bad quarterback (no Brett Favre as of this writing), still has Chester Taylor vulturing touchdowns (five touchdowns from Weeks 9 through 16) and, despite staying healthy last year, still should be considered an injury risk.
I wholly agree, especially with the point Berry makes about Atlanta's passing offense vs. Minnesota's. The difference was significant last year (ATL: 208.5 passing yards per game; MINN: 184.8 passing yards per game). And in this offseason, the Falcons have made moves to further improve their aerial attack, while the Vikes' biggest improvement may be Favre—who really isn't much of an improvement, anyways.
Berry's full ESPN.com article can be found here.
3 comments:
The only wild card in this discussion is Jerious Norwood, who could do to Turner what Turner did to LaDainian. Not guaranteeing it or anything, but it's a factor Berry apparently didn't consider.
Well, look at this way: who's more likely to sap away carries and touchdowns--Norwood from Turner, or Taylor from Peterson? I'd say Turner still has the advantage.
Well, JN had 95 carries for a 5.1 average and 4 TDs last year, and 36 catches for another 2. CT had 101 carries for a 4.0 average and 4 TDs, and 45 catches for another 2. Basically identical numbers. Situationally, they got about the same amount of carries in goal-to-go downs. So I really don't see the basis for assuming that CT is a significantly bigger threat to All Day's numbers than Jerious is to Burner's, based on last year.
The passing game argument is legit, as is the fact that AD seems to get dinged up more than Turner. But in terms of actual production, CT and JN are identical.
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