Fantasy Football: Top 5 Most Valuable Players and the Best Sleeper in 2012

In 2011, Player “A” finished with the 10th-most points in all of fantasy football, posting an average of 16.3 points by ESPN scoring standards. He’s seen his yards per attempt and touchdowns rise steadily in the last three years since his rookie season.

He’s playing with two potential top-five fantasy wideouts. One of them has never finished outside the top-seven in receiver scoring in the years “A” has been throwing him the ball.

The other is the most explosive young wideout in the league; averaging more yards-per-catch than Mike Wallace, DeSean Jackson, AJ Green, Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald.

“A”’s team has a new play-caller who’s known for using the no-huddle and taking chances down-field. His division rivals ranked 21^st, 24^th and 30^th in passing yards allowed in ’11.

During the fantasy playoffs last season, “A” averaged 22 points per and helped countless owners to titles.

Incredibly, despite nothing changing from last season, ESPN’s Live Draft results have “A” being the 72^nd player picked in drafts…just behind the San Francisco 49ers D/ST.

My point is that I will not be ranking my top five fantasy players of 2012 based on total points scored, but rather based on the merits of Value Based Drafting.

I confess that “A”, despite everything above, actually finished eighth at his position, and finished just 14 points ahead of his “replacement level” player.

And despite the paragraph above, Matt Ryan is my “sleeper” pick for 2012.

Tom Brady

Be fully prepared for a season of vintage Brady “Eff-You Touchdowns.”  There’s so much to love for fantasy purposes here: Josh McDaniels, two more deep threats (there have been two instances where Tom Brady averaged more than eight yards per attempt: last season (a 5,000 yard season, 39 scores, and his historic 2007 season).

They also just lost in the Super Bowl, and I’m not sure Belichick is ready to relinquish the “Us Against the World” crown to the Saints.

Nobody is convincing me that Belichick hired Josh “Mike D’Antoni” McDaniels so he can run out the clock when they’re up 42-14. Nobody should be surprised when Brady’s cussing out their 19th-string receiver for breaking too early on a route when he’s already passed for five touchdowns.

Ray Rice, RB

“And your newww, VBD World Heavyweight Champion…Rayyy Rice!!!” He won last season by winning a Triple Threat Cage Match, hitting Aaron Rodgers over the head with a steel chair while nobody was looking (forcing him out for the last week) and sending Ricky Williams to take a sledgehammer to Arian Foster’s hamstrings. 

You know you’re getting 1,300 rush yards, 70-80 catches that go for 600-700 yards. Take away all his rushing touchdowns, and he still outscores Michael Turner, Marshawn Lynch, Ryan Mathews and finishes as the fifth back.   

Michael “5 Points Less Than Mark Sanchez In ‘11” Vick

A healthy Vick can single-handedly win your fantasy week. Save for his rookie season and 2003, Vick has played in 12 or more games a season, and ’03 was a broken leg—an injury that isn’t typically recurring…unless Jerry Jones got desperate enough to hire the Dog Whisperer to replace Rob Ryan.

The most accurate tools in statistical analysis of sports have always favored regression towards the mean. This applies to games played, his low rushing touchdown total (one) and his abnormally high turnovers (24).

Aaron Rodgers

He’s a quarterback with a laser accurate, powerful arm in an offense tailor-made for the modern game. He runs for four or five scores a season. He was second in VBD, and would have been No.1 if your league gave points for “Most Epic Pornstache.”

You can’t win your league in the first round, but you can lose it. Picking Rodgers is one of the only ways you might buck the former trend.

Darren McFadden

Like Vick, McFadden is a game-breaker when healthy. Like Vick, I expect a regression towards the mean of games missed.

In his past two seasons, McFadden’s averaged 5.3 yards-per-carry, 121.6 yards-from-scrimmage and 3.3 receptions each game. Prorate his 2011 season to 16 games, and he outscores Rice. 13 percent of his offensive touches go for more than 10 yards, by far the highest among backs.

Simply put, this is the most explosive open-space playmaker in the NFL. History says he will only play 13 games this season; that would be a top-five scoring back. If we’re lucky and he doesn’t get hurt, we’re looking at the top back and VBD’s new champ.