Stephen Hill: Why You Should Be Cautious About Rookie Jets Wideout

A rookie player bursts onto the scene in Week 1 of the NFL season, and it's easy for fantasy football fans to become enamored and immediately click the "claim" button on their computers.

Stephen Hill, after all, had a tremendous game on Sunday against the suddenly-revamped (at least defensively) Buffalo Bills. Hill, a rookie from Georgia Tech, had an impressive three-year stint with the Yellow Jackets. For his college career, he had 49 catches for 1,248 yards and nine touchdowns.

But I don't believe he'll be able to sustain that success throughout the course of the season, so be careful when deciding on pulling the trigger on this 21-year-old up-and-comer.

On Sunday, Hill snared five catches for 82 yards and two touchdowns, helping lead the surprisingly-invigorated Jets offense to an impressive 48 points.

The biggest reason to be cautious when looking at Hill as a potential addition to your team, though, is the man behind center.

I'll grant you Mark Sanchez looked terrific in Week 1. The fourth-year starter completed 70.4 percent of his passes for 266 yards and four touchdowns. His quarterback rating of 123.4 looks good on paper, but taking a look at his numbers last year shows he is not one to sustain that throughout the season (Sanchez had only two games with a quarterback rating over 100 last year).

Additionally, Sanchez only completed 56.7 percent of his passes last year, which is certainly not a number you want from the quarterback of a team looking to make the Super Bowl every year (Sanchez, by the way, has weapons around him, and a pretty good offensive line blocking up front).

While the rookie did catch two touchdown passes in the game, he only hauled in five balls total. And the Jets do have other weapons in Santonio Holmes and Dustin Keller.

Ultimately, Sanchez is not a quarterback known for putting up big offensive statistics—specifically with one targeted receiver. It's important to note as well that the Jets offense is being run by Tony Sparano, a man known to have a strong predilection for the run game.

Hill may have looked like a fantasy stud in his Week 1 performance against the Bills, but I don't see him putting up similarly impressive numbers all season.