Welcome to the 2015 NFL Training Camp Report!! Loyal readers of Fantasy Alarm know that every summer I like to keep a finger on the pulse of NFL training camps and offer up my analysis to help you prepare for and dominate the upcoming fantasy football season.
Remember that the Fantasy Alarm news department is always on top of every breaking and developing story will be aiding the cause of keeping our readers informed.
Here is the Training Camp Reports for Wednesday August 5th:
Foster, Australian For Injured
Well hopefully you haven’t drafted yet this year or if you did hopefully you avoided the injury prone Arian Foster. Foster went down with a partially torn groin during Tuesday’s practice and is expected to be placed on the injured reserve/designated to return list.
This obviously creates a huge hole in the Texans backfield and also hurts those had already taken Foster in their fantasy league drafts too. The IR/DTR list means that Foster would have to miss at least the first eight weeks of the regular season. The Texans just so happen to be off in week nine and thus, Foster wouldn’t be eligible to return until week 10 at the earliest. At this point, you simply should not draft Arian Foster in any league format.
So who will replace Foster in the Texans backfield? Well, last season when Foster was hobbled with hamstring injuries we saw Alfred Blue step up and rush for 65-280 yards which breaks down to a little over 4.3 yards per carry. This includes his 36-156 outburst against the Browns in week 10. Blue is a more straight line runner than Foster is but he can lower the shoulder and pick up yards after contact quite well. Blue will likely get the first crack at the RB1 spot but my guess is that a personnel move is coming in the very near future for the Texans.
The rumor is that the Texans have both Pierre Thomas and Joe McKnight coming in for a workout this morning and could be signing one or both of them by this afternoon. While I like Pierre Thomas in the Saints up tempo, aggressive offense I feel like he simply won’t find much room to run behind the Texans offensive line.
If you are drafting this coming weekend I would handle this situation as follows. I’d avoid Arian Foster altogether and then draft Alfred Blue after the likes of Rashad Jennings, LeGarrette Blount and Jonathan Stewart.
Out For The Year
It affects nobody in fantasy football whatsoever but it should be brought up that Panthers WR Stephen Hill is officially out for the season with a torn ACL. The Panthers waived the tall wideout soon after the diagnosis.
This leaves Jerricho Cotchery, Devin Funchess and newly signed Jarrett Boykin as potential fantasy contributors for this Carolina passing game.
A Follow Up On Jimmy Graham
We discussed Jimmy Graham’s statements the other day stating that his responsibilities in the Seahawks offense will be to block 75% of the time. This statement should be profound coming directly from the players own mouth but I am sure still that some of you are still buying in on Jimmy Graham.
Let’s look at some numbers shall we?
Jimmy Graham’s numbers over the past four seasons in New Orleans were amazing.
2010: 43 targets, 31 receptions, 356 yards & 5 TD’s
2011: 149 targets, 99 receptions, 1,310 yards & 11 TD’s
2012: 135 targets, 85 receptions, 982 yards & 9 TD’s
2013: 144 targets, 86 receptions, 12,15 & 16 TD’s
Meanwhile the Seahawks entire TE production doesn’t come remotely close to touching that of Graham. The following is the entire TE production logs for all Seahawks TE’s.
2012: 87 targets, 57 receptions, 693 yards & 6 TD’s
2013: 88 targets, 56 receptions, 691 yards & 7 TD’s
2014: 84 targets, 48 receptions, 757 yards & 6 TD’s
Thus an average season for a Seahawks TE over the past three seasons comes out to 86 targets, 54 receptions, 714 yards & 6 TD’s.
An average season for Jimmy Graham averages out to 132 targets, 86 receptions, 1,056 yards & 11 TD’s.
Thus, if you were to give Jimmy Graham 100% of the Seahawks TE production he would still fall way short of the type of season we are accustomed to seeing from him. This move to the Seahawks represents a 35% drop in targets, 37% drop in receptions, 33% drop in yards and a 45% drop in TD receptions.
This is a real steep decline and the fact that it is very likely that Graham’s production goes even further south in 2015.