I probably have my work cut out talking you out of reaching on the rookies after the huge season Odell Beckham Jr. had last year. This is one strategy that has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Rookies have been making more impact in recent years than they did a decade ago. Still, this is a very volatile group that tends to be over-drafted year after year in fantasy football.

What do Jadeveon Clowney, Blake Bortles, Eric Ebron and Johnny Manziel have in common? They were all drafted in the first round last year and failed to make much of an impact whatsoever. Granted, Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr. and Kelvin Benjamin all were able to have very productive rookie fantasy seasons. There were 15 skill position players taken in the second round last year. Of those 15, only three (Jordan Matthews, Jeremy Hill and Jarvis Landry) made any kind of fantasy impact. But last year was far from the norm.

How about a history lesson? In 2013, Tavon Austin, E.J. Manuel, Tyler Eifert, DeAndre Hopkins and Cordarrelle Patterson were all drafted in the first round and failed to make any fantasy impact at all. We could go even further and look at Justin Hunter, Zach Ertz, Geno Smith, Robert Woods, Gavin Escobar, Vance McDonald, Montee Ball and Christine Michael who were all taken in the second round and made little to no impact as well. In fact, of the first 16 offensive skill position players taken in 2013, only three (Le’Veon Bell, Aaron Dobson and Eddie Lacy) made any fantasy impact in their rookie season.

If we pull back the curtain further, you will begin to see the trend of much hyped rookies failing time and time again. How do the names Trent Richardson, Justin Blackmon, Michael Floyd, Brandon Weeden and A.J. Jenkins make you feel? They were all first round picks in 2012. In fact, there have been so many rookie busts over the past decade that it should swear you off of rookies forever.

I am not saying that you should never draft another rookie. Rather, you need to keep your expectations in check and realize that just because a player is highly skilled and touted it doesn’t mean squat in terms of future fantasy production.

The point isn’t that rookies can’t make an impact. It is that just because they were taken with an early round selection doesn’t mean they are going to waltz right into camp and be a starter in Week 1. There is more to football than the ability to throw, run and catch. A running back who can’t pass block cannot be on the field during passing downs. A quarterback who doesn’t develop proper mechanics or learn how to throw the ball away won’t have success in the league. Wide receivers who have trouble learning the playbook and don’t develop a rapport with their quarterback also don’t make an impact on the football field.

So how do we know which rookies to trust and which to be hesitant about? Let me make it easy on you here. Don’t trust ANY rookie in the NFL ever. I don’t care where they were drafted, how highly they are talked up in the summer or how large of a guaranteed contract they received. They aren’t worth a damn until they make it through a full NFL training camp. Sure you may miss out on the next Odell Beckham Jr. (which is probably ten years away), but you will also be saved from the likes of Eric Ebron, Tavon Austin, A.J. Jenkins, Jahvid Best and Darrius Heyward-Bey.

The media will tell you all about a player’s 40-yard dash time, how many yards he passed for in college and what he scored on the Wonderlic test. However, no one ever talks about how well a player graded out in pass protection or what grade he received in his English Literature class in school. As I say all the time, these are all amazing athletes. Athletic ability doesn’t decide whether or not a player will succeed, but rather it is all of the intangibles that never get noticed until training camp. Be skeptical of these rookies until you see how they evolve through at least these eight weeks of summer.