Overrated Fantasy Football Players: "The Troy Aikman Theory"

Raise your hand if you played pro fantasy football back in the 1990's. Keep it raised if you were one of the suckers who selected the Cowboys' Troy Aikman as your starting QB in one of those years. Aha! I thought so. I began playing pro fantasy football in 1991 - the beginning of Dallas's Super Bowl run. Back then, there was no internet. Owners relied on TV, magazines and newspapers (remember them?) for football information. Dallas was winning Super Bowls, so Troy Aikman must be a great fantasy QB option, right? Wrong. He was a Hall of Fame QB in the NFL, but nothing more than a reserve on the world of fantasy football. But nonetheless, in each and every draft, Aikman was overvalued because of all those highlight touchdown passes to Michael Irvin, Jay Novacek and Alvin Harper. It was during that timeframe that my "Troy Aikman Theory" of drafting was born. The Troy Aikman Theory is simple: number of magazine cover appearances doesn't equal fantasy stardom. Sound too obvious? Well, you'd be surprised how many owners fall into this trap. The real sharks know fantasy football is all about numbers. Did you know that Troy Aikman only threw more than 19 TD's once in his career (23 in 1992)? The unheralded Saints/Falcons QB Bobby Hebert put up similar numbers during those years. Yet Aikman would get drafted by the suckers in the early rounds, while Hebert could be had the final rounds (if he was drafted at all). A prime college football example from recent years was Michigan's Chad Henne. Henne was a good college QB from a high-profile program. He played in a bunch of big games on the national stage, and had several memorable performances. Chad's likeness donned the preseason mags for a couple years, and every Tom, Dick and Harry knew who he was. When your draft rolled around, some I-get-my-information-from-ESPN owner inevitably called out Henne's name in an early round while the savvy fantasy sharks sat back in their Laz-E-Boy and snickered. Why? Because Henne's projected stats simply didn't justify his early round selection. Click on the link below to see the list of players we deem to be overrated from a fantasy standpoint in 2008...