Fantasy Football: Valuing the Redskins

Taking a quick break from preseason analysis, and focusing on a potentially more lucrative source of free information: we're talking fantasy football and Washington Redskins this morning.Who are you taking with the first round pick? Which Redskins are worth having? Which Redskins' players do you need to avoid at all costs? I've got perhaps a few surprising answers.First a disclaimer: I'm really bad with fantasy football. You'd expect a stat guy to be well ahead of his competition in fantasy. Well, I think I've got drafting down. Problem is, I'm terrible at starting the right guys, and I'm even worse at making good trades and playing the waiver wire. I'm the last guy you'd go to for that sort of information. Therefore: this isn't going to be a weekly column. We're talking a one-time shot here.Players you want to draft1) Clinton Portis -- approx. value: 2nd round pick; Probably the only safe bet on the entire team for the touchdown production. You know going to get 7-9 total touchdowns from him this year, and that makes him a fringe No. 1 fantasy RB, or a pretty good No. 2. The problem, from a fantasy perspective, is that the big plays are completely gone. When Portis hits daylight, he's going for 20-25 yards and is being tackled.It's hard to overstate just how rare it is for a player to all but hit 1,500 yards when they don't break 30+ yard runs. Portis still comes though with 200 yard potential in the passing game, and his biggest plays this season are likely to come on screen passes. Fantasy players often undervalue passes to running backs, so if you are playing in a league that gives points for receptions, Portis becomes more valuable. I wouldn't advocate going with him in the middle of the first round no matter what the scoring system, and in a standard keeper league, he has very limited future value. But he'll score, catch, and if you want a stud quarterback in the first round like Drew Brees, Portis is just fine as a No. 1 RB in the second round.2) Santana Moss -- approx. value: 5th round pick; The more things change, the more they stay the same. Moss, after watching his fantasy value decline steadily for three straight years, is back in the realm of starting fantasy receivers. Specifically, he's got the makings of a number two, with 950-1,100 yard ability, and should get 5 or 6 touchdowns. Here's the thing: after participating in a number of fantasy drafts this year, I can tell you that if you play in a league where there are more than two receiver slots, get your ass on this position early and often. It seems completely counter-intuitive to ignore the running back position, but if you know what you are doing, you can use rounds 8-11 to snag running backs who are worth of starting. There will NOT be starting quality receivers after round 6. I don't know if Moss is necessarily viewed as more than a No. 3 fantasy receiver, but he's unchallenged in his role this year (keeper value is a different story), and he's virtually certain to hit the production I threw up there. He's a good fantasy option.3) Chris Cooley -- approx. value: 7th round pick; You want to be careful not to overdraft Cooley. He's not a high upside player this year, and as a safe pick, he's probably tied with Kellen Winslow for the 5th best tight end in fantasy, but guys like Dustin Keller, Brent Celek, Zach Miller, Jeremy Shockey and Kevin Boss are guys who could find great success in their offenses this year, and the expected value of these players is not much different than Cooley. However, once the top TE's are gone, he's got a good chance at 700 yards receiving and 6 or 7 TDs, which is good production from a fantasy tight end if you can pick up 6 or 7 players before you take a tight end.4) Jason Campbell -- approx. value: 8th round pick; Campbell is a nice sleeper pick this year, as in the fact that if you take him this high, everyone in the league will know you're a Skins fan. And the truth is that the back end starting fantasy quarterbacks (I'm talking about the 5 or so guys that start in your fantasy league who are not high picks every year like Manning and Brees) are so misvalued every year, that you can wait until this round to draft a quarterback, and probably get a guy like Hasselbeck or Roethlisberger who has even a stronger projection than Campbell this year. Campbell started to use his legs a lot more at the end of last year, and remember that rushing yards count as well. There will be a lot of fantasy leagues where Jason Campbell is week 4 waiver wire claim, and when I say that Campbell has 8th round value, I'm not telling you to draft him four rounds ahead of where anyone else in the league would. What I'm suggesting to you is that if you end up missing out on the 5 or 6 elite quarterbacks this year, and you want to spend the middle rounds building up depth on your fantasy team, you can wait and snag Jason Campbell and get a starter's type of production from him with 17-20 TDs and 3,500-3,800 passing yards with 400 or so rushing yards tacked on making all the difference.But, this strategy would be functional with a lot of different quarterbacks in the same fantasy tier as well.5) Ladell Betts -- approx. value: 11th round pick; Betts is a guy who will make his way back into the fantasy conversation after a year off last year. He's going to play. A lot. Probably 35%+ of offensive snaps. He's not LenDale White out there, and I don't foresee more than a couple of touchdowns for the guy, but 25 receptions for 150-175 yards and another 450-500 yards on the ground makes him a nice fringe number three fantasy option, and a solid number three in leagues that give points for receptions.You really can lay off this far after drafting your second running back, and with that said, you don't really even need to grab your second runner before rounds 6-9. If you play with deeper rosters (bench size >6) someone is going to grab Betts.6) Shaun Suisham or Dave Rayner -- approx. value: 15th round pick; I don't necessarily suggest waiting this long to grab your kicker because the top kickers this year are easy to predict (Gostkowski, Vinatieri, Tynes, Kris Brown), so you might as well get the competitive advantage by beating your opponents to the well known guys (9th round or 13th, whatever you think it will take). However, if there's a run at the position that kills all the lucrative options before you have a chance to act, wait until the last round in your draft, and then take a shot on whoever wins the Redskins kicking job. Worst case scenario, the offense improves minorly from last year, and they end up with twice as many make-able field goal attempts as last year. Best case scenario, the offense lights it up and he gets a ton of extra point attempts. It's a better option than Shayne Graham, Joe Nedney, Jason Hanson, Matt Bryant, Jay Feely, and all the other kickers who might go in this round.Redskins to completely avoid1) Redskins team Defense/Special Teams; this seems counter-intuitive to what you've been reading about the Redskins defense all off-season long, but they are exactly the kind of defense you avoid on draft day. Let's say that the sack production sky rockets this year, and the Redskins move into the top third of the league. That helps over last year's poor fantasy effort. But you have to be careful not to by the increased interception hype. If they do increase over last year's paltry INT total, it will be because Carlos Rogers intercepts 5 passes instead of three. That's 4 fantasy points worth of value from increased INTs. DeAngelo Hall may add Shawn Springs' picks to his total, and Tryon/Smoot might add one or so, but this is still a largely turnover-adverse scheme.Here's the big point. They won't score touchdowns. I'm expecting a vastly improved, maybe a top five defensive unit in Washington this year. Not just by stupid yards. Legitimately top five. And unless everyone in your league is keeping two defenses, the Washington defense isn't even worth a roster spot on your fantasy team this year. You can pick them up when they play the Rams/Lions/Bucs/Raiders of the world. They have little value beyond that.2) WR Antwaan Randle El; Avoid Randle El. He's going to lose his playing time in base sets to Kelly and Thomas, who badly need the experience. He's now a two touchdown type receiver instead of a four or five guy who has a niche as a backup fantasy receiver.3) WRs Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly; These guys are tied at the hip, and they're going to split time with each other which means neither is worth more than a waiver pickup at this point, no matter how optimistic you are on one or the other, or how much you just want to believe in them. Don't do it, I will hunt you down.Going DeepIf you play in one of those "dynasty leagues" that keeps a majority of the roster from year to year, I'd throw Malcolm Kelly back onto your draft board, albiet late. In leagues with huge rosters, Fred Davis could be a major steal as a red zone target, and don't forget about Mike Sellers as a big-time stat guy, notably touchdowns.