2007 Fantasy Football Recap

As we put out our 2007 fantasy football recap it was interesting to see who the small names who put up big numbers were.  It was more up to Derek Anderson, Wes Welker, and Adrian Peterson to carry your team to the playoffs than if you had Philip Rivers, Steve Smith, or Shaun Alexander.  This is what made 2007 such an interesting year for fantasy football pundits.  Normally it's all about the running backs, but this year if you had a good combo of pass-heavy quarterback and a solid wide receiver then you were liable to put up some big numbers.  Will 2008 be a repeat of this year, and if so is it time to shift our focus away from ball carriers and to the tandems of quarterbacks and receivers?  Well, we may address that in another article, but for now let's look at this year's winners and losers. 

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Winner - Earnest Graham - Who is this guy?  The Buccaneers probably wouldn't have thought they stood a chance at making the postseason if this guy was getting the bulk of the carries and both Cadillac Williams and Michael Pittman would be sidelined due to injury.  Here they are though and even with all of Tampa's success, a lot of people outside Florida still don't know who this guy is.  He had 898 yards on 4.0 ypc, with 10 rushing touchdowns.  Those numbers put him up there with some of the best seasons in Buc history, even though the team doesn't have all that storied of a past.  Graham was an undrafted free agent who only had 52 career carries coming into the season.  He was a fantasy workhorse though and in his seven starts he either had 100 yards, a TD, averaged 4.0 ypc, or caught more than six passes.  Jeff Garcia even believes that he's the best offensive weapon they have.

Loser - Larry Johnson - Not much we can tell you that you don't already know here.  Was a stud in 2006, but missed a lot of training camp and then was hurt most of the season.  If you had LJ then you probably didn't see the end of the season.

Best Week - Kevin Curtis - Curtis wasn't that great of a receiver this year with his 70 catches, 1,048 yards, and six touchdowns, but he would have been even weaker if not for the Eagles big win over the Lions in Week 3 of the season.  That was when Curtis caught 11 passes for 221 yards and three scores, pretty much a monster game by anyone's standards but for Curtis, this was just dream first half.  Of course if you went out after this week and rushed to grab him, he only disappointed you the rest of the way, but if for some reason you loaded him up against Detroit, chalk up the win there.

Old Guys Still Getting It Done - Morten Andersen & Vinny Testaverde - The Falcons kicked may be 47 and he may have entered the league way back in 1986, but he was still productive this season with a perfect 19-19 mark for extra points and 22-for-25 on field goals.  Testaverde wasn't going to be out done even though he's only 44.  He was the oldest starting quarterback to win a game, he led the Panthers to the longest opening drive for a touchdown in their franchise's history, and made it 21 straight seasons with a passing touchdown.  Now, please both of you, just retire.