A Football Life, Raging P****** Evaluation

Hey, it’s a South Park reference for crying out loud!

Eric Meyer, No. 2 pick overall

Biggest Catches (Best Value)

Jarrett Boykin, WR, GB (+37)

Mark Ingram, RB, NO (+26)

Jay Cutler, QB, CHI (+22)

Biggest Reaches (Worst Value)

Robert Griffin III, QB, WSH (-61)

Delanie Walker, TE, TEN (-53)

Jeremy Maclin, WR, PHI (-36)

Projected Starting Lineup

QB Jay Cutler, CHI (No. 13 QB)

RB Eddie Lacy, GB (No. 4 RB)

WR1 Dez Bryant, DAL (No. 4 WR)

WR2 Vincent Jackson, TB (No. 12 WR)

TE Delanie Walker (No. 16 TE)

FLEX Andre Ellington, RB, ARZ (No. 29 FLEX)

DEF St. Louis Rams (No. 6 DEF)

K Robbie Gould, CHI (No. 10 K)

Eric already knows that I had RGIII ranked pretty low compared to him and several websites. When I did my pre-draft rankings, I averaged several different websites and then made some minor adjustments to fit my feelings. Of course, not all adjustments were particularly minor.

I didn’t move RGIII as much as some might think, but he was one of the more significant drops on my rankings because of how poor this preseason has been for him. Interestingly enough, he was the first quarterback Eric took in the draft, but I had Cutler ranked ahead of RGIII by two positional spots and by 62 spots overall (yeah, I was anticipating a bigger gap in QB selections once the first 12 or so were off the board). Ultimately, because I anticipated a bigger gap than there was, that -61 draft value grade for Robert may not be quite fair, but he was still a big reach.

Eric knew right away that Jeremy Maclin was a reach; especially once he saw that Kendall Wright was still on the board. Lucky for him, Wright fell to his next selection and, more or less, balanced out with Maclin, so that ended up not being a huge deal.

But Delanie Walker was a surprise reach. With guys like Antonio Gates and Heath Miller still on the board, it seemed silly to me that he grabbed Walker in the 11th round. The issue here though is less with the positional reach and more with the overall reach. Walker was off the board nearly five rounds before my projection. Even if some other people didn’t quite agree with me, he would have lasted a minimum of two more rounds before someone would have taken him. That’s a lot of value to give up.

Eric’s team earned a value-based grade of -24 for his starting lineup, a +16 for his bench, and a -8 overall.

With those grades, Eric’s starting unit is ranked 5th in the AFL in overall team value and 6th in starter value.

A few waiver wire gems would be enough to vault this team into a battle for a playoff spot. As it is, depending on bye weeks and balanced week-to-week results, Eric’s starting lineup is about on par with the top ranked starting squad in the division.

Bonus

In order to include something without my biased rankings at its core, I’ve included the average bottom line of the evaluations by the four official evaluators at FootballGuys.com.

• With great in-season management, we think you have about a 76 percent chance of making the playoffs.
• With good in-season management, we think you have about a 63 percent chance of making the playoffs.
• With average in-season management, we think you have about a 46 percent chance of making the playoffs.

You can read the entire evaluation of this team at FootballGuys.com.