Fantasy Football Future: The Tebow Edition

(This was written prior to tonight’s madness. I was going to throw this out tomorrow morning but I decided to run with it at the last minute. Kind of like Tebow.)

It doesn’t matter whether or not I think the Denver Broncos can consistently win by utilizing an option offense. Their success is not tied to my beliefs. I can, however, attempt to provide a little insight on how this new/old scheme will affect your fantasy football team.

First and foremost, Tebow is automatically a top ten quarterback. I don’t care how poor his accuracy is or how time-stoppingly slow his release is; when you’re a mobile quarterback in an offense that runs the ball way more often then not, you’re going to get plenty of chances to break off chunks of yardage. Luckily for the fantasy world, the majority of his throws (at least in the Kansas City game) were thrown down the field on some variation of a go route and Tebow’s greatest strength as a passer is arguably his deep ball. He’s in a position to get about 60-100 yards rushing, 100-200 yards passing and 1-3 touchdowns a game. In a standard league that’s about 24 points a game before turnovers. Granted, I didn’t allow for Tebow’s propensity to not do well passing and any eventual injuries but he still has a lot of time to improve and injuries are nearly random. Granted that some people LOVE this man and some people HATE him, I see him going somewhere between rounds 2 and 5 if he continues to produce at his current rate.

Secondly, any Denver wide receiver automatically loses most of his value. Now that Brandon Lloyd is gone, there are four WRs who play on a regular basis for the Broncos: Matt Willis, who is still trying to distinguish himself from Special Teams Matt Willis; Eric Decker, who has drawn infinite comparisons to Ed McCaffrey and has proven to be a very capable #2 receiver so far; Eddie Royal, who hasn’t come close to matching the magic of his rookie season (although he appears from time to time on a punt return), and Demaryius Thomas, who, although blessed with immense physical talent, has rarely been fully healthy during the course of his career. Willis can all be disregarded (this isn’t a knock on him so much as it is a knock on his playing time) and Royal has been wildly inconsistent. Decker seems like the surest bet, but don’t forget about Demaryius Thomas. He went to college at Georgia Tech, who have been fairly successful running the triple option. Thomas is 6’3” and fast, setting him up as a good bomb threat. If he ever gets healthy, he could be a force both on the field and on any virtual gridiron squad. Target Decker around round 6 or 7; Thomas you can get in the endgame.

Last and definitely not least, we have to focus on the Broncos running backs. Willis McGahee has proved that he has something in the tank, and while he doesn’t have the breakaway speed often associated with fantasy studs, he has excellent field vision and a lot of experience to fall back on. Lance Ball is more of the same, except with less cutbacks and more bowling through people, and Jeremiah Johnson hasn’t had nearly enough playing time to start forming an opinion. Of course the most polarizing figure is Knowshon Moreno, who has never lived up to expectations and has slipped further and further away from consistently seeing the field as his career has progressed. He’s a weapon in the passing game (most of the times I’ve seen him run well have been on screen passes. He always seems to have trouble running through the tackles.