Fantasy: Say No to Peterson in 2011

Adrian Peterson is a great NFL running back. He’s strong, fast, and relatively reliable. He’s consistently among the top fantasy scorers and was a top 5 PPR option at the running back position in 2010. So, why do my early 2011 projections show him just outside the top 10 scorers at runningback in PPR formats? Allow me to explain.

As you can see from the rushing chart below, my projected % of carries, yards-per-carry, and touchdown/carry marks are relatively consistent from Peterson’s production between 2008 and 2010. In fact, looking at his 16-game average over the last 3 seasons, my projections show a YPC drop of just 0.1 and a TD% drop of 0.4%. The result is a conservative 299 carries, 1,344 yards, and 12 touchdowns.

Note that Peterson’s 2009 production significantly inflates his overall stats from the last 3 years. Why is this important? In 2009, the Vikings offense was, to be frank, ridiculously effective. Brett Favre had a career-best season and it allowed Peterson to rack up 21 touchdowns on the ground. On the other hand, the Vikings quarterback situation was shaky in both 2008 and 2010, which led to a less effective offense and fewer scoring opportunities for Peterson. This shows up in the scoring department, as he racked up just 12 in both 2008 and 2010.

Thinking ahead, the Vikings quarterback situation is not expected to be very good in 2011. Joe Webb could be the starter and, even if he isn’t, the best case scenario is likely to be a player like Donovan McNabb, who struggled with the Washington Redskins in 2010. That all being said, it will be a surprise if the Vikings end up as one of the higher scoring teams in the league in 2011. That is not good news for Peterson’s TD rate, a rate I have projected as 0.9% higher than in 2008 and 0.2% lower than in 2010.

Peterson’s drop from 10% of the targets in 2010 to the 9% I’m projecting in 2009 may not seem significant, but it is when you consider that his main contenders for fantasy relevance at the running back position are averaging near 15-18% of their team’s targets. Not only does that cost Peterson the valuable 1 point for each reception, it also costs him the 0.8-0.9 points per reception he’d accrue from yardage and the potential points if he broke one of the receptions for a score.

So, why only 9%? Between weeks 1-11 last season, Peterson averaged 4.2 targets/game. Between weeks 12-17, he averaged 1 target/game. The reason was the emergence of rookie Toby Gerhart, who took over a chunk of the 3^rd down snaps. The Vikings selected Gerhart in the 2^nd round of last year’s draft, which means that he isn’t just going to sit on the bench. I have the 2^nd year back out of Stanford down for 8% of the targets, which is a rather large chunk out of Peterson’s workload. The 9% for Peterson still represents 2.4 targets/game, which might seem generous compared to the 1/game he averaged late in the season, but he should still be on the field enough to see near 2/game.

Digging deeper, we can take a look at yards-per-reception, touchdowns-per-reception, and catch rate. Peterson’s 3 year YPR average is 9.1, which mostly explains his 9.0 2011 projection. He’s scored just 1 receiving touchdown over the last 3 years, so a 2% projection in the TD/Rec department is fair..and maybe a bit generous. His catch rate was 78% 2 years ago and 77% in 2010, but my projection shows 75%, which accounts for a less-than-impressive quarterback situation. The end result is 39 targets, 29 receptions, 264 yards and 1 touchdown. This works out to 6 targets, 4 receptions, and 35 yards less than his 3-year, 16-game average and shows a 0.3 increase in touchdown potential. This is clearly not very significant, as it works out to near 5 fantasy points.

Now that we have rushing and receiving data, we can tally up fantasy points. As you can see from the chart, Peterson’s projected 2011 point total would result in his worst fantasy season of the last 3 years. Still, it’s only 15 fewer points than in 2010 and 18 fewer than in 2008. Peterson’s 276 PPR points in 2010 ranked him as the 5^th highest scoring running back and 261 points would’ve ranked him 10^th. This shows just how close the running back points are after the dropoff from the elite. In fact, looking at my current 2011 projections, 261 points ranks Peterson 13^th, but a bump up to 276 would rank him 7^th.

So, what’s the point of all this if the points are so tight? It’s not as much that Peterson isn’t a RB1 in PPR leagues as much as it’s that Peterson is not going to live up to his average draft position. His current ADP is 2 in the first 24 draftmaster leagues. This means that he, on average, is being drafted 2^nd overall. In fact, he’s been picked first overall in 9 of the 24 drafts and has not fallen past 5^th overall. My current projections show Peterson 76 points behind Chris Johnson, who sits #1 at running back. You can argue that the mid-level running backs are tight and margin of error means he’s just as valuable as the guys ranked 7-9^th and you’d be right. 76 points, however, is too significant to ignore. He’s also 63 points behind Arian Foster, 48 behind Ray Rice, 46 behind Frank Gore, 38 behind Jamaal Charles, and 32 behind Maurice Jones-Drew. That works out to between 2-4.5 fantasy points-per-game.

My projections show raw, conservative projections for 16 games of play for each player and work well as probabilities. Still, factors such as injury risk, consistency, and upside need to be considered when creating your actual player rankings. Considering Peterson’s talent, consistency, and relatively clean injury resume, no one could blame you for moving him into the top 10 at running back and even near the top 5. Still, the point of the article stands: even if he’s your #6 rated runningback, ADP says it will be a miracle if he gets past the top 5. The numbers don’t lie. Let someone else reach on Peterson in 2011.