FANTASY FOOTBALL ARTICLES

Each season the cheatsheet and rankings are prepared and the greatest single indicator of a player's success is always what they accomplished the previous season. Freshest on the mind, easiest to remember and hey - it's only nine months since they've been playing. But how often do players actually repeat great fantasy performances? How much stock can we put in the previous season? If there are players who demonstrate "repeatability", who are they and how reliable are they?

All player listings to follow were created using the standard performance scoring as seen on The Huddle statistics. Points were determined awarding 1/20 per pass yard, 3 point passing TD's and 6 Point rushing TD's with 1/10 rushing yardage. While other scoring scenarios will have different rankings to some degree, the repeatability of the players remains intact.

The Top 6 each year always has two returnees though last year was an uncharacteristic three. If you take Manning and Culpepper out of the equation, there is almost no chance that a quarterback will return to a top 6 performance the following year. Plummer is almost a given for a drop as is Green since both have much harder schedules this year. Favre - always solid but the Packers do not appear to be any better than last year and likely not as good. That leaves McNabb as the most likely candidate to remain a top 6 guy so long as Owens returns. If Terrell continues his madness, then we should see the return to the standard two returnees who always have the same name - Manning and Culpepper.

Every season, there is one and possibly two players in the 7 to 12 range that rise up into the top 6. Conventional wisdom likes Bulger though with Vick any thing is possible.

Looking backwards, it is evident that outside of Culpepper and Manning, those top QBs each season come from all over the previous rankings. Yet another reason to wait on a quarterback if you don't take the Manning or Culpepper plunge. Most notable are that those players in the 7-12 range are almost always one year wonders that sees half fall to back-up value if not become duds.

The table to the right shows the year end ranking for each of the listed players and is sorted in a manner to suggest the most reliable "repeaters" in fantasy drafts over the last five years. It's obvious that Manning and Culpepper are literally in a class of their own. McNabb bounces up and down a bit but always remains a worthwhile starter while Favre, Green and Brooks have all three been highly consistent without ever breaking into the top 3.

Top 12
Quarterback Repeatability
50% - 0%

Over the last five seasons, the chance that a quarterback was in the Top 12 the previous season and returned to the Top 12 the next year was 6 of 12 on average. Since you only start one quarterback in virtually every league, this is an important characteristic to remember when deciding when to take your starter. As the yearly results show - there is not a lot of difference between the 7th and 12th best player either. Other than Manning, Culpepper, McNabb and mid-tier Favre, Brooks and Green, there are no quarterbacks which demonstrate the sort of repeatability that can be relied on to make a difference.