Trouble for Kurt?
Kurt Warner is being looked at as one of the best free agent pickups of the season, but there were some signs for concern last week in St. Louis. Warner didn't play very well. The Cardinals won, but it was mostly because Gus Frerotte kept throwing the wrong team.
The Rams had the blueprint for beating Warner: knock him silly early and hope he starts to panic. They threw a lot of blitzes at Arizona, and were mostly successful. In 28 dropbacks, I saw Warner hit seven times, most of them early. I charted 11 "bad passes" which is a very high number for that many attempts. Warner also had a fumble and was generally inconsistent against a poor defense.
Keep in mind this was only one game. Warner has looked highly impressive overall for the Cardinals this season and perhaps they will protect him better this year. My gut instinct, though, is that Warner may start out well as a starter, but start to fade like he did in St. Louis, New York, and Arizona. I'm not waiting to use him in the 100K Challenge.
Comments
Interesting perspective and certainly distinguishes you from the the ton of fantasy sites urging players to grab Warner while he's available. Warner went immediately in my three leagues but I got burned by him last year so stayed away but it was based on gut and not numbers so its nice to see an argument against the guy that makes sense. Now lets watch as he puts up 300 yards and three scores this weekend...
Posted by: Tfram | October 12, 2007 11:44 AM
One other thing Greg, you've got Favre at #5 which in my eyes is a strong play. Barnwell has a column saying he should sit given Washington's spookily strong pass "D".
Any comment? Thoughts?
Posted by: Tfram | October 12, 2007 11:47 AM
I think I may have Favre a bit high, but there arent many great options to move ahead of him. Bill and I disagree this week, which is fine.
Posted by: Gregg | October 12, 2007 01:37 PM
I'm going with Favre in 100KFC this week too. Despite the D matchup, Favre is hot and it's rare that his 3 WRs are all healthy at once, plus he's at home. And as Gregg said, there are less options than usual due to byes and injuries to QBs and their WRs. I'd rather play Warner when Boldin was back.
Posted by: Tony C | October 12, 2007 02:36 PM
warner and derek anderson this week for me - must crack the top 5k, i've been sitting between 5100-6100 for 3 weeks now.
carolina's secondary has been playing like, well, to quote the immortal Buford Tannen, duded-up, egg-sucking gutter trash.
and as gregg pointed out, warner's success comes in short stints.
not sure about favre this week. washington's secondary has been nice thus far, but it's hard to believe that a unit that was so piss-poor last season can be so drastically improved with basically the same personnel.
they shut down the pseudo Greatest Show on Turf (on grass) though, and i think they'll limit Favre somewhat.
Posted by: The Dox | October 12, 2007 08:21 PM