The major item that many of you are overlooking is the fluke factor. Larry Johnson is not one of the best backs in the league. Yet his fantasy image still holds him as an RB1 when truly all factors were alligned the year he took over for an ailing Priest Holmes. Tom Brady shot off as a near consensus number one QB, even though his consistancy is not that of a Manning or even Brees.
My point is that in any given fantasy football year, a perfect storm is created that propells a fantasy journeyman into fantasy gold. Deangello will not break as many long runs for 6 as he did last year. He may still end up as a low RB1, but he simply is not that good and will not score as large a percentage of Carolina's TDs.

Sorry for the length, but I'll just post what I wrote on another message board questioning why Williams is currently going toward the end of round 1.
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Why is DeAngelo Williams ranked so low? And I know he is sitting at #8 (in average RB draft position), so its not like he is outside the first round, but that is the type of pick that can win you a league in the back half of the first round. It reminds me alot of Priest Holmes being undervalued in 2002-2003, Tiki Barber perenially going lower, Brian Westbrook's value in drafts until recently.

Is it the presence of Johnathan Stewart?

The belief that his touchdown numbers will regress greatly?

What has changed about his situation significantly compared to last season?

The thing about his touchdowns is that they probably will regress. He's not going to get as many long td's. But he wasn't just a TD guy. In my league that is more like a 75/25 yardage league, he was still #1. He's at over 5.1 ypc for his career, he just turned 26 and is right in the peak of running back prime. I pulled every running back since 1960 who rushed between 240 and 300 times in a season (273 for Williams last year) at age 24-26, and averaged 4.8 ypc or more. Thirteen times before Williams. The list stretches from Jim Taylor in 1961 to Billy Sims to Marshall Faulk. Michael Bennett is easily, by a distance farther than I can throw, the worst player on the list, and he also had the lowest fantasy point total of any on the list. He finished RB48 the next year. Otis Armstrong tore a knee early the next season, and bounced back for a RB9 finish a season later. The other 11 finished as follows in fantasy points the season after their moderate starter carries, high ypc season: 1, 1. 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 9, 10, 10.

He's probably not Thurman Thomas or Marshall Faulk, as his reception totals are on the low end of guys on that list. But he did finish with the highest ypc and 2nd highest fantasy totals, and just by watching him, I feel comfortable saying he is nothing like Michael Bennett. If you put up a high ypc on a decent amount of carries, you're probably pretty stinkin good. The other players with similar rushing stats tend to bear that out.

I also happen to think he's not all that much of a risk to lose touches. Last year, I had a post about running back committees and "get the lead" players and "keep the lead" players that I'm going to try to find. One of the points I raised was that you want the "get the lead" guys because they will consistently get touches. They may not get 35 in a game, but they will consistently get 15-20. The "keep the lead" guys would be the ones who would fluctuate. I think the numbers from last year bore this out, as Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson and DeAngelo had a pretty low standard deviation on their weekly touches. We saw guys like Lendale White and Johnathan Stewart put up overall decent numbers, but fluctuate more depending on if their team was winning or not.

Here is the breakdown of carries for Carolina last year, depending on whether Carolina won by more than 8, won by 8 or less, or lost the game.

Won by More than 8 (7 games)
Williams- 16.7 carries, 111.0 rush yds, 1.1 TD's.
Stewart - 14.9 carries, 73.3 rush yds, 0.9 TD's.

Won by 1-8 points (5 games)
Williams- 18.4 carries, 95.0 rush yds, 1.0 TD's.
Stewart - 10.6 carries, 50.4 rush yds, 0.6 TD's.

Lost game (4 games)
Williams- 16.0 carries, 65.8 rush yds, 1.3 TD's.
Stewart - 6.8 carries, 17.8 rush yds, 0.3 TD's.

So Williams' carry totals and td averages were not dependent on whether Carolina was playing with a lead or not, while Stewart's were. So if you think that Carolina is not likely to finish 12-4 again, that shouldn't have too much effect on how you project Williams. He will likely be the one getting the majority of touches when the Panthers are down 5 in the fourth quarter. When they are winning comfortably, then yes, Stewart will get alot of carries.

Final point. I'm not big on splits in most cases. But Williams was apparently not a Fox guy, and I think the second half split means that Fox would have to his head examined to cut back on DeAngelo Williams this year and not take full advantage of his talents. Over the last 8 games last year, Williams went for 993 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns. I find it hard to believe that a back in the prime of his career, with no abnormal injury concern or end of season high work rate, would be ranked at #8 if he produced those numbers over the final half of the previous season.

Great insight JKL...there is just one problem...D Will is just not that good.

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