Juggernaut Index: Upper Class
By Andy Behrens
Yahoo Sports
June 26, 2007
In the X-Men, Juggernaut was an irresistible, invulnerable helmeted villain who crashed through walls and overwhelmed any physical obstacle. Like Pete Johnson in 1981. But for our purposes here, a juggernaut doesn't need to be either villainous or ground-based. They just need to generate fantasy points. We're ranking NFL offenses 1 through 16. Later in the week, we'll sift through the dregs, 17 through 32, and look for anything useful.
Why go through this exercise? Because in the NFL, it's often the system that makes the fantasy stars. Alternately, a system can make even a supremely talented player irrelevant. Last season Cincinnati's second-leading receiver, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, outscored the combination of the Raiders top two wide receivers, Randy Moss and Ronald Curry. It wasn't really close, either. Houshmandzadeh totaled 155 fantasy points in a standard Yahoo! public league, while Moss and Curry combined for 137.
Find an offense that gains yardage, limits turnovers, and scores touchdowns when it gets inside the 20, and you'll have found a fantasy juggernaut. In general, the skill position players on those teams are the fantasy elite. Draft them. If you can't draft them, trade for them.
Before we rate the juggernaut-ness of each NFL franchise, there are a few things worth noting. First of all, in any of the statistical categories listed in the tables below, you shouldn't care about where an offense ranked. Instead, you should care how a team performed relative to the league mean. Here are the 2006 NFL average team totals for several key categories:
Rushing yards per game: 117.3
Passing yards per game: 204.8
Points per game: 20.7
Turnovers: 28
Red zone possessions: 47.5
Red zone TD: 24.2
If two teams are very close to league-average, rank isn't such a big deal. Things get interesting at the extremes, though.
Also, please keep in mind that our Offensive Juggernaut Index is not the same as an NFL power ranking. We're really not thinking about team defense here at all. The focus is on the fantasy usefulness of a team's offense. Keep this in mind, New England fans. No one's trying to insult you. The Patriots are my Super Bowl XLII favorite, just for the record.
7. Dallas Cowboys
Rushing Y/G: 121 Red Zone Poss.: 58
Yards Per Carry: 4.1 Red Zone TD: 35
Passing Y/G: 239.8 Red Zone TD Pct: 60.30%
Points Per Game: 26.6 Total FG: 20
Turnovers: 30 07 Schedule Strength: 0.496
Key Offensive Additions: Jason Garrett, G Leonard Davis
Key Offensive Subtractions: Bill Parcels
I think we're all plenty happy that Drew Bledsoe can't torment us any longer. The Cowboys have all kinds of talent at the skill positions: Terrell Owens, Terry Glenn and Patrick Crayton at WR, Jason Witten at TE, and Marion Barber III and Julius Jones at RB. The biggest questions are whether Tony Romo can be great again – and maybe throw INTs at a less Bledsoian rate – and just how much better the offensive line can be with Leonard Davis. Spectacularly large Chicagoan Flozell Adams, a three-time Pro Bowler, is still there. The Cowboys were fourth in the NFL in points-per-game in 2006, but head coach Wade Phillips and coordinator Jason Garrett weren't really responsible for that.
Yahoo Sports
June 26, 2007
In the X-Men, Juggernaut was an irresistible, invulnerable helmeted villain who crashed through walls and overwhelmed any physical obstacle. Like Pete Johnson in 1981. But for our purposes here, a juggernaut doesn't need to be either villainous or ground-based. They just need to generate fantasy points. We're ranking NFL offenses 1 through 16. Later in the week, we'll sift through the dregs, 17 through 32, and look for anything useful.
Why go through this exercise? Because in the NFL, it's often the system that makes the fantasy stars. Alternately, a system can make even a supremely talented player irrelevant. Last season Cincinnati's second-leading receiver, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, outscored the combination of the Raiders top two wide receivers, Randy Moss and Ronald Curry. It wasn't really close, either. Houshmandzadeh totaled 155 fantasy points in a standard Yahoo! public league, while Moss and Curry combined for 137.
Find an offense that gains yardage, limits turnovers, and scores touchdowns when it gets inside the 20, and you'll have found a fantasy juggernaut. In general, the skill position players on those teams are the fantasy elite. Draft them. If you can't draft them, trade for them.
Before we rate the juggernaut-ness of each NFL franchise, there are a few things worth noting. First of all, in any of the statistical categories listed in the tables below, you shouldn't care about where an offense ranked. Instead, you should care how a team performed relative to the league mean. Here are the 2006 NFL average team totals for several key categories:
Rushing yards per game: 117.3
Passing yards per game: 204.8
Points per game: 20.7
Turnovers: 28
Red zone possessions: 47.5
Red zone TD: 24.2
If two teams are very close to league-average, rank isn't such a big deal. Things get interesting at the extremes, though.
Also, please keep in mind that our Offensive Juggernaut Index is not the same as an NFL power ranking. We're really not thinking about team defense here at all. The focus is on the fantasy usefulness of a team's offense. Keep this in mind, New England fans. No one's trying to insult you. The Patriots are my Super Bowl XLII favorite, just for the record.
7. Dallas Cowboys
Rushing Y/G: 121 Red Zone Poss.: 58
Yards Per Carry: 4.1 Red Zone TD: 35
Passing Y/G: 239.8 Red Zone TD Pct: 60.30%
Points Per Game: 26.6 Total FG: 20
Turnovers: 30 07 Schedule Strength: 0.496
Key Offensive Additions: Jason Garrett, G Leonard Davis
Key Offensive Subtractions: Bill Parcels
I think we're all plenty happy that Drew Bledsoe can't torment us any longer. The Cowboys have all kinds of talent at the skill positions: Terrell Owens, Terry Glenn and Patrick Crayton at WR, Jason Witten at TE, and Marion Barber III and Julius Jones at RB. The biggest questions are whether Tony Romo can be great again – and maybe throw INTs at a less Bledsoian rate – and just how much better the offensive line can be with Leonard Davis. Spectacularly large Chicagoan Flozell Adams, a three-time Pro Bowler, is still there. The Cowboys were fourth in the NFL in points-per-game in 2006, but head coach Wade Phillips and coordinator Jason Garrett weren't really responsible for that.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:54 PM
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