This is "hype train" season in the NFL. Training camps are underway. Contract disputes are being settled. The first preseason games are right around the corner and every NFL fan is convinced that their team is playoff bound in 2018.
It's easy to understand why fans would be so excited. We love football. We love new opportunity. Each new season is a clean slate in the mind of a fan. That 5-11 season from a year ago is ancient history. This is the year!
Unfortunately, it's not just fans that think this way. It's NFL reporters and writers too. They get swept up in the hype as well. Everything is fresh and shiny and new. Each team is brimming with potential. Most beat reporters and NFL writers put on rose-colored glasses this time of year. They try to convince everyone that the Jets are secretly really good. Or that the Bills don’t have the worst offensive line in football. Or that maybe, just maybe, this is the year the Dolphins win their division. Man, the AFC East is gross.
Your Job
Your job as a fantasy football owner is to cut through the bullcrap and ignore the fake hype. The last thing you want when you leave your draft room is a team full of Bills, Jets, and Dolphins.
The AFC East isn’t the only division full of pre-season hype that should probably be ignored. Let’s look at a team in another division. Take the Browns for instance. The Browns improved their backfield with the additions of Carlos Hyde and Nick Chubb. The quarterback room is better than its been in years with steady veteran Tyrod Taylor at the helm and electric rookie Baker Mayfield learning the ropes. The team brought in Jarvis Landry who has 400 catches in his first four years, which is more than anyone else in the first four seasons of a career in NFL history. On top of all of that, the Browns return talented players like Josh Gordon and Duke Johnson.
The Whole Story
That is a ton of hype! But it’s not the whole story. The hype train narrative leaves out many negative, hype-killing details of which the fantasy community needs to be aware. The Browns retained head coach Hugh Jackson despite his 1-31 record in Cleveland. The team ranked dead last in the league in point differential, turnovers and points scored over the past two years. They have been bottom of the barrel in just about every quarterback metric you can imagine. The team had a decent offensive line last year, ranked 14th by Pro Football Focus, but they lost Joe Thomas to retirement. That isn’t going to help those QB metrics improve by much.
What about the new players? Yes, Jarvis Landry was a target hog in Miami. And yes, he has built a solid reputation as an above average slot receiver in the NFL. Unfortunately, in Cleveland he and Duke Johnson will cannibalize each other’s targets, making each less attractive than they were last year. Carlos Hyde finished as an RB1 in fantasy last year, largely because of quarterbacks checking down out in San Fran. The problem remains, in Cleveland, the check downs go to Duke (and Landry). Is Hyde good enough to hold off the superior athlete Nick Chubb for the 1st and 2nd down duties? Fantasy owners shouldn’t want to spend much draft capital to find out.
The Cleveland Browns should be better this year but they won’t be a good team. It doesn’t take much to improve on 0-16, after all. Fill your fantasy football roster with players from good NFL teams. That doesn’t mean that Landry and Gordon don’t have places on fantasy squads this year. It just means you shouldn’t waste your draft capital by picking any Brown too early.
Be Smarter Than The Rest
Avoid the hype train as much as possible. Find articles and analysts with solid, grounded takes. Fantasy football is exciting but don’t get swept up in all the fluff floating around this time of year. Build your team by the numbers, look at the historical trends, the coaches and the schemes. Target the guys that will actually help you win and let all the other jerks in your league board the hype train to irrelevance. You can wave to them on your way to a championship.
