RADIO
This article continues our team outlook series where we will breakdown each NFL team from a fantasy football perspective. We will cover the major changes on each roster from this off season and project what the team will do in the upcoming year.
Today we look at the (hopefully) resurgent Green Bay Packers.
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Offseason Moves
Offseason Acquisitions: TE Jared Cook
No Longer on the Roster: WR James Jones
Player to reach for: WR Randall Cobb
Quarterback
It’s hard not to blame Aaron Rodgers’ disappointing 2015 on the injury to Jordy Nelson prior to the start of the year. It’s rare for a quarterback of Rodgers’ talent to be so adversely affected by the loss of one player, but the Green Bay offense seemed to struggle all around. The struggles wound up hampering the fantasy performances of all the key contributors. It’s not like Rodgers was terrible; he still finished the year as fantasy’s seventh-best quarterback and is poised for a strong bounce-back.
With a current ADP of 28th overall, Rodgers’ value is starting to come back down to Earth. One of the most recurring strategies you’ll hear all summer is the ideology of “waiting on quarterback.” While the position is absurdly deep, that doesn’t mean you avoid taking Rodgers altogether. 28 is still a little high for me, especially since that means you’ll likely be the second person in your league to snag a QB, passing on the likes of Demaryius Thomas, Keenan Allen, and Sammy Watkins in the process. The return of Jordy Nelson makes the Green Bay gunslinger a shoe-in to finish the year as a top-five player at his position, so don’t force yourself to pass on him completely.
A more appropriate approach (and one that you’ll hear me repeat when discussing upper tier QBs) is to accept that positional values change over the course of a draft. Sure, the middle of the third might be too early to but if it’s end of the fourth and you’re deciding between Aaron Rodgers and Doug Baldwin? Give me the quarterback, thank you.
Running Backs
Continuing with the theme of disappointing Packers, Eddie Lacy is looking to prove that he can rebound from a year plagued by accusations of him being out of shape. I say “accusations” because if you recall, Lacy was described as fat entering his rookie year but was still a reliable fantasy starter. Was he simply more out of shape than usual in 2015? Maybe we just don’t really know what the guy’s playing weight is. The point is that he’s naturally a big dude, so try to block out all of the noise about his conditioning until there are actual games to be played.
Overweight or not, Lacy struggled mightily last season and it’s one of the other major reasons the Packers weren’t as good as usual for fantasy purposes. Luckily, Lacy’s ADP heading into the upcoming season makes owning him a lot less worrisome. He’s currently being drafted at the end of the second/beginning of the third and that’s about where he should be going. Running back as a whole is as much of a crap shoot as it’s ever been so it really does come down to which risk/reward scenario you prefer leaning on. Personally, I’m fine snagging Lacy in the third provided he actually is the best player available at that point.
Handcuffing your running back with his backup tends to be one of the most overstated philosophies in fantasy. This is NOT one of those situations as James Starks is the clear backup to Eddie Lacy. In fact, it can be argued that he’s the most important handcuff to own outside of DeAngelo Williams. With how tough a year Lacy just had, it’s conceivable that the Packers will have a much shorter leash and will put Starks in as the starter should things continue to go south. Starks is a must-own for anyone thinking about hitching their fantasy success to a Lacy comeback.
Wide Receivers
Jordy Nelson’s ACL may or may not have derailed Green Bay’s fantasy consistency last year but one thing is for certain--owners are licking their chops at the prospect of owning him this year. Jordy is locked in as a second-rounder this year and barring a significant setback in his recovery, that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
As of writing, Nelson is currently dealing with tendinitis in the opposite leg as his surgery, an ailment that could simply be a case of trying to overcompensate for his healing knee. If you want to own Nelson you’re going to have to pony up on his second-round price point. Just be sure to monitor the situation prior to your draft in case new information becomes available.
Randall Cobb is back to being the secondary option at wide receiver and that is definitely a blessing in disguise. A lot of bitter fantasy owners will be quick to point out how disappointing Cobb was when he had the number one WR gig all to himself last season. The argument that he was bad when he should have been better is inherently flawed since it blatantly ignores the fact that he was a great fantasy asset while playing opposite Nelson. It seems pretty obvious that Cobb isn’t the type of player that can shine as a number one guy but excels when he’s in a complimentary role. That’s not me being overly optimistic, it’s analyzing cold hard facts; Randall Cobb has proven that he’s good when Jordy Nelson is on the field. We have literally seen him do it.
All of that is a stern way to say that Cobb might actually be undervalued this year. His current ADP as the 20th wide receiver off the board is a testament to how deep the position is in the upcoming season.
It’s safe to say that the hype surrounding the third receiving option in Green Bay has appropriately died down. Unlike Randall Cobb, the likes of Davante Adams, Ty Mongomery, and Jeff Janis have yet to prove that they can contribute on a consistent basis. Cobb has a track record that excuses him of not doing what he had never done before as a number one receiver. Adams, Montomery, and Janis, however, should have been able to put up better numbers when opportunity knocked. Instead, all of them fizzled out and this team is left with two legit wide receivers instead of three. I won’t be investing a fantasy draft pick on any of these players barring a massively impressive preseason.
Tight Ends
The Packers are home to a few “names” at tight end but no one that really warrants a selection in redraft leagues. Jared Cook is the newest member of the offense but I’d much rather use a late round flier on someone that hasn’t disappointed me in the past. Besides, Richard Rodgers is still currently listed as the starter so it’s not like we can say for certain that Cook was brought in for anything more than a depth chart addition.
