Editor’s Note: If anyone happens to be down in Georgia, please check in on Mr. Wimer and make sure he’s not suffering from severe heat stroke. Ay yay yay.
OK, those of you who have followed this blog for a while now know that my colleague Jason Wood and I have been going back-and-forth on Joey Harrington’s fantasy prospects for 2007. For those who are new to the blog, Jason insists that once regular season rolls around, Joey Harrington will be part of a “Fantasy Armageddon” in Atlanta, while I’ve argued a more positive case for Harrington. Well, I’m going to turn up my rhetoric a bit today and state for the record that at this moment, Joey Harrington is the most undervalued fantasy QB in the NFL, and should outplay his current rankings/projections/ADP by a wide margin, as fellow Footballguy Chase Stuart broke down in his excellent post yesterday. I’ll go through the qualitative reasons for my optimism below:
Harrington’s preseason numbers to date:
- vs. the Jets (week 1) 6/9 for 88 yards, 0 TDs and 0 interceptions
- vs. the Bills (week 2) 4/7 for 31 yards, 0 TDs and 1 interception
- vs. the Bengals (week 3, generally considered the most important week of pre-season for starting players) 13/21 for 164 yards, 2 TDs and 0 interceptions
Yes, I know that this is only the preseason, but in general defenses have the advantage over offenses in preseason, because the offense is running a “vanilla” scheme that doesn’t display the full range of a playbook, in order to preserve the best plays for regular season (and keep them off tape, to hopefully surprise opposing defensive coordinators). Also, this year the Falcons are installing a brand new offense with a brand new starting QB - if there was a time for this offense to struggle, it was during August. To almost every one’s surprise, the Falcons haven’t looked horrid, and during week 3, the first team passing attack looked very good.
When I wrote my original positive case for Harrington, I assumed that he’d be able to work with Alge Crumpler for most of training camp - that turned out to be wrong, as Crumpler just returned to game action in week 3 of the pre-season (2/15/0). The good news is, Dwayne Blakley has played with the first team a lot in Crumpler’s absence, and has proven to be a reliable receiver (as well as a huge receiver - 6′ 4″, 257) with a nose for big plays. He grabbed one pass in each preseason game, with 1/37/0 in week 1, 1/5/0 week 2, and 1/29/0 week 3. He brings depth and the possibility of 2-TE sets to the offense at his position.
With veteran Joe Horn on board to mentor the young receivers, Roddy White made strides towards becoming a polished receiver (he’s still dropping some catch-able balls, though) -and Harrington appears to trust White and goes back to him even after a bad play. The trust between them is encouraging (Vick tended to give up on passing at points and just resort to running the ball). Michael Jenkins was quiet in week 1 and 2 (1/10/0 and 1/6/0), but pulled down 4/45/0 during week 3. Also, the emergence of Laurent Robinson during preseason has helped deepen the WR position. The Falcons aren’t sporting a stable of WRs like the Colts, but Harrington and company have made their receivers look decent during preseason.
In all, I’d characterize the preseason efforts of the Falcons’ passing attack to be encouraging, and Harrington has looked increasingly comfortable as his repetitions have piled up. He has thrown with nice placement, touch, and velocity, in my opinion, and has also uncorked some deep passes that were well thrown (whether or not White caught them). Coach Petrino has sported some 4 and 5 wide sets during preseason, indicating that he is ready to rely on Harrington’s arm to move the ball - that’s a big plus for Harrington’s fantasy prospects, in my book.
As others have mentioned, the Falcons’ defense looks suspect vs. the run and the pass, so the Falcons are probably going to be chasing leads in many games this year, which should tend to inflate the number of passing attempts in many games.
Finally, Harrington has some personal developments in his life that make me hopeful for his 2007 season. He took the big step of getting married this past spring (March 10) to Emily (Hatten) Harrington, and a mature, married man is less likely to have his head turned by sudden fame and fortune (such as Harrington enjoyed when he first joined the NFL with Detroit). Also, Harrington is smart enough to know that this fortuitous opportunity with the Falcons is his final shot at proving he is a viable NFL starter. There is nothing like being down to your last chance to focus a player’s attention on the business at hand.
Given what I’ve seen from Harrington so far (I live in the Atlanta TV market and while not a Falcons fan, I do get the broadcasts of all the Falcons’ preseason games) and all the arguments I’ve read and written - pro- and con-, some of them linked above - I am bumping up my projections for Harrington this season to 3200-3400 yards, 22-24 TDs and 14-16 interceptions (50 yards rushing, 0 TDs). Those projections drop him solidly into fantasy QB 2 range on my board, at #17 (preseason - he’d probably end up actual QB 11 or 12 in total fantasy points after week 17 if those projected numbers are realized as many NFL starters miss a few games each season due to various unpredictable injuries). That’s about 10 spots higher than the expert consensus at Footballguys.com, but I think that’s where he’ll end up numbers-wise (barring an injury which would cost him games) at seasons’ end.
The best news for fantasy owners is this: you can draft Harrington in the final few rounds of your draft (he’s going at a current ADP of 202nd off the board, QB 29) and if he does go on a tear and ends up starting some games for your squad, you look like a genius. If he flops, nobody is going to remember who picked Harrington in the 17th round next year.
Happy Drafting!
