Who would you rather have in a redraft league, Andre Johnson or Eric Moulds? Larry Fitzgerald or Amani Toomer? Roy Williams or Isaac Bruce? Javon Walker or Jimmy Smith? The theme here is obvious: exciting but unproven or boring but established?

Had you asked me this several years ago, I would have gone with the exciting option every time. Upside upside upside. I don't want some moldy old carcass like Isaac Bruce clogging up my roster with 950 and 6. I want the next breakout sensation. If he busts, no big deal. I can cobble together a moldy old 950 and 6 from scraps anyway.

I have no way of verifying this, but I believe that several years ago, the market undervalued youth and overvalued proven mediocrity. I no longer believe that to be the case. In fact, it appears to me that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Typical leagues --- casual and shark leagues alike --- are now filled with upside-aholics. If you want upside in the form of young talented receivers, you're going to have to pay for it. But are you going to have to overpay for it? That's the question.

To investigate, here is what I've done:

1. Get average draft position (ADP) data for the last four years from myfantasyleague.com's draft analysis tool. The ADP data referenced throughout this article is from redraft leagues taking place after August 25th of the given year.



2. Define a receiver to be "established" if he had ever finished in the top 20 before the season in question. As of right now, for example, Amani Toomer and Isaac Bruce are established, Larry Fitzgerald and Javon Walker are not.



3. Find all unestablished receivers entering their first, second, or third years who were drafted in the top 40 WRs (throw out the ones who didn't end up playing at least 8 games in that season). These are the exciting but unproven guys. In all, there were 19 of them. They include gems like Torry Holt 2000, dogs like Josh Reed 2003, and all sorts of guys in between.



4. Now, for each of these exciting but unproven guys, we pair them with a group of three boring but established guys as follows: starting from the young guy, go down the ADP list and find the first three WRs who (a) had been in the league for more than three years, (b) were established, and (c), ended up playing at least 8 games. For example, in 2003, Josh Reed was ranked as the #32 receiver. After him came Curtis Conway, Todd Pinkston (who was unestablished), Travis Taylor (also unestablished), James Thrash (unestablished), Joey Galloway, Tai Streets (unestablished), and Muhsin Muhammad. So we will measure the exciting Reed against the fossilized Conway, Galloway, and Muhammad.



5. For each exciting but unproven youngster, we record whether he performed better or worse (in terms of fantasy points per game) than the average of the three old but established guys he was paired with.

Here's what happened. Of the 19 exciting but unproven guys, 9 of them outperformed their established comps and 10 of them were bested by their older counterparts. So the older guys did very slightly better, but essentially it was a wash. And there are a few cases that might have been misclassified by my rote algorithm. For example, Derrick Alexander 2000 --- a flukishly great season --- happened to land in three different comp groups, and has the potential to skew things a bit. Two of the young guys he was paired with ended up being complete busts anyway, but one was not. What you want to do with that kind of situation is up to you. And the usual caveats about arbitrary selection of cutoffs apply too (Why does established mean 20th-ranked? Why look at the top 40 instead of top 30 or top 50? Why compare with 3 guys instead of 2 or 4? etc.). I've run the numbers with minor tweaks on those numbers and haven't seen them change the general flavor of the result. I'll attach the complete data set at the end of the article for your perusal.

It is important to note, however, that these comparisons are all stacked in favor of the young guys. In the example above, Josh Reed (ranked #32) is being compared to the receivers ranked #33, #37, and #39. At the very least, this says that the upside potential of young WRs is appropriately factored into their market price. Upside is valuable but, at least in an "average" league, you're not going to get it for a bargain price.

What's even more interesting is that the younger group of WRs did not, as a group, show more of a tendency to break out than their older counterparts. If you passed on Holt at #15 in 2000, you might have ended up with Ed McCaffrey, who finished just one spot behind Torry. A boring old drafter might have missed out on Plaxico Burress's nice 2002 season in favor of the bust Troy Brown, but he also might have gotten a 7th-ranked receiver in Derrick Mason 2003 right after his friend took Donte Stallworth. In all, two of the 19 young receivers finished in the top 10, while six of the older ones did, a ratio that indicates that boring old receivers can surprise you with breakouts as often as young ones can.

Javon Walker just screams potential breakout while Isaac Bruce induces yawns. Andre Johnson just has to be more likely to break into the Top 5 or the Top 10 than Eric Moulds does, right? To someone like me, who still struggles at times with upside-aholism, that seems right. Obvious, even. But the numbers of the last four years simply do not support it. I think my dissonance comes from the fact that my intuitions were formed 10 years ago, when an Andre Johnson wouldn't have been ranked just ahead of Eric Moulds. He would have been ranked about 10 slots lower. And a Javon Walker wouldn't have been ranked just ahead of Jimmy Smith, but could be had a round or two later. In those slots, Johnson and Walker would be bargains. But as the general fantasy community has become more savvy, guys like Johnson and Walker have slowly inched up the charts and they seem to have settled in exactly where they belong.

A word about rookies

In 2000, three rookies --- Peter Warrick, Plaxico Burress, and Travis Taylor --- were drafted in the top 35 WRs, and all three were major busts. The following year, rookie David Terrell was drafted 35th and also busted. Possibly because of this, no rookie receivers were drafted in the first 40 in 2002 or 2003.

It's almost as if you can see the average drafter speculating about a given season's rookies based on the prior season's rookie crop. In 2000, Randy Moss and Kevin Johnson were still fresh in our minds, so we were not afraid of rooks. In 2001, having been burned the year before, we were gunshy but reluctantly willing to take a chance on David Terrell. Burned again, we swore off rookies in 2002. It turned out to be a good decision, as 2002 was another lean year for rookies, so we continued to avoid them in 2003.

Then Anquan Boldin has a great rookie year, and all of a sudden rookie receivers are once again flying off the shelves in the 20-30 range. I've said it before and I'll say it again: people have interpreted Boldin's success as a reason to be optimistic about rookie WRs again, but in actuality Anquan Boldin is a prime example of why you should not take rookie receivers early. First, rookie receivers rarely have success. You knew that. Second, and this is where Boldin comes in, the ones that do have success are rarely the ones that are expected to. With all the rookies out there, I'm sure a few of them will have some success this year, but my claim is that you've got just as much chance of success grabbing the 6th rookie receiver as the 60th receiver off the board as you do grabbing Fitzgerald as the 20th or Roy Williams as the 30th.

Before you consider a rookie receiver, do yourself a favor (I'm serious here). Make your argument for why your guy is going to be successful. List the three most important reasons why your guy is going to be an exception to a pretty strong general rule. Now go back and read some scouting reports on the numerous highly-regarded receivers who had dreadful rookie seasons, and honestly consider whether your guy is really so different. Great physical talent? So was Burress. No, really, I mean freakish physical talent. So were Koren Robinson and David Terrell. Virtually no competition for the starting a job? That describes a whole lot of highly-touted rookie WRs. In June. (If you don't believe me, go back and look at who Burress and Taylor and Koren Robinson and Warrick were competing against for catches). Runs great routes? Has great hands? Is a tremendous student of the game? Played in a prostyle system in college? For every positive you can name about your guy, ask yourself whether there weren't a whole lot of rookie busts that appeared, in June of their rookie season, to have the same positive. Meanwhile, the rookies that have justified their ADP --- Boldin, Chris Chambers, Kevin Johnson --- were flying somewhat under the radar (Andre Johnson being the only recent exception).

Again, I am not necessarily telling you to forget about drafting rookie WRs altogether (although I really don't think that's a bad idea). I am strongly cautioning you to avoid overpaying for the top ones. If you just can't bear the idea of missing out on the next Boldin, remind yourself that, strange as it seems, old guys have upside too. When you grit your teeth and pass on Larry Fitzgerald in favor of the moth-eaten receiver of your choice, don't think of it as missing out on the next Boldin, think of it as trying to land the next 2000 Derrick Alexander (he finished #5) or 2002 Amani Toomer (#6) or 2003 Derrick Mason (#7).

And then take your shot at the next Boldin about six rounds later.

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