The This and That of Fantasy Football

Mock Draft - Round 1

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Round 1

1. Priest Holmes, RB, Kansas City: Holmes, who racked up 24 TDs, was in hot pursuit of Marshall Faulk’s single-season TD record of 26 until injuring his right hip in Week 15 and missing the last two games. As long as Holmes is healthy and he should be, expect Holmes to continue to pile up multi-purpose yardage and TDs.

2. Ricky Williams, RB, Miami: Williams led the league in rushing with 1,853 yards and scored 17 TDs. If Jay Fiedler hadn’t missed six games due to injury, Williams would have cracked the 2,000-yard mark easily.

3. Clinton Portis, RB, Denver: Portis shared carries until Week 5 with Olandis Gary, and still rushed for 1,508 yards and 17 scores. Portis won’t have to worry about sharing carries next season.

4. LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, San Diego: There was no sophomore slump for Tomlinson as he rushed for 1,683 yards, accumulated 489 receiving yards and scored 15 times. He had two 200-yard games and is fed the ball in machine-like fashion in Marty Schottenheimer’s offense.

5. Marshall Faulk, RB, St. Louis: A badly sprained ankle limited Faulk to ten starts, 953 yards rushing and a large dose of ineffectiveness, but his 183-yard, three TD performance in Week 7 is what makes fantasy owners salivate when he’s healthy.

6. Deuce McAllister, RB, New Orleans: McAllister displayed the superstar qualities that enabled the Saints to ship out Ricky Williams. Deuce racked up eight 100-yard games, 1,740 all-purpose yards and 16 scores.

7. Shaun Alexander, RB, Seattle: Alexander finished second in the NFL with 18 TDs. His rushing yards were down from his breakout year in 2001 (1,318 to 1,175), but the Seahawks’ passing game appears resurrected under Matt Hasselbeck, which will help open running lanes for Alexander. In the last six weeks of the 2002 season, he scored seven TDs.

8. Ahman Green, RB, Green Bay: Green missed two games and parts of other games with injuries, but still piled up 1,633 combined rushing and receiving yards to go along with nine TDs. Green has legitimate big play ability as evidenced by his career average of 4.5 yards a carry.

9. Marvin Harrison, WR, Indianapolis: Harrison easily broke the single-season NFL record for receptions by 20 finishing with 143 grabs. Harrison also had 11 scores and a whopping 1,722 receiving yards. He’s a model of superstar consistency with at least 1,413 yards receiving in the last four years, and he has four consecutive seasons of 100 catches or more.

10. Daunte Culpepper, QB, Minnesota: This may look like a reach, but look at the numbers. Last season, Culpepper struggled plenty but he still threw for 3,853 yards and 18 TDs, while rushing for 609 yards and ten scores. As long as your league doesn’t deduct points for turnovers, this is a solid, high-octane pick.

11. Terrell Owens, WR, San Francisco: Owens led all WRs in 2002 with 14 TDs – 13 receiving TDs and one rushing TD. He hauled in 100 passes for 1,300 yards, and would have piled on more catches and yards had he not missed the last two games to rest an injury for the playoffs.

12. Randy Moss, WR, Minnesota: Randy frustrated many fantasy owners with a paltry seven TDs, but surprisingly he caught the most passes of any season of his career with 106. Moss averaged a career low 12.7 yards a catch, but as Culpepper goes so does Moss. Culpepper picked up his game in the latter part of last season, and Moss benefited with five 100-yard games in the last seven weeks. Look for Moss to bounce back strong.