The wide receivers certainly had those players who were consistently good, just good and consistently bad. We’re going to look at this position for the expected and unexpected wide receivers in 2009, plus which wide receivers could be a “sleeper” going into next year’s draft.   So, let’s start with the first tier of the top wide receivers ranked by their Quality Game Success Rate.   TIER ONE   Player Name Total Points Pts Rank Total QG Total GP QG Success Rate Larry Fitzgerald 187.20 5 12 16 75% DeSean Jackson 189.40 4 11 15 73% Wes Welker 162.40 12 10 14 71% Miles Austin 197.80 3 11 16 69%   In contract to the quarterbacks and running backs over the past couple of weeks, the top tier of consistent wide receivers for 2009 consists of wide receivers that had a 69% - 75% QGSR (Quality Game Success Rate). Before we get too critical about the top tier of receivers this year, in 2008, the top tier of wide receivers with a 69% or higher QGSR, included only six receivers.   What surprises many fantasy players who are new to the Quality Game Scores (i.e., consistency factor), is the fact that they would have expected the top four wide receivers with an approximate 70% QGSR to ALSO be the top four overall fantasy points scorers. As you can see, they’re not. Wes Welker ranked 12th overall, while the other three receivers were ranked third, fourth and fifth. The top two overall receivers didn’t even earned a Quality Game more than 70% of the time. This trend of teams spreading the ball around to other receivers to stop teams from double-teaming the studs appears to be working for the real teams, but not the fantasy teams.   THE EXPECTED   Larry Fitzgerald was Mr. Consistency last season and won the award again this season. Last year, however, Larry had an 88% QGSR, so while he maintained his top status, his consistency came down a little to stay closer to the pack.   Wes Welker is one of those receivers that you always think of when you think consistency, right? Not exactly. In any league, that includes one point per reception, Welker is a stud! But, in a non-PPR league in 2008, Welker earned only eight Quality games out of 16 for a sad 50% QGSR. However, in 2009, Welker became a consistent player even in non-PPR leagues and helped many teams to their fantasy championship.   THE UNEXPECTED   DeSean Jackson had a solid rookie season with seven Quality Games and was one of my expected sleepers in 2009. But, I never expected Jackson to jump straight to the elite group and end up fourth for the season overall and have a 73% QGSR. His QGSR in 2008 was only 44%.   The biggest unexpected in this top tier is easily Miles Austin. In 2008, Austin was basically a fourth string receiver behind Terrell Owens, Roy Williams and Patrick Crayton. However, all of that changed this year, as Austin became Tony Romo’s favorite target and he proved his a future star in the NFL. He will certainly be a top ten receiver in 2010, if not top five.   TIER TWO   Player Name Total Points Pts Rank Total QG Total GP QG Success Rate Andre Johnson 211.90 1 10 16 63% Randy Moss 203.40 2 10 16 63% Reggie Wayne 186.40 6 10 16 63% Roddy White 181.50 7 10 16 63% Sidney Rice 178.20 8 10 16 63% Chad OchoCinco 159.90 14 10 16 63% Santonio Holmes 155.40 15 10 16 63% Derrick Mason 145.00 17 10 16 63%   THE EXPECTED   I find it amazing that eight wide receivers all had the exact same QGSR of 63%. Beyond that, we finally see our No. 1 and No. 2 overall receivers in Andre Johnson and Randy Moss. We also expected Reggie Wayne and Roddy White to be at least in this tier, even though Reggie Wayne is normal in the top tier.   The one that you don’t expect is probably Derrick Mason. However, over the past three seasons combined only five other receivers have more total Quality Games. He’s always a Quality Game sleeper every season in the draft.   THE UNEXPECTED   Chad OchoCinco talked a big talk as always this previous offseason and for once he backed it up with a fairly consistent year. I call it unexpected since Chad seemed to be on the downhill slide. However, I’m not sold this uphill trend will continue into next season.   Sidney Rice was not expected to be the top Vikings receiver in 2009. It was supposed to be Bernard Berrian, but Rice stepped up big time this year and became Brett Favre’s favorite target fairly early in the season and he never let go.   There weren’t many Santonio Holmes fans. I especially was down on him for a big reason and that was his inconsistency. However, unexpectedly Holmes stepped up and was as consistent as Andre Johnson, Moss and Wayne this season. If the Steelers continue their passing trend into 2010, he could continue this consistent trend.   TIER THREE   Player Name Total Points Pts Rank Total QG Total GP QG Success Rate Brandon Marshall 175.90 9 9 15 60% Vincent Jackson 171.80 10 9 15 60% Steve Smith (CAR) 142.40 19 9 15 60% Calvin Johnson 133.70 21 8 14 57% Steve Smith (NYG) 164.00 11 9 16 56% Marques Colston 160.00 13 9 16 56% Hines Ward 151.70 16 9 16 56% Robert Meachem 133.40 22 8 16 50% Mario Manningham 111.20 29 7 14 50%   Our last tier has a number of players that were expected to be top wide receivers. Now, some will look at the overall fantasy points for the year and see Brandon Marshall and Vincent Jackson at the ninth and tenth spots and say, “Hey, these guys were top 10 receivers.” Ok, but I will tell you that their 60% QGSR didn’t help too many fantasy teams who drafted these two to be their No.1 or even No. 2 receivers.   Marques Colston ended the season ranked 13th. Not bad, not what people expected out of one of the supposedly future stars in the NFL. Even worse was his 56% QGSR.   However, two of the most disappointing stars in 2009 were Steve Smith (CAR) and Calvin Johnson. Their rankings of 19th and 21st made many fantasy owners suicidal at best.   The other Steve Smith (NYG) was actually a pleasant surprise at 11th overall. He was certainly as inconsistent as these others, but was obviously drafted much lower and therefore his value way exceeded his draft position.   Hines Ward, Robert Meachem and Mario Manningham all exceeded their draft position value in 2009 and I would expect Meachem to improve in 2010. I’m not 100% sold on Manningham’s future and Hines Ward is certainly on his downslope in his career.   Well, there’s your Quality Game (consistency rankings) for the running backs in 2009. If you didn’t make the playoffs and you had Marques Colston or Calvin Johnson on your team and can’t understand why, I hope this helped clear things up.   If you have any questions about the Quality Game Scores, you can email me your questions to bob@bigguyfantasysports.com or just visit the website (www.bigguyfantasysports.com) and check out all of the great consistency analysis.

Here is a look our intial Top 300 PPR Fantasy Football players ranked. This is for NON-PPR Leagues Updated July 28

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Here is a look our intial Top 300 Fantasy Football players ranked. This is for NON-PPR Leagues Updated July 28

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The 2010 fantasy football season is quickly approaching, so let’s take some time to review this past season and see just how consistent your fantasy players were.   Many times throughout my 25 years in fantasy football I have heard the complaint of how their team was in top three or four in scoring, but their team didn’t make the playoffs. This was why I created the Quality Game Scores concept in the first place, in order to indentify those players who were not only good (in total fantasy points), but consistently good.   We’re going to start with the quarterbacks and take a look at those players who were consistently good, just good and consistently bad. We’re also going to look at this position for the expected and unexpected quarterbacks in 2009, plus which quarterbacks could be a “sleeper” going into next year’s draft.   So, let’s start with the top 25 quarterbacks ranked by total Quality Games earned.   Player Name Total Points Avg Points Total QG Total GP QG Percent Aaron Rodgers 391.10 1 14 16 88% Peyton Manning   339.70 4 14 16 88% Drew Brees 353.70 2 13 15 87% Matt Schaub 343.60 3 12 16 75% Tony Romo 331.65 6 12 16 75% Philip Rivers 323.70 9 12 16 75% Ben Roethlisberger 325.30 8 11 15 73% Tom Brady 327.30 7 11 16 69% Eli Manning 293.55 10 11 16 69% Kurt Warner 276.90 13 10 15 67% Brett Favre 333.80 5 10 16 63% Kyle Orton 267.20 16 10 16 63% Donovan McNabb 278.75 12 9 14 64% David Garrard 272.15 15 9 16 56% Jay Cutler 287.50 11 8 16 50% Carson Palmer 251.00 18 8 16 50% Matt Ryan 228.70 19 7 14 50% Jason Campbell 272.50 14 7 16 44% Joe Flacco 256.85 17 7 16 44% Matt Hasselbeck 211.35 20 6 14 43% Matt Cassel 210.80 21 6 15 40% Alex Smith 181.60 23 5 11 45% Vince Young 165.05 26 5 12 42% Chad Henne 187.10 22 5 14 36% Matthew Stafford 167.15 25 4 10 40%     THE EXPECTED   Peyton Manning and Drew Brees at No. 2 and No. 4 respectively is an obvious expected. Both headed into the season as the top two fantasy quarterbacks. Peyton was perfect in Quality Games all season through Week 15 and then due to the Colts management “protection plan” in the last two weeks, he missed earning a Quality Game in each one. Brees was solid most of the season, though he did slack off near the end of the year, but still earned a Quality Game until Week 17.   Aaron Rodgers was expected to be a top fantasy quarterback. In fact, I predicted he would be a top three quarterback. Would have I bet on my house on him being at the top in overall fantasy point by almost 40 points over Brees and 50 points over Manning and be tied as the top Quality Game earner with 14 QG’s? Probably not. What is the main difference in separating Rodgers from these two? His feet! Rodgers had 304 yards rushing and five rushing touchdowns. Brees had 34 yards and two rushing touchdowns. Manning had -13 (yes, that’s a minus sign) yards rushing and zero rushing touchdowns. Case closed.   THE UNEXPECTED   I know this may seem weird that we are already heading towards the unexpected. However, continue on and I think you’ll see why I believe the remainder of these players were unexpectedly (good or bad) in the rankings (both in overall points and Quality Games earned).   We start with Matt Schaub. I pat myself on the back because I did believe that if Schaub played all 16 games he would make the top six fantasy quarterbacks. So first, Schaub DID play all 16 games. THAT was unexpected. Second, Schaub ended the season as the No. 3 overall quarterback in fantasy points and had the second highest number of Quality Games earned with 13. Again, I predicted good, but not that good. Can he do it again in 2010? Tough call. I’m predicting no, but I hope I’m wrong.   The “roller coaster ride” known as Brett Favre had Vikings fans and fantasy owners in a tizzy all season. It was UNEXPECTED that he would play for the Vikings. He did. He was EXPECTED not to be very good. He was, as he ranked fifth overall in fantasy points. However, where he killed fantasy teams was with his inconsistency. He only earned 10 Quality Games, but so did Kyle Orton and he was ranked 16th! You see my point. His 63% Quality Game Success Rate was awful for someone who ranked fifth overall.   Another disappointing unexpected in 2009 was Phillip Rivers. He ranked in many expert’s top five for 2009 and while the Chargers as a team did well, Rivers ended the season ranked as the ninth best quarterback in total fantasy points. Of course, at least Rivers didn’t have as high as expectations as Tom Brady. Brady, coming back from taking the entire 2008 season, except for the first quarter of the first game, was ranked in the top five, if not top three by most experts. He finished the year ranked seventh overall, but it was Brady’s inconsistency that killed many fantasy teams who drafted him in the first two to three rounds. Most of us expect better than a 69% success rate from Tom.   An unexpected good came from Tony Romo this season as he ended the season ranked sixth overall and had a 75% success rate. Many experts placed Tony out of the top ten and sometimes outside of the top fifteen. Many thought Tony was done when Terrell Owens and Jessica Simpson left town. He wasn’t.   Another unexpected good was Ben Roethlisberger in 2009. I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t ranked in the top 12 during the preseason and yet, even though he missed a game due to injury, he ended the season ranked eighth overall and earned a 73% success rate. He’s one to keep an eye on going into next season.   Swinging back to the bad side of unexpected, Kurt Warner had some small injuries and a fairly productive running game in Arizona and that held back to ranking only 13th overall and earning a 67% success rate. After a top five finish last year, this kind of lack of production will make him a little more “sleeper-esque” heading into next season.   Here’s a quickie for you. Donovan McNabb did NOT play a full 16 game season again. For the love of whomever, please do not draft him ever in your fantasy leagues. He just can’t stay healthy.   I’m saving my last unexpected for the Jay Cutler and Kyle Orton combo. The off-season trade put many fantasy experts high on Cutler and the Bears and down on Orton and the Broncos offense. While neither of them impressed anyone by the end of the season, Cutler did prove that he’s just as inconsistent in Chicago as he was in Denver by ranking 11th overall and only having a 50% success rate. Orton proved that he’s not a fantasy stud, but he’s pretty consistent as he earned two more Quality Games than Cutler, but only ranked 16th overall.   Well, there’s your Quality Game (consistency rankings) for the quarterbacks in 2009. If you didn’t make the playoffs and you had Brett Favre or Tom Brady on your team and can’t understand why, I hope this helped clear things up.   If you have any questions about the Quality Game Scores, you can email me your questions to bob@bigguyfantasysports.com or just visit the website (www.bigguyfantasysports.com) and check out all of the great consistency analysis.