BALTIMORE (Zoneblitz) – I’m in Baltimore at a conference for my day job for the next few days. During a short jaunt for lunch I wandered into one of the large bookstore chains and came across the first football annual magazines.
I rarely buy Athlon anymore. It used to be one of my “must buy” publications, mostly because it came out first. The magazine still has some good content, but it comes out just a little bit too early for my tastes. It feels a little bit like they sacrifice quality and current information for being the first major publication out after the NFL draft. Nonetheless, if you are hungering for information on the season ahead, they as always are among the first ones out.
One I do buy every year is Lindy’s Pro Football. I like the way they analyze every single player on every team’s roster and I love the several pages of draft coverage that typically include best picks and biggest leaps for each team.
The pro version isn’t due out for a few days yet but the college preview is on the rack.
I ended up making two purchases.The first was the jointly published annual by Yahoo! Sports and Pro Football Weekly, which teamed up to produce a solid preview of the real football season coupled with a sizable section of fantasy information. They’ve got a nice ranking of players by position as well as analysis by so-called fantasy football experts from each publication.
Sporting News Fantasy Football ’09 is also on the rack. My second purchase includes a mock, 12-team draft conducted by various Sporting News contributors and staff.
My initial reaction to at least the first round of the mock draft is lukewarm. I liked the top four picks, but after that I think there are some reaches. What do you think?
1. Adrian Peterson
2. Matt Forte
3. Michael Turner
4. Maurice Jones-Drew
5. Steven Jackson
6. Brandon Jacobs
7. DeAngelo Williams
8. Brian Westbrook
9. Frank Gore
10. LaDainian Tomlinson
11. Larry Fitzgerald
12. Drew Brees
Anyway, we’ll have more analysis and thoughts on some of the publications as they come out en masse. In the meantime, who would you put in your top 10 or 12 fantasy picks for the 09 season? Do you agree with the experts from above? Or do you have different thoughts?
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Wow, Matt Forte #2? Having Cutler bumps him up my list some–but the lack of WR keeps him below Michael Turner for sure. Not sure about Jones-Drew at #4 (size/durability concerns), Jackson at #5 (durability), Jacobs (durability), Westbrook (just had surgery) either. I would move Tomlinson up (one down year drops him that far?). Not sure on DeAngelo Williams either–love his game, but he is still going to lose some carries to Jonathan Stewart…
Forte was a nice but he doesn’t deserve such a high ranking. At the least I’d switch him with Williams who seemed to be far more productive. And where is Steve Slaton on the list?