The Ballad of Anquan Boldin

I don't need a long soliloquy on Anquan Boldin. If you're in a league with me, he's rubbish, absolute rubbish. Run away. Go not pass Go. Just get far, far away before your soul is consumed.

Obviously he's a stud. He had his face flattened in the Jet game, and three weeks later caught two touchdown passes. Here's the stat to make you pause. Boldin outscored Larry Fitzgerald in 8 of his 12 games last year. He caught 89 passes in those 12 games. That rounds out to about 120 passes for a year. That's a lot. I just need to put my head down and keep walking, since I can't have Boldin. He's going to the first chap who drafts a WR in our league. The owner who had him last year kept Reggie Wayne, and it's hard to argue against the apple of Peyton Manning's eye.

It's LT who's keeping me up nights. I have the second pick, and I think that LT will be there. If I take him he'll be the 14th RB off the board. That feels like value. People thought that he slowed down last year and they were right. If being the seventh rated RB is wearing down, I'll take it.

He's on a downward trend. Three years ago he set the single-season TD mark with 31. He had 2300 total yards and 50+ catches. His touches and TDs have declined from 404 and 31 to 370 and 18 to 344 and 12. Does that mean we're looking at 300 and 9 this year? Even at that rate of depreciation, he's still a good pick as my RB2.

In my league scoring he had three single-digit games in the first half of the year. In the second, he had none. He was consistent. His workload was 150 carries and 23 catches. Can you be more consistent than 171 touches in the first half and 173 in the second?

If I want to be scared, I look at the tale of Shaun Alexander. On top of the world when he was 28, Alexander was all but finished the following year. He didn't fall off the cliff; he was dropped off the Empire State Building. Or he could be Curtis Martin, who had a mediocre year when he was 29, and then ran for more than 3000 yards the following two years.

Did the Chargers give Darren Sproles franchise tag money just to return kicks and get five touches a game? Look at last year's first Denver game as the high end of what to expect. In that one-point thriller best known for Ed Hochuli's blown call, Sproles had seven carries for 53 yards and two catches for 72 yards and a touchdown. That's an 18-point game. Will he be more of an offensive force? He had 75 kick-return touches and 90 from scrimmage. In those touches he scored seven touchdowns. If he could approach Leon Washington's 123 scrimmage touches, he'd be a flex in fantasy. Naturally he's more valuable in leagues that include return yardage and touchdowns.

I see LT as a value where I can get him. In a one-year no-keeper situation he's perfect. I can't see picking up Sproles as insurance. I took Ray Rice as Willis McGahee insurance last year instead of picking up an upside guy like Steve Slaton or Pierre Thomas.

Another factor is that I already have Philip Rivers. The upside is that the Chargers were first in the NFL in touchdown passes last year, and the year before were second in rushing touchdowns. LT's the goal line back. And in the somewhat rare occurences where Rivers throws a TD pass to LT, I score double. Finally, LT has seven career touchdown passes. I'll need a strong QB2 and RB3 for the bye week and in the likely chance that the Chargers sew up the AFC West early (say in mid-November). The offense is very good and the defense shouldn't be nearly as horrible.