In order to be underrated, you have to be rated. Is the color red underrated? Maybe, but I’m not sure many people have blogs talking about the color red.
[Side note: After I wrote that, I did a search to see how many blogs are about, very simply, the color red. I don't even know what to say.]
Ratings are subjective. And, typically, when we perceive someone or something as underrated, it has everything to do with our individual exposure of that someone or something. For instance, I may believe Lance Moore is an underrated fantasy receiver, but to someone who follows a multitude of Saints bloggers and analysts, they may have an entirely different perception.
So remember this as you read on. My idea of “underrated” in fantasy football is finding a player who produces, but not enough people talk about him. There are plenty of players who consistently slip through the cracks in yearly analysis, and these are those guys. These are the unsung heroes, in a sense, of the 2012 fantasy season.
Quarterback
Russel Wilson, Seattle Seahawks – 2012 Fantasy Stats: 11th ranked quarterback, 259 points scored (ESPN Standard)
As Denny and I talked about in our most recent podcast, it’s a little disappointing to now see Russell Wilson get so much love after declaring him a solid selection in 2012 fantasy drafts. As Denny put it, he and I were Russell Wilson hipsters. Now there’s just this unbelievable love for the Seahawks’ quarterback.
What many people don’t realize with Wilson, however, is that his overall fantasy point total this season is dramatically skewed by his sluggish start. While we were all targeting Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III in fantasy throughout the season, Russell Wilson seemed to quietly put up very respectable numbers.
Consider this: Russell Wilson had a higher points per game average from Week 8 through Week 17 than Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. His lowest point total during this time was 8 (week 14), and 6 of his final 9 performances resulted in a game total of 19 points or more. He was Mr. Consistent from a fantasy production standpoint, and that’s why he was underrated. Too many fantasy folks were afraid of using Wilson because of the start to his rookie campaign, but if you got him off the wire and stuck with him, you struck fantasy gold.
Running Back
Steven Jackson, St. Louis Rams - 2012 Fantasy Stats: 16th ranked running back, 150 points scored (ESPN Standard)
Like Russell Wilson, the beginning of the 2012 season was rather lumpish for Jackson. His first score didn’t happen until Week 7, and he failed to reach 100 yards rushing in every performance up until Week 10. But after the Rams’ bye week, Jackson rolled. From weeks 10 to 17, Jackson scored no fewer than 8 fantasy points in a given week. To put that into perspective, Steven Jackson was producing at a Doug Martin or Frank Gore level throughout the second half of 2012.
Now, I’m not saying that Jackson was underrated across the entire fantasy football season. A late-second round pick in most drafts, Jackson certainly underperformed when compared to his average draft position. But, generally, Jackson seemed to be written off in terms of fantasy. How often was he a recommendation for daily leagues? How many times did you see him mentioned on Twitter? Overall, the perception surrounding Jackson was that he was a bust. When you dig into his numbers, however, you see that he was more than usable throughout the second part of 2012.
Wide Receiver
Mike Williams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 2012 Fantasy Stats: 24th ranked wide receiver, 146 points scored (ESPN Standard)
Not enough people talked about the number two target in Tampa this season. While the spotlight was on Vincent Jackson, Mike Williams silently had another solid year at receiver. He hauled in 9 touchdowns (tied for 11th in the NFL including tight ends), and was just 4 yards away from a 1,000-yard season.
If there’s a knock on Williams, it’s his week-to-week consistency. In 25% of his games, Williams scored 3 or fewer fantasy points. Even at wide receiver, a generally inconsistency position, that’s not good.
But his big play ability kept him more than fantasy relevant. He scored 11 or more points in half of his 2012 campaign, which is arguably a better overall quality start rate than Aaron Rodgers.
To me, there’s no reason Mike Williams deserves his middle-of-the-road WR3 perception. The guy has been steady as can be through his first three seasons in the NFL, and he’s doing it in a system that is absurdly unreliable.
Tight End
Heath Miller, Pittsburgh Steelers - 2012 Fantasy Stats: 4th ranked tight end, 125 points scored (ESPN Standard)
Heath Miller, who has perennially been a waiver wire play in fantasy, really had a fantastic season. I don’t think he was necessarily as overlooked as the three players above, but I do think people took his talents and numbers for granted.
The Steelers’ tight end scored 10 fewer points than Tony Gonzalez this season, and just 19 less than the typical second-round draft choice, Jimmy Graham. And when you get into Heath’s numbers, you find some phenomenal consistency. His 6 double-digit performances matched Jimmy Graham, and his 8 touchdowns were spread across 7 games. In other words, if you started Heath Miller every week he played in 2012, you had a 47% chance of him scoring in that game. Pretty impressive for a position with limited predictability.
Given his build, Miller isn’t the kind of player that’s going to get 100-yards in a game. In fact, he didn’t do that once in 2012. What he’s done, especially in Todd Haley’s offense, is solidified himself as Roethlisberger’s go-to third down and red zone target. When you’ve got that, you’re a great fantasy play at tight end. It’s that simple.
JJ is the owner and webmaster of lateroundqb.com and the author of "The Late Round Quarterback: It's Fantasy Football Strategy on Steroids". Born and raised in Pittsburgh, he's a huge Steelers fan and has a collection of over 60 football jerseys. You can find him on Twitter 
6 Comments
I don’t like this list that much. It seems to me like those guys are rated just about right. Maybe I just have different criteria, but here are some guys that I think are truly undervalued:
QB – Colin Kaepernick (#25)… 14, 18, 19, 14, 17, 20, 14, 19. Those were his performances in standard scoring leagues for his eight starts. Pure consistency; no truly great games, but no clunkers either. Extrapolate those numbers over the full season and Kaepernick is the #8 fantasy QB.
I think Thelateroundqb really dropped the ball here. I always use their strategy and try to be the last guy in my league to draft a QB. To establish some credibility I’ll say that in 2011, I was all-in on Matt Stafford as a later pick; in 2012 it was Matt Ryan. If you’re going to wait until the mid-rounds for a QB next fall, I think this is the guy you want.
WR – Percy Harvin (#41)… I don’t think I need to go into much detail here. His first eight games were the epitome of production plus consistency. Quite simply, I think his ADP will remain about the same as last fall (5-6th round), and I think that is a steal.
WR – Danario Alexander (#37)… Another guy who played only half of the season. 104 points over eight games extrapolates to 208 fantasy points. This mark would have left Alexander tied with… Brandon Marshall as the #2 wider receiver. And this is a guy who will probably be drafted as a bench player next year.
RB – CJ Spiller (#7)… Wait, this guy was the #7 overall RB, how could he be underrated? Spiller finished the season with 50 fewer carries than Ray Rice, and 7 fewer points (257-206 vs 207-199). Every time Spiller received double-digit carries, he produced double-digit points.
We are looking at a likely second round pick who is safe and has enormous potential. Spiller is a mid-range RB1 in his current situation, and has #1 overall upside if Fred Jackson is removed from the picture.
TE – Jimmy Graham (#1) and Rob Gronkowski (#2)… Yes, the top two TE are underrated right now. Gronk missed five games, Graham missed two and played with a serious wrist injury in at least five others – and yet, at the end of the season these two were the top scorers at the position again. Their ADPs will likely drop next fall, but their consistency and upside remains exactly the same.
It may be far to early to project, but you could easily end up with a draft like,
1 Ray Rice
2 CJ Spiller
3 Jimmy Graham
4 RB/WR
5 Percy Harvin
6 RB/WR
7 Danario Alexander
8 Colin Kaepernick
Fill in the blanks and that’s a potential championship team. You could even snag Ryan/Stafford/Romo in the fourth if you aren’t totally comfortable with Kaepernick as your starter, but I think you’re reaching four rounds early for very similar output.
I think you’re missing a key point to the article. This isn’t about VALUABLE PLAYERS. This was a look back on 2012, not any sort of projection to 2013. The players above, as I noted in the intro, are players who people wrote off or didn’t speak much about throughout the season.
I would never call CJ Spiller “underrated” because I think everyone knew what he was capable of. He was a starter week in and week out.
How would you consider Gronk or Graham underrated when EVERYONE is talking about them? I don’t quite understand that logic.
Again, I think the intro of the article is what’s different with our thinking here.
In all sincerity, I’m not even entirely sure what the original comment is trying to portray.
I made the same concession at the beginning, it all just depends on what criteria you want to use. To butcher what you said, perceiving somebody as underrated just depends on our level of exposure to that player.
Your article says Russell Wilson is a low-end QB1, Steven Jackson a RB2, Mike Williams a low-end WR2, and Heath Miller a top-5 TE. That’s just about where myself and those I talked strategy with rated them all season after the first few weeks, although I probably spend a lot more time on fantasy analysis than most casual players.
I understand that your article was just trying to draw some attention to players who had good under-the-radar seasons, I’m sure it was news to many and I still enjoyed the read. I guess I was just hoping for something that could be a more useful tool when looking forward.
No disrespect intended, I really enjoy reading all of your content and tend to employ a very similar approach. Just this one article really left me wanting for more, so I wanted to contribute some guys who I felt better fit the criteria for “underrated” in a fantasy sense.
My thoughts were based on anticipating ADP next fall. I think that Ray Rice (should have included him initially) will go mid-late first round even though he is still a top 3 back. Spiller will go in the second round when he should go in the first. Graham and Gronkowski’s ADP will fall into the 20-40 range even though they retain the same value as when they went 10-20 overall last fall. And I think the other three guys I listed will be mid-round steals.
Before you say that it’s too early to project 2013, I know that. Its just easier to make these lists when the season is still fresh on my mind. Doing it immediately instead of looking back later at full-season numbers makes it much easier to identify things like Arian Foster’s last few games in 2009, Jimmy Graham’s late surge in 2010, Percy Harvin’s great finish to 2011, and Danario Alexander’s dominance over the second half of 2012 – so I can draft them in the mid-rounds the next fall.
If you want more clarity on my original comment let me know, but I hope it makes more sense now.
Russell Wilson, as I pointed out, was the BEST fantasy option after Week 8 this season. That’s just their cumulative statistics. It doesn’t tell the whole story regarding their value, hence the reason he was underrated in fantasy.
As for the ADP and next season – I’m not at all disagreeing with you, it’s just not at all related to what I wrote about in this article.
I know you’re not intending to disrespect me, the article, or the site. I appreciate the commenting – I think it’s enjoyable.
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