In that same vein, I hope to apply that same kind of pressure to the owners in all of my leagues by beating my opponents to the punch in regards to personnel moves. Sometimes, reaching a conclusion about a player too quickly is much like trying to blitz Peyton Manning – dangerous and painful. However, coming to a correct conclusion two weeks or two minutes quicker than your opponents is considered foresight. Fantasy owners can be a uneasy lot, knowing that one two-or-three-game losing streak can wreak irreparable damage to his/her team’s chances to make a visit to the fantasy postseason. But just as it is in the NFL and in life, it’s hard to land the big prize by playing scared. Thus, I will strive each week to help each of you become a smart blitzer, so to speak.

It’s never easy for a person to admit their mistakes. It’s even harder to do so in front of a national audience. But admitting – and learning from – one’s mistakes is a vital part to growing and becoming a better person and, for the purposes of this four-part series of articles, a better fantasy prognosticator.

There are many fantasy “experts” that would not dare do what I am about to do, which is look back at their projections from late August or early September of last season and revisit their triumphs as well as their regrets. (And yes, I was as shockingly off on some of my projections just about as often as I was right on the mark.) But I believe this is a useful exercise for all parties involved and perhaps will give even more credence to my belief in the PSAs. At the very lNorth, it should allow each of us to see just how much faith I should have in my ability to “predict the schedule” and how much trust I deserve from each of you when I do so.

After much debate on how I should go about deciding whether or not I projected a player accurately, I finally settled on the system that I explain over the next few paragraphs. It didn’t make much sense to stack up my 15-game forecasts against the player’s actual 16-game numbers and with the number of teams that have essentially taken Week 17 off recently (if not most of December), it seemed prudent to measure each player on their points-per-game average. The next step was deciding how to measure accuracy. Again, a simple hit-miss system was too rigid, so I added two more categories to analyze the accuracy of my projections.

Hit: my projection was within +/- 1 FPPG (fantasy point per game)
On-Target: my projection was within +/- 1.1 and 3 FPPG
Off-Target: my projection was within +/- 3.1 and 5 FPPG
Miss: my projection missed by more than 5 FPPG

Before we dive into the heart of this walk down memory lane, I want to explain two more areas I decided to address: 1) the percentage listed next to the “hit”, “on-target”. “off-target” and “miss” and 2) the names listed after the percentage. The percentage is simply a reflection of how much each of those four standards fit into the accuracy “pie” while the names reflect the players who actually fell into that category. (For example, Chicago ended up with six greens out of a possible 14 – seven PPR and seven non-PPR projections – so I ended up “hitting” on 43% of my projections for the Bears.) Finally, I will hand myself a grade at the end of each “team report”, with weight on that grade being given to the quality of player. For example, a miss on a player like Aaron Rodgers would send my grade down much more than a miss on Jordy Nelson. Conversely, a hit on Rodgers would skyrocket my grade much more than a hit on Nelson.

Explanations of column headers below:

PPR Margin – The difference (plus or minus) between a player’s actual FPPG and the FPPG I projected for him prior to the start of the 2009 season in PPR leagues.

NPPR Margin – The difference (plus or minus) between a player’s actual FPPG and the FPPG I projected for him prior to the start of the 2009 season in non-PPR leagues.

Actual PPR – The amount of FPPG a player scored during the 2009 season in PPR leagues.

Actual NPPR – The amount of FPPG a player scored during the 2009 season in non-PPR leagues.

PPR Avg – The FPPG average I projected for the player prior to the start of the 2009 season in PPR leagues.

NPPR Avg – The FPPG average I projected for the player prior to the start of the 2009 season in non-PPR leagues.

AFC North

On-Target – (31%) Flacco, McGahee, Clayton (non-PPR). Because I will attempt to convince everyone below that I really wasn’t too far off on Rice below, I’ll fess up to getting lucky with Flacco, as it took an injury and near collapse of his first-half play for my projection to fall into on-target range. McGahee was a difficult projection last summer (as most goal-line specialists are), so given how good I was feeling about Rice as the preseason went on, I’m happy to end up in the blue on McGahee.

Off-Target – (31%) McClain, Rice, Smith and Heap (the last three in non-PPR). I feel the worst about my Heap projection, but once again, it’s easy to be well off on a projection when the OC announces during the summer that his #1 TE would stay in and block the majority of the time. Going forward, we have to assume that 2009 will represent the ceiling of what Heap can do production-wise with the incoming talent (Anquan Boldin and two solid pass-catching rookie TEs).

Misses – (19%) Rice, Smith, Heap (all PPR). The only one I’ll address here is Rice, who I actually promoted here as a player I felt had a legit shot at becoming a first-round fantasy pick in 2010. Once again, I sold him a bit short in final Big Board (which was my last projection release), so I’m bound to stick to that instead. One trend that is developing recently with Cam Cameron-coached offenses is that he spends the first quarter of the season resting the player he is eyeballing as his feature back (or at the very least, evaluating the talent he has at RB) before choosing his man and making him his bellcow. Since leaving San Diego years ago, he has played the same frustrating game with Ronnie Brown (and the unforgettable Jesse Chatman) in Miami and now with Rice and McGahee in Baltimore, one season after making Le’Ron McClain the man to own of all the Ravens’ RBs.

Grade: B Oh, what perfect symmetry! It’d be easy to grade this a “B-“ or “C+” because of Rice, but I feel somewhat justified by giving myself a solid “B” as my final analysis of Rice would have been on-target. Otherwise, I’m not too concerned about missing on Smith and Heap and more pleased with the players I either hit on or was on-target with like Mason and McGahee.

On-Target – (19%) Benson, Caldwell (non-PPR). While even my most optimistic projection did not have Benson challenging for the NFL rushing crown at any point during last season, I dropped roughly 200 yards off from my early projections for him after concluding that he lacked explosion after watching “Hard Knocks” and all their preseason games. Apparently, he and the Bengals’ line was playing at half-speed in the preseason because when the regular season rolled around, Cincinnati made a lot of good rushing defenses look pretty average. The lesson to be learned here is that until further notice, the Bengals will almost always feature a single RB (usually a one-dimensional power runner) and complement him with a pass-catching complement.

Off-Target – (44%) Palmer, Scott, Caldwell (PPR), Coles and Henry (both non-PPR). How volatile can a projection be? Through the first half of last season, Palmer was on pace for 3,664 yards, 28 TDs and 14 INTs. (My projection was 3,885-26-13.) Then, without much of a warning, he went for 1,262-7-6 in the second half and rumors about the health of his elbow were rampant. Why? Well, this may be one of those rare cases where we should listen to the player himself, as Palmer cited the importance of Henry ability to stretch the field despite his lack of production. The numbers seem to back that up because after Henry was lost for the season in Week 9 (obviously prior to his unfortunate passing), Palmer’s numbers dropped off dramatically.

Misses – (12%) Coles, Henry (both PPR). By far, one of the worst misses of my projections was the impact of Coles. Once again – as I did with several players – I soured on him shortly my final Big Board, but he was brutal. Certainly, Palmer wasn’t nearly as accurate as he has been throughout his career, but how often were his poor passes thrown in the direction of Coles? Quite often, as I recall. There’s something to be said about a QB and a WR who just never appear to be on the same page.

Grade: B Certainly, the projection of Coles wasn’t my greatest work, but forecasting the rebound of Ochocinco and actually being on-target with Benson should win the day as both players were more highly regarded in fantasy drafts last summer (and thus counted on more).

Hits – (7%) Massaquoi (non-PPR). I predicted the Browns to be pretty bad last year and they didn’t disappoint in that regard. In fact, their offense was historically futile for much of the season. With that in mind, it comes as some surprise that I was pretty accurate on Massaquoi, who I felt would be a typical rookie. What I did not expect was that he would be the Browns’ “lead” WR by the time October rolled around.

On-Target – (57%) Quinn, Lewis, Harrison, Edwards (non-PPR), Massaquoi (PPR). I’m not sure if this is a victory of sorts or not. Forecasting a drop-off from Lewis did not require a great deal of foresight, but I’m pretty pleased about being in the ballpark with Harrison and Edwards. While many folks labeled Edwards as a fourth-round-caliber WR, I was pretty confident about not wanting him anywhere until after the seventh (and I didn’t get him). It turns out I need to be even more pessimistic with him than I was. Harrison, unfortunately, was a bit better than what I’m sure the Browns hoped. What do I mean? Because of Harrison’s December explosion, he forced the Cleveland brass to re-adjust their end-game with him as the Browns probably would have preferred him remaining in the third-down RB role they’ve had him pigeonholed into since he joined the team.

Off-Target – (21%) Anderson, Edwards (PPR). Missing the boat on Anderson can’t be considered a big deal in just about any league simply because I doubt anyone was counting on him to do much after Quinn won the QB battle in training camp. Once again, Edwards was too easily covered in most games and suffered from lapses of concentration when he did have his chances to make big plays.

Misses – (14%) Robiskie. To this day, I still can’t believe how little Robiskie saw the field. Certainly, he’s not the greatest athlete but his route-running and smarts should have led him to some decent level of production in 2009. Instead, he saw action in only 11 games and finished with seven catches. Fortunately, I only promoted him as a good bye-week fill-in and bench player.

Grade: B+ Because Cleveland’s offense was so pathetic for most of the season, it’s hard to grade because all anyone had to do was predict about eight FPPG in PPR for any Browns’ fantasy player and five FPPG in non-PPR and they would have done pretty well. In the end, hitting on Massaquoi overrides missing on Robiskie and my on-target players meant much more in fantasy than any of the off-target players.

Hits – (7%) Holmes (non-PPR). Typically, I’ve been pretty good about predicting what Ward will do from year to year. While I wasn’t too far off with him, I was much better with Holmes in 2009. So far in his four-year career, Holmes has been a big-play WR (well over 16 YPC for his career) that has been stopped short of the end zone (five TDs or less in three of his four seasons).

On-Target – (43%) Mendenhall, Ward, Holmes (PPR), Wallace (non-PPR). If only I could have brought Big Ben and Miller to this party, I could have really enjoyed this particular team summary. As is, I’m glad that I was within reason on Mendenhall as Parker’s fall from the starting lineup was fast and furious. To be fair, prior to the San Diego game when Mendenhall locked down the starting job, I can’t remember the last time I saw the combination of such huge holes and powerful running from a single rusher in the same game as I did the night when Pittsburgh destroyed the Chargers on the ground in 2009. Under this current offensive arrangement, Steelers’ third WRs will always be worthy of fantasy consideration because Big Ben has the arm and each WR (Nate Washington and Wallace are the most recent examples) has more than enough speed to make his fantasy team’s day on just one catch.

Off-Target – (14%) Wallace (PPR), Miller (non-PPR). Long one of my favorite TEs because he is one of the few “every-generation” kind of players at his position, Miller showed off his great hands that led him to catch nearly 80% of the passes thrown his way in 2009 en route to career-best numbers almost across the board.

Misses – (36%) Roethlisberger, Parker, Miller (PPR). For far too long, I have predicted that Big Ben’s activity in the pocket would ultimately lead to an untimely injury. I may need to back off that stance because he just continues to play game after game despite taking about 3-4 sacks per contest. While Parker was far from “Fast Willie”, the Steelers’ o-line did next to nothing to help him, so some of the blame rests on the front five.

Grade: D+ Ouch. Even though I have preached year after year that OC Bruce Arians is a coach who loves to throw the ball, he took it to a new level last year and it resulted in a pretty ugly chart above. As you can likely tell, the extra passing plays made a fool out of me and big winners for anyone who stole Roethlisberger and Miller in their drafts. I saved myself from a failing grade with my projections of Ward, Holmes and Mendenhall, but there’s too much red on the board to feel good about my work with the Steelers.

NFC North

Hits – (43%) Cutler, Hester, Clark. Cutler is a classic example of a player that probably performed just about as he should have all things considered (weak supporting cast, new surroundings and offense), but due to the lofty expectations heaped onto him from the start, he was bound to “bust” in his first year as a Bear. However, let’s not forget he threw for a career-high 27 TD passes last season. Yes, his 2009 campaign will be remembered for four games in which he threw at least three INTs, but how much of that was his “gunslinger” ways and how much of that was a result of a running game that was atrocious? It often takes the perfect storm for a QB to thrive in his first year with a new team, so keep that in mind for anyone expecting big things from Donovan McNabb this fall. I was quite pleased to find out that I was so close on Hester. However, he possesses all the physical traits a receiver needs to produce in this league, so I took a roll of the dice on his natural talent overcoming his inexperience at WR and it paid off nicely for me.

On-Target – (28.5%) Bennett, Davis and Olsen (the last two in non-PPR). Bennett was a player many folks had a good feeling about last season, but I doubt many came as close to hitting his FPPG as I did. Regardless, I feel pretty good about getting as close as I did on him. (Now, if only Chicago could have made Olsen the focus of the passing game they had promised to, I could have handed myself a better grade!) If there was a more maddening TE in fantasy last season, I don’t know who he was. While he was setting career highs across the board, Olsen’s weekly consistency likely resulted in a number of headaches for his fantasy owners. And as much as I’d like to tell each of you what the lesson to be learned here was, the fact of the matter is that he could have easily been a Brent Celek clone in fantasy with just a bit more consistency.

Off-Target – (28.5%) Forte, Davis and Olsen (the last two in PPR). While some would call what Forte went through last season a “sophomore slump”, others would suggest he was doomed from the start. The former Tulane product lacked the lateral quickness he showed as a rookie almost from the start (reportedly due to a weight gain), fought through a handful of injuries and suffered from some of the worst run-blocking Chicago fans have seen in years. All this obviously contributed to a lack of confidence in running abilities, although he was able to manage the same kind of receiving numbers (minus the TDs) he did as a rookie.

Misses – (0%)

Grade: B No one in their right mind saw the kind of falloff Forte experienced last season. It’s actually quite surprising to me that I managed an “off-target” with him. Still, he was a “miss” grade-wise because he was a top-three pick in most drafts. Fortunately, no actual misses and hits on two important fantasy players in Cutler and Hester leave me with a good taste in my mouth. Scoring an “on-target” with one of 2009’s favorite sleepers in Bennett rounds out a nice team summary.

Hits – (25%) Pettigrew, B. Johnson, Northcutt (the last two in non-PPR). Even though he didn’t make much of an impact in fantasy, hitting on Pettigrew was a definite feather in my cap. Rookie TEs are among the most difficult to forecast, so I am pleased from a personal standpoint about my forecast on Pettigrew. Bryant Johnson was fairly easy to project because there was little reason to believe he was going to do much more in Detroit with a rookie QB than he had in San Francisco or Arizona, that is, tease fantasy owners with a handful of decent games and disappear for long stretches of the season.

On-Target – (43%) Culpepper, Smith, B. Johnson and Northcutt (both PPR) and Morris (non-PPR). The 2009 season started off promisingly enough for Smith and his owners, but after three weeks, Detroit really struggled to run the ball with any degree of success – certainly not to the level a Scott Linehan-offense is accustomed to rushing the football. Smith’s biggest culprits for his limited success last year were injuries (always tough to project) and a line that just didn’t generate much push up front.

Off-Target – (25%) Stafford, Morris (PPR), C. Johnson (non-PPR). Stafford was a tough projection (as most rookie QBs are). Sure, they may have all the physical tools to succeed, but each coach has his own preference on when to make his QB of the future the QB of the present. Considering how much of the season Johnson played injured and/or faced relentless double- or triple-teams, it’s pretty amazing Stafford held up as well as he did.

Misses – (7%) C. Johnson (PPR). Continuing my thought from above on Johnson, I place most of the blame for his poor fantasy season on those two key factors – injuries and the lack of a quality running mate. Injuries have dogged Johnson in two of his three seasons in the league, but it’s hard to say that he’s injury prone quite yet. Rather than learning from a mistake here, I’m more apt to predict huge numbers for him again this season, simply because I’m not going to miss out on the fun when he revisits (or surpasses) his 2008 totals. It’s not only that he is always a mismatch for any CB, it’s that he is a hard worker as well. I tend to believe when his career comes to an end in 10 or so years, we’ll look back at 2009 as the exception much more than the rule.

Grade: B It’s very tough to grade my projections regarding the 2009 Lions. On one hand, I missed on the most important fantasy player they had, but I feel strongly that injuries made him a shell of his 2008 self. I’ll still dock myself a bit regardless, but I feel very good that two-thirds of my projections for the Lions were in the “hit” or “on-target” categories.

Hits – (39%) Grant, Jones, Jackson and Driver (both PPR), Nelson (non-PPR). For whatever reason, some players (in all sports) only start “heating up” after half the season is over. For as long as he has been the Packers’ lead back, Grant has been one of those second-half standouts. Over the last three years and with 18 fewer carries in the second half of the season, Grant has rushed for over 100 more yards, averaged a better YPC (3.8 first-half, 4.5 second-half) and scored twice as many rushing touchdowns (10 to 5). Just keep this nugget in mind when you own (or trade for) him this season…

On-Target – (28%) Wynn, Nelson (PPR), Jackson and Driver (both non-PPR). For the same reasons Jennings suffered early on (poor tackle play), Driver thrived. Sooner or later, the 35-year-old’s fantasy contributions will start to dwindle. But he has been a remarkably consistent 13 PPG producer in PPR the past three years and may not fall very far from that again in 2010.

Off-Target – (33%) Rodgers, Jennings, Finley. Once again, my final Big Board did not reflect my final true feelings on Rodgers or Finley, but I still would have never forecasted such incredible seasons for either player. I thought with a rejuvenated Grant that Rodgers would not be quite as active as a runner (particularly at the goal line). Instead, he ran just as much as he did in 2008 and did so more effectively. Finley became an absolute matchup nightmare once he returned from injury; it’s hard to remember the last time a TE made such incredible strides from his rookie year to his second season in the production department. I feel the worst about Jennings, who really suffered early on when the Packers’ offensive tackles were giving sacks up left and right. As the protection improved, so did Jennings’ fantasy impact.

Misses – (0%)

Grade: B Am I getting soft on my grading? Perhaps. However, not finding any red on an offensive juggernaut like the Packers has to be worth a lot. Had I been closer on Rodgers and/or Jennings, I would be giving myself an A or A-, but it was not to be. The key here is that while the gap was significant on Rodgers, I was already predicting elite QB numbers for him, so that lessens the blow to my grade somewhat. Either way, nailing Grant’s contributions to fantasy owners make me feel pretty strongly about the grade.

Hits – (28.5%) Peterson, Harvin (PPR), Taylor (non-PPR). As bad as I feel about the Sidney Rice projection below, I feel that good about Peterson’s. Amazingly, as 18-TD seasons go in the league, just about everyone in fantasy circles was disappointed in him - much of that disappointment arose due to his continued ball-security issues and his less-than-AP-like 4.4 YPC. Still, Peterson was amazingly consistent in both PPR and non-PPR (as reflected by his third-place and second-place CRANK score finish in those formats, respectively). With the departure of Taylor in the offseason, his role is only going to grow.

On-Target – (28.5%) Shiancoe, Taylor (PPR), Harvin (non-PPR). When I first noticed how much variance there was between my projections for Harvin’s PPR and non-PPR numbers, I naturally assumed I missed on rushing yards (I projected 230 for him). As it turned out, I was wrong to believe Minnesota would use him near as much in “Wildcat” packages as they let on last summer, so he didn’t have much of an opportunity to run for the two scores I had forecasted. I was also wrong to believe the Vikings would gradually phase Taylor out in favor of Harvin, however, I expect Harvin to be the biggest beneficiary – along with Peterson – of Taylor’s departure. Regardless of whether or not I’ve said it enough yet, Shiancoe is another example of a player that I needed to trust my gut on last year. Certainly, I wasn’t far off on him, but Favre has long loved his TEs (regardless of the talent he’s had at WR through the years), especially in the red zone. I won’t project another 11-TD outburst for him, but he’s probably in line for at least another 7-9 scores in 2010.

Off-Target – (14.5%) Berrian. The former Bear was hampered by a hamstring for most of the preseason. By the time he returned to playable health, Rice had secured all the love Favre had to give. Still, Rice was going to break out in 2009 regardless of who was playing QB simply because he was healthy for the first time as a Viking, but Berrian’s early-season injury woes only made the opening that much larger for Rice.

Misses – (28.5%) Favre, Rice. What can anyone say about Favre? Even in his 40s, if he is playing for an NFL team, he will find someway to make that team rely on his arm, even if said team employs one of the best RBs in the game. While I don’t feel too bad about missing on Favre, I feel absolutely terrible for believing that Berrian, not Rice, would benefit the most from Favre in 2009. Naturally, part of my reason for thinking that was the fact Rice couldn’t stay healthy in his first two seasons. Still, it was idiotic for me not to be just a bit more optimistic on Rice than I was last summer.

Grade: B- As easy as it would be to gloat over Peterson, Harvin and Shiancoe, it’s hard to forgive myself for Favre and especially Rice. Granted, very few expected Favre to put together a season for the ages in 2009, but I stand behind my belief that Rice’s breakout was going to happen last year regardless of whether Favre, Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels was leading the team (although his numbers would have been significantly less with either of the last two QBs) because he was healthy for the first time.

Suggestions, comments, musings about the article or fantasy football in general? E-mail me.