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 least, 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. (So, for example, Washington ended up with seven greens out of a possible 18 – nine PPR and nine non-PPR projections – so I ended up “hitting” on 39% of my projections for the Redskins.) 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 Tom Brady would send my grade down much more than a miss on Josh Reed. Conversely, a hit on Brady would skyrocket my grade much more than a hit on Reed.

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 EAST

On-Target – (21%) Reed, Evans (non-PPR). In all honesty, my forecasts for the 2009 Bills offense weren’t as bad as they appear here. I actually predicted the demise of Buffalo’s offense following the late preseason firing of OC Turk Schonert, but it happened after my last Big Board was released, so I’m compelled to use the projections that I shared with each of you beforehand. Suffice it to say that if another preseason like 2009 happens again in the near future (where OC's are fired just before the start of the season) and you haven’t drafted your fantasy teams yet, feel free to dramatically downgrade every offensive player or place them on your do-not-draft list.

Off-Target – (36%) Jackson, Evans (PPR), Lynch and Owens (the last two in non-PPR). Evans and Owens suffered mightily due to mediocre play at QB and the level of play-calling inexperience from the coaches who replaced Schonert. While the Bills were raving about Jackson in the preseason, it was mostly for his work in the passing game. However, Lynch’s three-game suspension to begin the season was the only opening Jackson needed as he carried the Bills’ offense in Lynch’s absence. The lesson to be learned here is that very few RBs anymore have their spot in the lineup “committee-proofed”. Three games is more than enough time nowadays for a player to go from best supporting actor to lead man. Think of it this way: if you knew a RB was named the starter for Weeks 14-16, would you do everything in your power to acquire him? The same thought process should apply to Weeks 1-3, with the potential added bonus being that you may be able to use him beyond that time frame.

Misses – (29%) Edwards, Owens and Lynch (the last two in PPR). Having touched on Lynch and Owens already, perhaps no one was more affected by the departure of Schonert than Edwards. Combine that with the porous offensive line, Owens’ penchant for dropping passes and Evans’ inconsistency and the QB was bound to fail. My main mistake with Edwards (besides releasing my projections before Schonert was fired) was slightly overestimating the “The Terrell Owens Influence”.

Grade: C While I could not have foreseen Schonert’s firing (which saves me from a D-grade), I was a bit too carefree in projecting Owens’ impact on the team. I’m fortunate Jackson wasn’t a complete miss as well, but in my defense there was little evidence prior to the 2009 regular season to suggest that Buffalo would be so quick to push aside Lynch in the event Jackson performed well as the feature back.

On-Target – (6%) Brown (non-PPR). There was very little evidence before the start of the 2009 season that the Dolphins would a) not use their RBs more often in the passing game with no consistent play-making threat at WR or TE and b) make Williams the receiving back after spending most of the offseason praising Brown’s hands. A typical 30-catch season, 200-300 receiving-yard season would have made my 2009 projections for Brown a definite hit.

Off-Target – (25%) Fasano, Brown (PPR) and Ginn (non-PPR). Much like a pitcher picking up a win in baseball, scoring touchdowns in the NFL can sometimes be a fluke. The elite players in both sports almost always turn in a high number of wins or TDs each season, but when the non-elite players seemingly come out of nowhere, we are often left to ask ourselves if the performance was the start of a trend or a chance occurrence. Despite posting a better per-game average in terms of yards and catches than 2008, Fasano’s 2009 season saw him visit the end zone five fewer times. Those missing scores were the difference between being a fantasy revelation in 2008 and a marginal TE2 at best in 2009. Ginn, who became just the latest example of a WR that failed to produce to the level that his incredible athletic ability says he should, certainly suffered from Miami’s run-heavy approach. But given the fact that he rarely ever saw double coverage, someone with his skill set should have posted more than three decent fantasy performances last season. Ginn appeared ready to assume the WR1 mantle in Miami after a huge performance in Week 2, but pretty much fell flat on his face instead.

Misses – (44%) Pennington, White, Williams and Ginn (PPR). Unfortunately, Pennington was lost for the season in the third week and never had a chance to come close to my projections. White was supposed to be the point man for the evolution of the “Wildcat” but the team rarely gave him a chance to live up to his second-round draft status. Williams was a revelation – first as Mr. Outside to Brown’s Mr. Inside and then as the lead back once Brown was lost for the season. The key lesson I will take from this group of projections is to value what I see with my own eyes in the preseason more than what I am reading from the camps. In this case, I could see Williams running every bit as well as Brown in the preseason, but I chose to instead believe that he appeared to “look every bit his age” in practice.

Grade: D While I believe that Pennington’s injury had a significant impact on the accuracy of my projections, it doesn’t change the fact I missed the boat on Williams and, to a certain extent, Ginn.

(While I’ll put some blame on the injury and coaching situations for each of my first two team projections – as well as the fact that Buffalo and Miami were the first two teams I projected –the off-target and miss rates for these two teams are unacceptable to me. Fortunately, it gets better…

Hits – (28%) Morris, Taylor (PPR), Faulk and Welker (both non-PPR). Not much to say here outside of knowing that as long as New England insists on carrying at least four RBs – especially these four – every one of them is going to get a shot at some point, usually due to injury.

On-Target – (72%) Brady, Maroney, Moss, Galloway, Watson, Faulk and Welker (the last two in PPR) and Taylor (non-PPR). I admittedly set the bar a bit high for Brady, but I really can’t complain too much about being less than two points per game off. While Moss certainly had his days, I was probably too optimistic with him as well, considering the fact that Brady was still hesitant about stepping into his throws following knee surgery, meaning he probably wasn’t going to go too crazy with the deep ball.

Off-Target – (0%)

Misses – (0%)

Grade: A- Now that is more like it! I am particularly proud of just how well I handicapped the Pats’ backfield, which is always a nightmare for fantasy owners.

Hits – (19%) Cotchery, Smith (PPR). I’m not going to brag too much about coming close on Smith’s PPR value, but I’ll take a bit of pride in nailing Cotchery. While we knew going into 2009 that New York would be running the football a lot, it wasn’t easy to distinguish what receiver would carry the passing game in the preseason: Cotchery or Keller. As it turned out, Keller was less involved than I had predicted and I was in the minority of people who felt he would not be a TE1-worthy player in fantasy.

On-Target – (56%) Sanchez, Greene, Keller, Washington, Clowney and Smith (the last three in non-PPR). There was little reason to believe Sanchez would have a Matt Ryan-like impact for such a run-heavy team, but as it turns out, I was just a bit too optimistic about him (and I thought I was being pretty critical of him last summer). Clowney, who once again failed to deliver on his preseason promise, was quickly made an afterthought once Braylon Edwards was acquired.

Off-Target – (25%) Jones, Washington and Clowney (the last two in PPR). While the committee approach was the right move for Jones and Washington, I rarely felt Washington was used like he should have been prior to his gruesome injury in Week 7, which contributed greatly to my margin of error with him. With Washington out of the way and Greene injured early and fumbling at midseason, the path was clear for Jones to touch the ball at least 19 times in every game from Week 10 until the end of the regular season.

Misses – (0%).

Grade: B+ This one is a tough one for me to grade simply because I feel like I got most of them right, but I got the timing wrong. I sang the praises of Greene all season long, but he didn’t reward me (or his fantasy owners) until the playoffs. Had he not been injured early on and not fumbled so much around midseason, I believe my projections would have been pretty accurate. With that said, Jones was the workhorse back all regular season long, therefore, I must grade myself down for being as far off-target with him as I was.

NFC EAST

Hits – (22%) Choice, Crayton. It’s hard to get overly excited about nailing the numbers of the Cowboys’ underused third-down back and their slot WR.

On-Target – (28%) Jones, Barber and Bennett (both non-PPR), Witten (PPR). On a positive note, I did a pretty good job at predicting how many points per game would come out of the Dallas backfield, however, I underestimated the team’s fascination with Felix’s big-play ability. Believe me, Jones has a place on this team to be sure, but the Cowboys’ must do their best not to overexpose him. At 5-10 and 218 pounds, he isn’t a lightweight, but he hasn’t exactly shown the ability to stay healthy for an entire season either. As for Barber, it was nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which he was more productive as a runner and receiver (on a per-yard basis) but catch half as many balls as he did in 2008 and score two fewer times.

Off-Target – (33%) Romo, Barber, Bennett and Williams (the last three in PPR), Witten (non-PPR). Obviously, the emergence of Austin gave the ‘Boys the WR that not many people thought they had, which obviously catapulted Romo’s overall point total. How fluky was Witten’s season in 2009? Of players with 94 or more catches in recent NFL history, I could only find two players (Larry Centers, 1995; Troy Brown, 2002) who posted more catches than Witten and scored three TDs or less. If Witten scores 4-7 times like he did in four of previous six seasons, my non-PPR projection starts looking a whole lot better.

Misses – (17%) Austin, Williams (non-PPR). While I certainly enjoyed the contributions of Austin on a few teams last season, it is players like him who drive prognosticators crazy. Think about it – at some point in practice, Austin has to be showing off the kind of skill that allows him to explode in his first career start. How can that player be fighting Crayton for snaps through a quarter of the season? This goes to show you that on a number of teams, changes don’t get made when the coach wants them to get made, changes happen when the GM (or in this case, the team owner) is ready for them to happen.

Grade: C- In an effort to compliment and criticize myself at the same time, it’s hard to give myself a decent grade when I see a double-digit miss on the per-game average of a player. Conversely, at least he was on my radar, which is more than I can say for most of the fantasy community. Still, I was too far off on Romo and bought a bit too much into Jerry Jones’ hype of a Bennett breakout.

Hits – (12.5%) Bradshaw. It wasn’t hard to see Bradshaw was going to pick up a big chunk of the production Derrick Ward left behind when he left for Tampa Bay, but it wasn’t easy to foresee just how well he was going to do, especially in light of his season-long injury issues.

On-Target – (25%) Manning, Ware. As I will detail below, it’s not difficult to understand how Manning made my projection for him look a bit off when the Giants transitioned from a power-running team into a pass-heavy offense, doing so without a single accomplished WR going into the season.

Off-Target – (50%) Jacobs, Nicks, Boss, Smith, Hixon (the last two in non-PPR). Although I had the right idea with Smith’s PPR projection, even the most enthusiastic Smith supporter could not have foreseen him catching over 100 passes last season. While many blamed Jacobs for running a bit timid, I believe I was one of the first to suggest that he appeared to be running with a bum knee. As it turns out, I was right. Unfortunately, the realization of a regular season injury can’t come in the preseason. Nicks benefited from the fact that he entered the league with a pro-ready body, but just as was the case for Smith, it would have been hard to foresee New York turning into such a pass-heavy offense. It would have been equally difficult to believe Hixon would fall victim to injury in Week 1 as well, paving the way for Mario Manningham and Nicks to get involved right away.

Misses – (12.5%) Smith, Hixon (both PPR). As is the case most years in the NFL, a significant drop in one area tends to lead to an incredible rise in another area. With the Giants’ inability to run the football last year, Smith was often required to convert the tough yards Jacobs had in previous years. Just about everyone had Smith tagged for a career year, but who knew New York would turn into a passing team and give any WR a chance to catch 100 balls?

Grade: C- Although no one could have really foreseen the dramatic falloff of touchdowns from Jacobs (or knee injury that likely contributed to his woes), missing both his PPR and non-PPR value by nearly four points per game is too much. Considering the huge season Smith enjoyed, I wasn’t as far off as I could have been. With that said, the gap was still too much.

Hits – (25%) McNabb, McCoy. Outside of the Terrell Owens years, McNabb has been a good – but not great – fantasy option. Much like a game manager in the NFL, McNabb the fantasy player has typically been good enough to not be the reason why his owners’ team wins a game but rarely is he ever the difference maker in a fantasy win or loss. So, in some respects I am proud I was able to reflect that in my predictions, although he was one player that I would have expected to be next to elite in 2009. A prouder moment was realizing how close I was on McCoy. The Eagles never found a concrete role for their rookie RB, but he produced just about every time HC Andy Reid allowed him a chance to touch the ball on a semi-regular basis. Considering how much hybrid RB/FB Leonard Weaver chipped away at his value late in the season, I’m probably somewhat fortunate I was as close as I was on McCoy.

On-Target – (38%) Jackson, Avant, Maclin. The Eagles’ projection I was most pleased with was Jackson, who more than fulfilled the top-end WR2 prediction I placed on him last summer. He would have done even better, but Philly was highly unpredictable with how often he saw the ball – a topic I’ve touched upon on more than one occasion. It’s a shame that I didn’t just project Curtis to miss half of the season and mark Maclin down for the same production. However, I really had no strong reason to believe that Curtis would go down to injury so quickly and that Maclin would adapt so quickly after coming from the spread offense he played in at Missouri.

Off-Target – (18.5%) Curtis, Celek (non-PPR). I’m not going to raise a big fuss over missing on Curtis. I can’t think of an owner that would have been willing to count on him entering the season as a starter in a three-WR league. I’m actually happy that my projections for Curtis – Philly’s WR2 to enter the season – were almost spot on for Maclin, who ended up becoming the Eagles’ WR2.

Misses – (18.5%) Westbrook, Celek (PPR). Any veteran fantasy owner knew going into last season what they had in Westbrook – a potential fantasy-scoring machine limited only by his (in)ability to stay on the field. Last year – after putting together three straight relatively healthy seasons – Westbrook regressed into the same injury risk he was at the beginning of his career, although it’s hard to pin the blame for 2009 solely on him. I was probably a bit too cautious on Celek in retrospect, although I had trouble believing defenses wouldn’t adjust to him after his great run in the 2008 postseason. When Jackson stepped up (taking the onus off him) and the short-yardage running game continued to fail (forcing Philly to opt to pass on short-yardage conversions), it combined to become the perfect storm for the Eagles TE.

Grade: B- On one hand, I felt I was predicting Celek’s breakout prior to last season. Little did I know that in his first year as the full-time starter that he would go on to blow anything a healthy L.J. Smith ever did out of the water. Westbrook hurts the grade a bit too, but even as injury-prone as he has been throughout his career, I’m not going to grade myself too harshly on a player who was extremely unlucky when it came to injuries last season. Surprisingly, I feel my hits were more powerful than my misses and I scored twice as many “on-targets” as “off-targets”.

Hits – (39%) Betts, Moss, Kelly, Randle El (non-PPR). I don’t expect a great deal of congratulations for recognizing Moss was the only WR that Campbell had for most of the season that could help him move the ball down the field. Still, it took some guts on my part to predict he would suffer a 2-3 FPPG decline from his 2008 rebirth.

On-Target – (33%) Campbell, Cooley, Randle El (PPR), Thomas (non-PPR). Campbell was miscast in the West Coast offense from the start, but that didn’t keep him from posting above-average fantasy numbers more often than he should have, considering his supporting cast. That’s why it is a bit shocking to me that I actually missed low on his projection as I was higher than most on him entering the season.

Off-Target – (22%) Portis, Thomas (PPR), Davis (non-PPR). As I’ll reference later, the Redskins’ offensive line entered 2009 as one of the biggest question marks and ended the season as one of the worst units at any position in the league. I’ll admit that despite predicting a down year for Portis, I was still too high on his final numbers, which was probably my biggest mistake with my projections for the Redskins.

Misses – (6%) Davis (PPR). I’m not going to raise a big fuss over this one; the only reason Davis saw enough playing time to score as well as he did was due to Cooley’s injury.

Grade: B+ (For what it is worth, I sure seemed to close out each division strong in this article.) It’d be easy to knock my grade down due to Portis, but to be fair, he never had a chance once his below-average line started falling apart at the seams. Those types of occurrences will happen and I won’t hold myself accountable for predicting offensive line injuries. The keys here were nailing Moss and getting pretty close on Cooley. Campbell was a plus as well and is the reason I will not give myself anything lower than a “B”.

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