Adrian Peterson's draft stock in 2008

Much like Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson is being talked about as a top 3 (some even say first overall) pick in 2008. As with Brady, I'm a bit skeptical, although after reviewing his first season, I'm less skeptical of him than of Brady.

First things first - I'm going to use a scoring system of 6 pts for a TD, and .1 point per yard rushing and receiving. Here's Peterson's stat line for the whole season.

Rush yards = 1341, Rush TD = 12
Receiving Yards = 268, Receiving TD = 1

That gets us a total of 238.9 points, good for 4th overall behind LT2, Westbrook, and Addai. When you take his per game average (238.9/14 games played = ~ 17 ppg), he jumps ahead of Addai. All in all, it was an impressive first season. But as an owner of Peterson, it felt a bit up and down. Recall that he had two 200 yd + games against Chicago and San Diego. Those games were certainly memorable performances, and created the legend of the Purple Jesus. In those two weeks, he totalled 90.6 points, which was 37% of his total.

That left 148.3 points for the other 12 games, an average of 12.4, which is less impressive. However, if he kept up a 12 point per game pace for a 16 game season, he'd end up with 197.73 points, which would actually get him to sixth this year (behind Jamal Lewis and ahead of Marion Barber). Pretty good. I also took a look at his Crank Score (explained here - http://www.fftoday.com/articles/waldman/gc_consistency.htm), which is basically a measure of how consistently a player is an elite player, a RB1, a RB2, or neither based on their weekly scores. In leagues that start 2 RBs, he moved from around 4th to 8th, depending on the number of teams in the league. But his company at the top included guys like Jamal Lewis (not much upside) and Ronnie Brown (injury concerns) who definitely aren't worth as much as AP in the draft next year (as an aside, Westbrook and LT2 blew everyone away in terms of consistency, with Addai close behind).

Still, I had the lingering sense that Peterson was boom or bust, a guy who would carry you to victory one week and leave you in the cold next week.

I decided to take a closer look at those other weeks to get a sense of how his whole season played out.

Week 1 - ATL - 103 rush, 60 rec, rec TD = 22.3
Week 2 - DET - 66 rush , 52 rec = 11.8
Week 3 - KC - 102 rush , 48 rec, rush TD = 21
Week 4 - GB - 112 rush, 6 rec = 11.8
Week 5 - BYE
Week 6 - CHI - 224 rush , 9 rec, 3 rush TD = 41.1
Week 7 - DAL - 63 rush, 12 rec, rush TD = 13.5
Week 8 - PHI - 70 rush = 7
Week 9 - SD - 296 rush, 19 rec, 3 Rush TD = 49.5
Week 10 - GB - 45 rush, 14 rec = 5.9
Week 11 - OAK - injured - [holy crap, imagine AP against this year's Oakland run D?]
Week 12 - NYG - injured
Week 13 - DET - 116 rush, 10 rec, 2 rush TD = 24.6
Week 14 - SF - 3 rush = .3
Week 15 - CHI - 78 rush, 17 rec, 2 rush TD = 21.5
Week 16 - WAS - 27 rush , 21 rec = 4.8
Week 17 - DEN - 36 rush = 3.6

What's notable is that for the first half of the season, he was pretty consistently a good play - only the 7 point game in Philly dipped below double digits. He had four such games in the second half, and most problematically, three of those games came in weeks 14, 16, and 17 - the playoffs. The SF game was an unmitigated disaster, and the Washington game is the one that stings for me because it killed me in my championship game.

Was this a case of the roookie hitting the "rookie wall"? Football Outsiders did some excellent research in Pro Football Prospectus 2007 disproving the "rookie wall" thoery. Indeed, I think AP's problems were caused mostly by lingering effects from his knee injury and the re-emergence of Chester Taylor. That brings up my two biggest concerns with drafting Peterson early.

First, the injury history is hard to ignore. He hasn't played a full season at the collegiate or pro level yet. Some of the collegiate injuries were broken bones, which don't tend to have lingering effects. But ligament damage is more problematic, even if it was only the LCL. Any owner thinking about drafting him early will have to consider their own personal willingness to take on injury risk.

Second, if Chester Taylor is still in the backfield, he will see some carries, and if he's the one who happens to bust off the long touchdown (see the SF game), that could make for a bad fantasy day for AP. Moreover, using Taylor may be necessary to keep Peterson healthy - in other words, a RBBC, at least when Peterson is banged up. Maybe you won't get burned in the playoffs next year, but is that a risk you want to take?

On the other hand, he was more consistent than I thought, and he obviously gives you more upside than anyone besides LT2 on any given week. He can break a huge, huge game, which is a pretty sweet characteristic in a top 5 pick.

So where does he fall? He's definitely behind LT2 for me. He'd be behind Westbrook for me as well, since Westbrook was just so consistent this year. He and Addai are very close for my taste, which would put him around the 3rd or 4th pick (since no QB should be taken that high, see Brady post below :)).

In PPR leagues, his value drops a bit - definitely behind Addai, and possibly behind Steven Jackson. This could change if he gets better as a blocker, allowing him to stay in on 3rd down more and get more pass targets. (As I mentioned Crank scores above, it's notable that this year in PPR leagues, he dropped in consistency to 12th, behind guys like Reggie Bush, who had mediocre overall season but got lots of targets).

One of the big question makrs for me in terms of AP's value, and one we won't have answered for a few months, will be who you can get coming back around in the 2nd. If you can get a steady RB2 in the second or third round (a Lewis or McGahee), Peterson might be worth taking above Addai and maybe even Westbrook, because you can balance his upside with a steadier guy, and simply hope he doesn't crash in the playoffs. Also, his injury risk becomes less of a concern if you're the type that loves to stockpile RBs, because you should have a decent backup for him anyway (a Taylor handcuff is intriguing, but would probably cost a very high pick since Taylor is a very good RB and everyone knows his value to the AP owner).

Bottom line: I don't think he's as bad a pick at the top of the draft as Brady, but he comes with some concerns that need to be weighed based on your league's drafting tendencies.