NFL Exhibition Fools Gold

It happens every year a relevantly unknown running back goes off for a huge game when it doesn’t really matter. Then someone in your league or maybe even yourself quickly snaps him up off the waiver wire with dreams of 16 TDs and 1300 yards and  player who will occupy a starting  spot every week. Sadly more often than not the player never sees the field again.

Let’s have a look at the Exhibitions top performers over the past 3 years and how they fared in the regular season.

Year	Running Back	Preseason Yards	Regular Season
2008	Rashard Mendenhall	222 Yards – 1 TD	58 Yards – 0 TDs
2008	DeAngelo Williams	188 Yards – 3 TDs	1515 Yards – 18 TDs
2007	Thomas Clayton	200 Yards – 1 TD	No real game stats
2007	Gary Russell	191 Yards – 1 TD	21 Yards – 0 TDs
2006	Brandon Jacobs	217 Yards – 5 TDs	423 Yards – 9 TDs
2006	Quincy Wilson	217 Yards – 1 TD	2 yards – 0 TDs

As we can see the only running back with a solid preseason to go on to put up solid fantasy football numbers were DeAngelo Williams last season and Brandon Jacobs in 2006. Both players have solid pedigrees and would likely have found there way onto a fantasy football team before the start of the season. The others not so much.

Year	Wide Receiver	Preseason Yards	Regular Season
2008	David Clowney	222 Yards – 2 TDs	26 Yards – 0 TDs
2008	Robert Meachem	217 Yards – 1 TD	289 Yards – 3 TDs
2007	Shaun McDonald	259 Yards – 2 TDs	943 Yards – 6 TDs
2007	Lance Moore	255 Yards – 0 TDs	302 Yards – 2 TDs
2006	Greg Jennings	328 Yards – 1 TD	632 Yards – 3 TDs
2006	Jamaica Rector	245 Yards – 0 TDs	No real game stats

The best performer for the WRs was Shaun McDonald in 2007, he benefited from a Mike Martz lead offense in Detroit. Greg Jennings and Lance Moore who are both fantasy football starters now showed us they weren’t ready for prime time despite being the best in the preseason.

My advice for the NFL preseason is to stay calm and don’t by into every Gary Russell, Thomas Clayton or Jamaica Rector you hear about.