Previous Tiers: Tier 1 – Tier 2
All four guys here are likely to be severely overrated in your fantasy football league draft. While they all have great name recognition, they’re not as good as they sound. They’re certainly not as good as the guys in the two tiers ahead of them, despite how many times you hear their names mentioned on Sportscenter.
Brett Favre, GB – I talked about Favre when news broke of his trade. The only thing to add: Laveranues Coles apparently really dislikes him.
Matt Hasselbeck, Sea -- Hasselbeck – and the entire Seahawks team – has some transition to deal with. His longtime QB coach (Jim Zorn) left to coach the Redskins so now he has to deal with a new guy. He can’t count on Shaun Alexander at RB, now he’s dealing with some combination of Julius Jones, Maurice Morris and T.J. Duckett. He lost WR D.J. Hackett and his leading receiver (Bobby Engram) just transitioned to being 35 years old - and cracked a bone in the process. This doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence as you might imagine. I’m wary of Hasselbeck as a fantasy QB this season.
Eli Manning, NYG – As one of the heroes of the Super Bowl, Manning should be overrated just on name recognition. If you have a Giants fan in your league, even better. Just make sure you don’t believe all the hype. Manning has plenty of weapons to work with this season, although he needs Plaxico Burress to end his contract whining, and should throw fewer interceptions than the 20 he threw last season. Manning is a good fantasy quarterback, but he’s not a great fantasy quarterback, so don’t draft him as one.
Donovan McNabb, Phi – This guy was just a huge disappointment last season. He only missed two games to injuries, but it seemed as though he missed half the season, finishing with only 19 touchdowns. Rookie DeShaun Jackson should provide the game-changing WR that McNabb has needed for years, but there’s no reason to believe the Eagles are going to throw the ball more. McNabb is also an injury risk (again) coming off a shoulder injury that required him to stop throwing at a mini-camp earlier this year. Sure, he could stay healthy, play all 16 games and finish with 3500 passing yards and 30 touchdowns, but what are the odds of that happening? 30 percent? 20 percent? That’s a lot of risk for a guy who has repeatedly burned fantasy owners.