Parker, Willie: Value Notes

Londo 11/12/06: Nice job on the rankings. I agree with the vast majority of your takes.

Personally, I think FWP has proven that he is a dynasty force. He is young, he is the primary runner on one of the most historically run-oriented teams in the league, and has proven he can get it done on passing plays, goal-line situations, and pretty much every other situation they have given it to him.

At the very least, I would have him in my top 10. Personally, I have him ranked at #6 for dynasty leagues.

Sons of the Tundra 11/12/06: I think FWP could be moved up a couple of spots, but I don't know yet if I'd put him in the top 10. Last year, I was all over Parker. I drafted him fairly early, started him quite often and ended up regretting that I parted with him to acquire a different playoff RB. In other words, I'm not somebody you have to convince about his talent.

However...I think he's always going to be one of those guys who is going to have to continually prove himself. They were very hesitant to give him goal-line and 3rd down carries last year even though they made him the starter. This year, they exhausted all other options again before handing the ball to FWP at the goal-line. If Bettis hadn't retired and Verron Haynes hadn't gotten injured, the same rules would apply this year.

I think here's where we would differ on his value: you believe he's going to be the every-down, game-breaking, pass-catching stud in the PIT backfield for years to come. I believe they're going to continue to work Najeh Davenport in this year to the point where FWP is no longer the goal-line back or the 3rd down back. I think that FWP has game-breaking speed and can put up 1300 rushing yards, but going foward he's not going to score a ton of TDs or be involved in the passing game like a Kevin Jones, Steven Jackson or Ronnie Brown. Not to mention: this is Pittsburgh. They like their big, grinding RBs. That's always going to be there nagging me in the back of my head. When the weather gets nastier, they're going to find an excuse to work in a bigger back.

Just my .02

stbugs 11/13/06: By the way, FWP wasn't the 3rd down back at all this year until Hayes went down. Many times when Najeh has been in recently, it has been in passing situations.

Why isn't FWP going to score TDs? He was in on the goal line in all 3 situations I saw yesterday. Two times he scored and one time he didn't. They followed his miss with a play action fake where Miller was wide open. FWP has been very successful at the goal line this year and made the play action fake (yesterday) ridiculously easy.

One other note, there are only 3 RBs, WRs or TEs in the NFL with 10 or more TDs and no one else has more than 7. Care to guess? LT is pretty easy and LJ is as well. The third, well the FWP that you don't think going forward will score a ton of TDs. FWP has 2 less TDs than LJ and 3 more than anyone else in the league not named LT or LJ.

Whether you like it or not, the Pittsburgh running game has been quite effective this year and not the cause of the 3-6 start. If it weren't for FWP's two 70+ yard runs where he finished off both with goal line TDs, Pittsburgh would not have beaten a very good NO team that overmatched their defense. I see nothing that Parker has done or Najeh has done that would make him change the way he has called the running game this year.

In the last 24 games (1.5 seasons), Parker has 2049 rushing yards and 15 TDs (10TDs in the last 7 games). Do you think Cowher would rather get the 3.5 ypc that Bettis had in his last 4 years with the Steelers or Parkers 4.7 ypc that he has in 439 carries over 2 years? I think it is funny to presume that Cowher is going to give up almost 5 yards per carry just because we all say he likes big backs. In case you haven't seen, Parker is not the same back as last year, he isn't quite as fast but he is a lot more powerful.

Sons of the Tundra 11/13/06: First of all, thanks for pointing all of this out less than 24 hours after FWP's career game. Very timely indeed.

Secondly, I wasn't talking about a lack of talent or power in Parker's game. I believe, as I did last year, that he has the full package. What I was concerned about was perception. It was important enough last year to take goal-line and 3rd down opportunities away from him. It was important enough in the pre-season to try every other possible scenario before handing goal-line carries to Parker. It was important enough to bring in a Bettis-sized RB like Najeh a month ago. Has he conquered all doubts about goal-line carries? Will Najeh become a factor down the road?

As you can see above, I moved him from 14 to 9 before you posted this. So I believe he's going to keep building value. But that doubt is still going to be in the back of my mind.

stbugs 11/13/06: No problem on the timing, that is my forte! Note that I actually started typing my response before you had posted your upgrade from 14 to 9. You squeezed it in before I got my reply done and it definitely dropped my post to even less timely. My timing was actually based more on the interesting note that while checking out the stats in my league that I realized only 3 guys, LT, LJ and FWP had 10 TDs and no other RB, WR or TE had more than 7. Rather than start a new thread I did a search for Parker and this was the best one I found to throw out that tidbit and I figured I would respond to your post as well.

I guess my only point is based on your bolded line. Parker is not the same back as in 2005. You said you thought he had the full package last year, but he is nothing like last year. I drafted him very late last year because I had heard grumblings about all the injuries and it seemed like he would get a chance and he definitely did.

What I also saw after watching a bunch of games was a guy who was very fast and looked like he had spent the 2004 off-season getting ready to be a change of pace back. He ended up with 255 carries and it seemed to me that he wore down a bit. Fast forward to this offseason and you will see that he conditioned himself to be the full-time starter. He is still very fast, but not as fast, but he is much much more powerful. In 2005, he would very often go down with the first hit. In 2006, he finishes his runs and very often breaks tackles he wouldn't have broken last year.

I just think for people that haven't really watched him in 2005 and 2006 that they might not realize the change in him. He has been quite effective in the red zone this year. Take a look at yesterday's game. Pittsburgh had 4 red zone trips, 3 of which worked and 1 that didn't. The one that didn't was 3 straight passes that ended with a 4th and 11, 32 yard FG. The three that worked all had FWP effective runs. 2 were TDs and one was an 8 yard run to the 2, where he got stuffed on 2nd down. 3rd down was a play action fake which worked very well. There looked to be 2 or 3 folks wide open in the end zone because NO sold out on the run. Miller had no one around him and it wasn't even a fade to the corner, he was just standing there.

As you can tell, I think FWP has the goods and if he can get 10+ TDs a year, I think he is a dead on lock for top 10 to top 5 every year. If he keeps up the TD pace of more than 1 TD a game like this year, he is pretty much top 5 consideration every year.