The world has given up on Willie Parker. Have you?

The world of fantasy football can be an unforgiving place.

Exhibit A: Willie Parker.

Last year, Parker was a consensus first-round pick, and owners had good reason to believe a productive season was in store for the Steelers running back.

Parker was coming off a 2006 campaign in which he totaled 1,494 yards rushing and 16 touchdowns (three of the scores were receiving). He was just 26 years old and injury free, so a lot of fantasy owners figured No. 39 was set to rack up another year of yards and scores.

That’s not quite the way things worked out.

Parker tallied 1,316 rushing yards on the season, but had a lot of trouble crossing the goal line, scoring just two touchdowns. To make matters worse, everyone else on the Steelers — Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes, Heath Miller, Nate Washington, and (brace yourselves, 2007 Parker owners) Najeh Davenport — had no problems scoring.

The Steelers went pass-happy near the goal line, and Parker couldn’t hit paydirt when given the chance, scoring on just one of 16 first- or second-and-goal carries. He didn’t have a third-and-goal carry all year, and was handed the ball just seven times on third down the entire season.

Adding insult to injury (well, actually injury to insult) for Parker owners, the Pittsburgh back cracked his right fibula on his first and only carry of a Week 16 game against the Rams, and Davenport stepped in to run for 126 yards and two scores.

Not surprisingly, everyone’s down on Parker heading into 2008. His inability to hit paydirt in 2007, coupled with the addition of rookie Rashard Mendenhall to the Steelers backfield (Davenport is gone,  but Mewelde Moore is on the depth chart) has Parker’s stock tumbling.

Parker has dropped to No. 13 on ESPN.com’s running back rankings; No. 17 on NFL.com; and No. 20 in the latest running back composite rankings from Yahoo.com.

If the pre-draft rankings are any indicator, Parker is also going to fall in a lot of drafts. Fantasy owners (especially those that got burned by Parker last year) will take a host of running backs that presumably have a higher ceiling than Parker — guys like Ryan Grant, Brandon Jacobs, Ronnie Brown, or Darren McFadden.

But even with last year’s touchdown-challenged performance, the ceiling is still pretty darn high for Parker.

The guy has rushed for at least 1,200 yards in each of the past three seasons, is one season removed from a 16-score season, and he plays for a team that’s good at moving the ball.

Take out the one-carry performance against the Rams, and Parker averaged 94 rushing yards a game — second only to Adrian Peterson’s average of 95.8 yards per game. Sure, his 4.1-yard-per-carry average wasn’t stellar, but he got the carries, and barring injury, he’ll still be a key cog in a productive offense.

Parker may not be the sexiest pick on the board, but I’m OK with taking a proven 1,300-yard-back on draft day, and banking that fast Willie will return to his days as a reliable back.

Adrian Peterson: Perhaps you’ve heard of him

You’d think that after throwing for 50 touchdown passes in 2007, and turning in one of the more dominant single-season fantasy performances ever, that Tom Brady would be able to land a  couple of fantasy football magazine covers here and there.

Sorry Tom, apparently this is Adrian Peterson’s world.

Riding a wave of hype that has reached “Indiana Jones IV” levels, Purple Jesus graced the cover of six of seven fantasy football magazines on the rack at a Borders store I visited earlier this week.

The other cover? That was filled by Tony Romo.

Peterson has become the poster boy for fantasy football heading into 2008. But Matthew Berry, ESPN’s senior director of fantasy coverage, rains on the AP parade in his first “Love/Hate” column of the season, putting the Minnesota back in the No. 4 fantasy slot, behind Tomlinson, Westbrook, and Addai.

Berry points out that putting Peterson at No. 4 overall on your list is essentially the same thing as putting him dead last, as there’s no way he’s falling that far in any draft.

I’m not a fan of Berry’s off-the-wall (an understatement) writing style, but if you can get past the occasional self-congratulatory line, and digressions into 80s hair bands and whatever VH1 reality show he feels the need to talk about, there’s some really interesting info in his articles. He makes bold predictions, and he backs them up with solid reasoning. Plus the ESPN fantasy Web site got a face lift and is really easy to navigate — it’s worth checking out.

Berry’s reasoning for bumping Peterson down from a top-two pick? It’s about value. He says it’s hard to justify spending a top-two pick on a player who could still be sharing carries with Chester Taylor, and someone who plays for a team without a decent quarterback.

Value. I should have thought about before shelling out $20 on two tickets for a sub-par “Indiana Jones” flick.

RB rankings are up

The list of West Coast Nonsense’s top 50 fantasy running backs is up. Get to the list by clicking on the bar at the top of the page, or the sidebar to the right. SPOILER ALERT: LaDainian Tomlinson made the list.

ESPN leagues up and running

Not to be outdone by Yahoo!, ESPN’s fantasy football leagues are also open for registration. You can sign up by going here.

Do you Yahoo?

Yahoo! has opened up registration for 2008 fantasy football leagues (both free and premium). Go grab a good draft time while you can!

Top fantasy moments of 2007: #1-5

5. Adrian Peterson, Part I

The Vikings’ 34-31 Week 6 win over the Bears had a lot of memorable moments.

Chicago’s explosive return man and receiver Devin Hester had two scores of over 80 yards; Bears quarterback Brian Griese threw for 381 yards; and Minnesota kicker Ryan Longwell kicked a game winning 55-yard field goal as time expired.

But following the game, the headlines belonged to Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson.

The rookie back totaled 224 yards on 20 attempts, including touchdowns of 67, 73, and 35 yards against Ulracher, Briggs, and co. Running backs are often able to break out big runs thanks to bad tacking, but in Peterson’s case, he exploited a once-heralded Chicago defense that couldn’t even touch him on some plays, let alone try and bring him to the ground.

Adding insult to injury, Peterson had a near fourth score on a kickoff return that set up the game winning field goal, and “the other Adrian Peterson” of Chicago had two carries for 11 yards.

The scariest part of the Viking rookie’s performance was that this wasn’t even his best game of the year (see No. 3).

4. Westbrook stops, drops, enrages fantasy owners

Westbrook’s infamous goal line fire drill can be found on YouTube under the names “Brian Westbrook ruins my fantasy life” and “Worst Moment in Fantasy Football History.”

We’ll just leave it at that. (2007 Westbrook owners may want to skip the video clip)

3. Adrian Peterson: Part Deux

A Week 9 Chargers/Vikings match up that was framed as a battle between top backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Peterson turned into a one-man show. The Purple Jesus show, that is.

Peterson set a new single-game rushing record with 296 yards rushing on 30 carries. He gained more yards than the entire Chargers offense, and scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter, and on runs of 64 and 46 yards in the third and fourth quarters, respectively.

Peterson owners sobbed with joy, with those who drafted the Viking rookie in keeper leagues entering seizures of ecstasy. It became clear that Peterson’s show against the Bears in Week 6 was no fluke, and people who believed in No. 28 are still reveling in telling fellow fantasy owners ”I told you so.”

2. Tom Brady. He’s pretty good.

Dec. 16, Week 15, versus the New York Jets.

That’s the game that sticks out on Tom Brady’s 2007 regular season game log, as it’s the only game in which the New England quarterback failed to throw a touchdown pass.

Given Brady’s numbers the rest of the season, fantasy owners that were starting No. 12 each week were probably OK with that.

In a 50-touchdown, 4,806-yard season, it’s too hard to pick one moment that best defined the avalanche of fantasy points Brady tallied each week. It could be any of the 12 games in which he threw for at least three scores (including the Week 8 pummeling of the Redskins when he also ran for two touchdowns); it could be the six-touchdown Week 7 outing against the Dolphins; it could be any of the 23 touchdowns he threw to Randy Moss.

Let’s just leave it at this: If you had Tom Brady on your 2007 fantasy team and you didn’t win your league, you’re never going to win a fantasy football league. Ever. 

1. The year of the quarterback crisis 

Kurt Warner, Cleo Lemon, Damon Huard, Brodie Coyle, Trent Dilfer, Gus Frerotte, Sage Rosenfels, Rex Grossman, Brian Griese, Kellen Clemens, Brooks Bollinger, Kyle Boller, Josh McCown, Joey Harrington and Chris Redman.

All of these guys started, at some point or another, under center for NFL teams desperate to fill the quarterback position, and most (if not all of them) were picked up by fantasy owners faced with a similar dilemma.

And that is why 2007 will forever be defined as the year of the quarterback crisis.

Fantasy owners who (either on purpose, or out of lucky draft position) picked an elite quarterback on draft day had a huge advantage over the competition. Brady was phenomenal, Tony Romo was better than anyone guessed he would be, Peyton Manning was Peyton Manning, and Favre, Roethlisberger and Anderson were all good options. Brees and Palmer were had their high points, but performed below expectations.

Beyond that handful of players, there wasn’t a lot of consistent play at QB1.

Fantasy football experts have long said that drafting running back usually the way to go in the first round of your draft, but following a season when there was so little consistency, and so much mediocrity at the position, doesn’t a top quarterback become a more valuable commodity?

More on that in future posts. 

Top fantasy moments of 2007: #6-10

The first batch of fantasy football magazines will start appearing on newsstands in coming weeks, so before diving head first into 2008, here are West Coast Nonsense’s top 10 defining fantasy football moments of 2007.

These aren’t necessarily the greatest performances of the year, just the moments that stuck out in 2007 and likely made or shattered owners’ dreams of fantasy football supremacy.

10. Kevin Curtis kicks it old school

Eleven catches, 221 yards receiving, and touchdowns of 68, 12, and 43 yards.

Those were Kevin Curtis’ stats following the Eagles’ 56-21 thrashing of the Lions in Week 3. After sputtering on offense the first two games, the Eagles threw on their old school (and very ugly, as seen at right) blue and gold uniforms and destroyed visiting Detroit, thanks in large part to big games from Curtis and Donovan McNabb. Sure, Curtis only mustered three touchdowns the remainder of the season, but owners lucky enough to start the guy in Week 3 scored fantasy gold.

9. Romo shows he’s for real

Drew Brees, Carson Palmer, and Marc Bulger were all drafted before Tony Romo in a lot of fantasy leagues last year.

It took all of one game for owners who passed on Romo to see they made a really big mistake.

Romo posted 345 yards passing, 4 scores through the air, 1 score rushing (just what Marion Barber and Julius Jones owners wanted to see), and an eye-popping 14.4 yards per pass attempt in a 45-35 shootout against the Giants. The game had Romo owners smiling, and had everyone else swearing. A lot of swearing.

8. Too much T.O.

This Week 11 performance from Terrell Owens was also good news for Romo owners.

The Dallas receiver caught eight balls, four of them for touchdowns (4, 31, 46 and 52 yards), and posted 173 receiving yards against the Redskins.

Not bad for someone who turned 34 a couple of weeks later.

7. Brett Favre rocks. Broncos secondary? Not so much.

Monday Night Football can be a roller coaster experience for fantasy football players in head-to-head leagues. Owners know how many points they need, and it’s just a matter of hoping their players make big plays and their opponents’ players don’t.

So when a Monday night game ends in a big play, it can have huge fantasy implications.

Enter Brett Favre, in a Week 8 Monday night match up against the Broncos.

The Denver secondary had already given up a 79-yard bomb from Favre to receiver James Jones in the first quarter. So when Green Bay won the overtime coin toss, there’s no way Denver was going to leave a receiver single covered, let alone on the first play from scrimmage. Right?

Wrong.

Favre. Greg Jennings. 82 yards. Game over.

Favre owners across the country rejoiced. People in head-to-head matches against Favre owners entered the fetal position and cried.

6. Who the hell is Derek Anderson?

Every year, there are relatively little-known players that have big games early in the season, prompting fantasy football owners to flock to the nearest computer to pick up these waiver wonders.

Sometimes these players pan out into consistent fantasy stars (Willie Parker in 2005), and sometimes they don’t (Chris Brown in 2007).

Few waiver wonders have made a bigger splash than Cleveland quarterback Derek Anderson, who went from “dude for the Browns to start until Brady Quinn is ready” to “dude who threw for five touchdowns and 328 yards in his first start of the season.

In a season full of inconsistent quarterback play, Anderson was a consistent scorer — for the owners with fast Internet connections that snagged him first, that is.

Up next: Moments #1-5.