Matt Forte’s 2010 Fantasy Potential

Matt Forte was supposed to propel teams into fantasy championship contention last year.  However, he ultimately disappointed all of his owners with a season that was far under par than the previous year.  The addition of Jay Cutler and his powerful arm was also seen as a ways to help open up the running lanes for Forte.  This however was not the case as Forte was unable to really find any running room and was frequently bottled up by opposing defenses.  After the season is was discovered that Forte had been playing hurt for most of the year.  This may have contributed to his poor performance, but Forte has two new obstacles to overcome this year.  Those two obstacles are also two of the Chicago Bears newest additions to its offensive unit, Mike Martz and Chester Taylor.

It has been speculated that Martz will want to throw the ball more with his down the field offense.  Why shouldn’t he?   After all he does have the strong armed Cutler under center and from the looks of the last few games from last season he also has some big play ability wide receivers.  Hence the Bears will prefer to keep the ball in the air rather than on the ground.  This speculation over what the new offensive coordinator may do with his play calling would no doubt affect Forte’s value.  However, the biggest factor in how Forte performs next season is in how Martz intends to use Taylor.  Rumor has it that Martz prefers Taylor over Forte and that is one of the reasons Chester was brought in.  Also, Taylor is seen as a better pass catching threat out of the backfield which is significant as Martz’s offense calls for a lot of screens to the running back.

Last season Forte accounted for 258 out of the 327 rushing attempts by the Bears running backs.  This translates into Forte accounting for around 79% of all rushing attempts.  He also caught 57 out of the possible 62 passes thrown to running backs.  Additional stats on Forte are 929 rushing yards plus 471 more yards on the receiving end.  In turn, Chester Taylor accounted for 22% of the carries in Minnesota last year.  Taylor managed to get 94 of the total 420 carries with his former team for a total rushing yards number of 338.  On top of this Taylor also caught 44 balls for 389 yards.  These totals for Taylor may not be significant, but don’t forget he played behind arguably the best back in the league in Adrian Peterson.  Taylor will get every opportunity to earn playing time alongside a back that struggled last season.   Forte could see his rushing totals drop for a third straight season, unless he is able to earn the right to once again carry the ball 79% of the time.  This seems unlikely due to the new offense Martz will be installing, so I would expect Forte to only rush for around 800 yards at best and for Taylor to get close to 500 rushing yards.  The thing that will hurt Forte’s value the most is the fact that Taylor will most likely be in on passing downs, so expect Taylor’s receiving yards to be in the 450 range, while Forte will most likely get around 200 receiving yards.

In my view neither of these backs is worth taking the risk on within the first three rounds.  However, someone will take a shot on Forte no later than the fourth round.  In my opinion I would hold off and not make that pick until around the sixth round.  As for Taylor he can be seen as a 2010 sleeper as there is great potential for him next season.  At least there is more potential than in the previous few seasons.  Taylor can be seen as good pick for teams in the later rounds, depending on the length of the draft and the total number of teams.   I may be content to take a shot on Taylor in either the 9th or 10th round.  Overall, the backfield situation for the Chicago Bears will become clearer after training camp, but as of now expect close to a 50/50 split with Taylor getting more receiving action and Forte getting more rushing attempts.