Ultimate Rookie Report Player of the Year

I had another enjoyable year writing the Ultimate Fantasy Rookie Report. I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it. My data collection was slightly less thorough than in years past but streamlined for easy collection on a weekly basis. 
This week, I will discuss the top 22 rookies that played in the NFL and our fantasy teams this year. Why 22 rookies? Well, it was nearly the full list of rookies who made the top 200 fantasy players. Most importantly, I really wanted to shine a mini spotlight on Cam Skattebo. I will refer to this cutoff as the Skattebo Line. Shedeur Sanders did not pass the Skattebo Line™, so he will not make the article, and the algorithms will bury me, but it is what it is.

Kicker

Two rookies kicked their way into our hearts this season. Super Bowl runner up Andres Borregales made 27 of his 32 attempts this year. Additionally, he only missed two of his 55 extra point attempts. Tyler Loop made 30 of his 34 field goal attempts, but only made 44 of 46 extra points.

Winner: Andres Borregales! It was close, but with 149 fantasy points, the New England Patriot edges out the Baltimore Raven.

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Wide Receiver

Honestly, wide receiver was the most disappointing group for me this year. It felt like there was a lot of potential and it was just…meh.

Winner: Tetairoa McMillan! This was really no surprise if you follow the NFL at all. The offensive rookie of the year is also our rookie wide receiver of the year. McMillan led the Carolina Panthers in targets, catches, receiving yards, and first downs, and he tied Rico Dowdle for total touchdowns. In total he had 70 receptions, 1014 yards, and seven touchdowns. I feel like we could see McMillan take another jump next season, but the Panthers are such a weird team (and that’s coming from a fan). Emeka Egbuka started the season hot with eye popping totals over the first five weeks. I thought we were going to witness a record year. After a hamstring strain in week 6 though, he never seemed quite the same. It also didn’t help that Tampa Bay has 6 viable receivers who were in and out of the starting lineup all year long. Egbuka ended with a decent 63 receptions, 938 yards and six touchdowns. Jayden Higgins and Luther Burden both started slow, but became usable options by the time playoffs rolled around.

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Quarterback

Unfortunately, we did not have  the most exciting class of rookie quarterbacks this year either. None of them were in particularly good situations, but they did the best with what they had. Cam Ward played through a full season of struggles with the Tennessee Titans. Jaxson Dart played in 14 games for the New York Giants. Tyler Shough only had 11 with the New Orleans Saints, but really started to pull it together in the end. Who had the strongest rookie campaign? Let’s find out

Winner: Jaxson Dart! Obviously it was going to be Jaxson Dart. With 2,272 yards and 15 touchdowns (with only five interceptions) Jaxson Dart blew the competition out of the water. However, his legs added a tremendous amount of value as well. 487 yards led to nine rushing touchdowns (as well as 38 first downs, if your league tracks such things). Dart needs to learn how to protect himself so he is not in and out of the medical tent all season long again. If he can rein in his penchant for dangerous plays and stay on the field, Dart could be disgusting (in a good way) next season.

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Tight Ends

Four tight ends made it over the Skattebo Line™. It was legitimately shocking when I looked at the numbers

Winner: Tyler Warren! Honestly, I expected Colston Loveland to win this race. It’s probably recency bias from his huge games in the playoffs. I genuinely do not remember Tyler Warren making the Ultimate Rookie Report at all this year. I had to go back through and it happened twice early on in the season. I guess there’s something to say about slow and steady production over the course of the season. This especially works for the tight end position, where it’s getting harder and harder to squeeze points out. Tyler Warren caught 76 passes for 817 yards and four touchdowns. It doesn’t feel like a lot, but he was the fourth best tight end this year. He REALLY tailed off at the end of the season, which probably killed your fantasy playoffs but at least he helped you get there. Harold Fannin Jr. was a surprise, coming out of Cleveland and their mess at the quarterback position. Fannin still managed 72 receptions, 731 yards and six touchdowns. He’s the kind of guy that if you take in the next draft everyone will say “who?” and “REACH,” but real ones know you have a potential top 3 tight end. Colston Loveland “only” had 58 receptions for 713 yards with six touchdowns during the season, but if the playoffs are any indicator, he could be in for a huge sophomore campaign.

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Running Back

This year, the most impactful group of rookies were the running backs. Nine different running backs made huge statistical impacts for their teams; six of which were top 30 in their position. Who came out on top?

Winner: Ashton Jeanty! Despite running behind a lackluster offensive line and a mediocre passing attack at best, Jeanty led the pack for all rookies this year. For the season, Jeanty had 975 yards on the ground, and five rushing touchdowns. Additionally, he caught 55 passes to add another 346 yards and five more touchdowns. For comparison’s sake, RJ Harvey ended the campaign as the second best rookie running back, with just 540 yards and 7 touchdowns rushing, and an additional 356 yards and five touchdowns in the air. Cam Skattebo had 410 yards and five touchdowns as well as 207 yards receiving and two touchdowns IN EIGHT GAMES. If I’ve learned anything in my years writing this column, the good ones always break. Just as a thought experiment, if you double his production to pretend he played the full season, Skattebo would have slid into the top ten running backs for the year.

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Sorry this is about 12 hours late. I always seem to bite off more than I can chew when it comes to this wrap up. I had a good idea that I’m going to push out next week because I went down a rabbit hole for too long and it didn’t quite fit here. Plus, I spent entirely too much time fighting with AI to try to make graphs before ultimately learning how to do it myself anyway. I got pretty good by the end! Next week, I plan to compare the players above the Skattebo line™ to their respective positions and ADP vs final rankings.

Have a good week!

@MeLlamoMoron

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