2010 Draft Prep: Forte's forecast mostly cloudy
Fantasy owners who had Matt Forte as a rookie have a completely different view of him than the Fantasy owners who had him last season.
As a rookie in 2008, Forte was a huge success with 379 total touches, 1,715 total yards, a 3.9 rush average and 12 total touchdowns. In 2009, Forte was a huge bust -- especially for being a Top 5 pick -- with 1,400 total yards, a 3.6 rush average and four touchdowns on 315 touches.
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These polarizing performances have sent his Fantasy value into flux, and it forced the Bears to consider a new game plan for their running attack. Both will stump Fantasy owners this summer.
The Bears made it clear that running the ball wasn't going to be their primary means of moving the chains when they brought in offensive coordinator and all-around lover of quarterbacks (not necessarily running backs) Mike Martz in February. Then the Bears made it clear that Forte's days of being a 300-touch, primary running back were over when they plunked down $7 million in guaranteed money on the first day of free agency for ex-Vikings running back Chester Taylor. Note that Forte was on the Bears' roster before Martz arrived and Taylor was added after Martz arrived.
The arrivals of Martz and Taylor should send Fantasy owners running as far from Forte as possible. Yet, because of Martz's reputation as an offensive genius combined with not-so-faint memories of Marshall Faulk chewing up defenses week after week under Martz's tutelage, people are still swooning for Forte.
Don't buy it. Not for a minute.
First of all, Forte (and Taylor) can't carry Faulk's helmet. Does this even need explaining? Faulk is a future Hall of Famer who was so amazing at every aspect of playing running back that it was impossible for Martz, as his offensive coordinator and then head coach, to ignore using him. Forte has had one great year and one bad year, and Taylor hasn't even had the chance to play as a primary back save for 2006. Forte and Taylor aren't even in the same galaxy as Faulk.
So instead, let's point to Martz's history with running backs not named Faulk.
From 2004 to 2008, Martz worked with three well-known backs: Steven Jackson in St. Louis, Kevin Jones in Detroit and Frank Gore in San Francisco. Of the three, one had double-digit total touchdowns in a season (Jackson, 2005), one topped 1,400 total yards in a season (Gore, 2008) and none had more than 254 carries or 300 total touches in a season. However, Martz found ways for his quarterbacks to get between 580 and 599 pass attempts in all but one of those years. No surprise, the one year Martz didn't get to 580 pass attempts was the same year he coordinated a team that couldn't pass the ball to save its life -- the 2008 49ers. By the way, Martz would probably agree with that sentiment as it was the only year of the five post-Faulk that he didn't call pass plays more than 60 percent of the time (Gore had something to do with that).
Here's a look at Martz's history of calling pass plays vs. the rest of the league since 1999.
Here's more: In the five-year window where Faulk wasn't Martz's leading rusher, the lead backs in our little study participated in 68 games. Of those 68 games, they combined for ...
• 20 or more total touches in a game 28 times (41 pct. of the time)
• 20 or more carries in a game 13 times (19 pct.)
• 30 or more touches in a game twice (3 pct.)
• Multiple total touchdowns in a game six times (9 pct.)
• Under 15 carries in a game 24 times (35 pct.)
• Under 15 total touches 13 times (19 pct.)
(FYI, just for fun we checked the stats for the other running backs -- the guys behind the main guys -- and they were dreadful. The Arlen Harrises, Tatum Bells and DeShaun Fosters of the world got even fewer touches when they were starting in place of their respective primary backs. Then again, we're talking about Arlen Harris, Tatum Bell and DeShaun Foster. Oh, and don't correlate Chester Taylor to being the benchwarmer behind Forte in Chicago -- overpaid or not, the Bears didn't pay him $7 million guaranteed to watch.)
Don't even get too excited about the Bears having a running back land 20 or more touches per game 41 percent of the time like Martz's guys did from '04 to '08. Remember, there are two of them now in Chicago -- and they're more alike than you might think.
Martz prefers running backs with speed, hands, durability, blocking skills and brains -- not necessarily in that order. In review of watching Forte and Taylor, both display all of those qualities almost equally. Forte has displayed more burst than Taylor through two preseason games, but they're otherwise the same back as far as skill sets go.
Forte will be 24 when the season starts while Taylor will turn 31 years old in late September. That picture paints Taylor as the old man, but forget age for a minute -- check out the workload breakdown between the two backs over the last three years:
| Year | Matt Forte | Chester Taylor | ||
| carries | receptions | carries | receptions | |
| 2007 | 361 | 32 | 157 | 29 |
| 2008 | 316 | 63 | 101 | 45 |
| 2009 | 258 | 57 | 94 | 44 |
| Total | 935 | 152 | 352 | 118 |
| * Forte's 2007 was at Tulane University | ||||
It's no wonder that Forte has been banged up over his young career while Taylor has never missed more than two games in any of his nine years. The Bears realized this and thus got Taylor. And sure, Taylor has only one season under his belt as "the guy," but that's because he took a backseat in Minnesota when a fellow you might have heard of named Adrian Peterson arrived in 2007. Taylor's reps have been kept low because Peterson has been doing the heavy lifting -- something that was and still is appealing to the Bears. Taylor might be a classic car, but he's got low mileage, and that counts for something.
Taylor might be a bit healthier and could be a better fit for the Bears' new offense given his experience, but here's the rub: Because Martz is running the show, all bets are off that either Taylor or Forte will amount to anything more than a No. 3 Fantasy running back in 2010. And remember, they're sharing, so any total amount of work Martz gives his backs will be split up.
And those are the real reasons why you shouldn't target Forte.
Forte's average draft position as of August 23 is 56th overall while Taylor's is 122nd. If we're comparing two backs that could very well split the reps 50-50 and are essentially equally skilled, why would a Fantasy owner take a stab at one with the 56th overall pick when he can wait and get a replica around 120th overall? Especially when you factor that the offensive coordinator has suffered running back amnesia about 35 percent of the time over his last five years in the business?
Answer: A Fantasy owner shouldn't.
It won't pay to draft Forte. He'll post more stats than Taylor because he'll get the ball more -- that's a given, but they won't be as far apart as you might think. And because of the Martz factor, going after Taylor isn't such a brilliant idea, either. But if there was one Bears running back to get, Taylor is it simply because of his draft value -- he won't hurt you nearly as bad if the Bears end up throwing over and over again, which is more than a possibility given Jay Cutler's presence in the Windy City.
That's a different Martz story altogether.
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