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Face Off - WR Anquan Boldin - Arizona Cardinals

Upside by Cathy Fazio
Anquan Boldin came out of nowhere with his rookie of the year performance last season. He surprised everyone in his first game against the Detroit Lions with his 10 receptions for 217 yards and 2 touchdowns. And he proved that game was no fluke by finishing 2003 with 101 receptions for 1377 yards and 8 touchdowns.

Was 2003 a fluke for this rookie of the year, or will he prove that he is a top NFL receiver? I believe the latter. And here's why.

  • He's got the talent. Boldin is a tough receiver, able to make difficult catches and on top of that he has the speed to breakaway after making the catch.


  • There are some new guys in town. Dennis Green has been hired as the Arizona Cardinals' head coach. Green has a proven track record as an offensive genius, molding NFL stars like Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss. The Cardinals drafted Larry Fitzgerald with their first round draft pick. The Cardinals have been impressed with how he has progressed and Fitzgerald should prove to be a good complement to Boldin.


  • Josh McCown is the starting quarterback. Last season, Boldin made his accomplishments with a quarterback situation in flux. Jeff Blake and McCown split time last year. Josh McCown has now been firmly established as the Arizona Cardinals starting quarterback. This stability should be beneficial to Boldin.

Even if you take a twenty percent reduction in Boldin's stats from last season, he still finishes with 80 receptions for 1103 yards and 6 touchdowns. That is enough to keep him in the top 15 wide receivers. And it bears repeating, that is with a twenty percent reduction in his numbers.

With the changes that the Cardinals have made and the quarterback stability now in place, I just don't see that twenty percent reduction as likely. Look for Boldin to continue to shine.


Downside by Chase Stuart
There are a lot of reasons to be down on Anquan Boldin this year, looking from a historical perspective. From 1991-2002, we've seen the top rookie WR see their FP/G drop the following year. With thanks to Maurile Tremblay, here's the dirty dozen:

Year
Player
Yr1 FP/G
Yr2 FP/G
Diff
2003
Anquan Boldin
11.8
??
??
2002
Donte' Stallworth
8.3
6.1
2.2
2001
Chris Chambers
8.7
6.6
2.1
2000
Peter Warrick
7.0
4.7
2.3
1999
Kevin Johnson
9.2
4.2
5.0
1998
Randy Moss
14.6
13.6
1.0
1997
Rae Carruth
5.8
3.0
2.8
1996
Terry Glenn
10.2
7.9
2.3
1995
Joey Galloway
10.5
9.6
0.9
1994
Darnay Scott
8.0
7.1
0.9
1993
Horace Copeland
6.5
1.9
4.6
1992
Arthur Marshall
3.8
3.0
0.8
1991
Lawrence Dawsey
6.7
5.6
1.1

Of course, that just looks at rookies. What if we examine everyone? Anquan Boldin led the league last year in percentage of team receiving yards. He caught a whopping 42.2% of his team's passing yards. The last person to catch over 40% of their team's yards? Marvin Harrison, 2002. He saw a 3.6 FP/G drop last year.

However, that's just a league-wide perspective. What if we look at just the Cardinals? Believe it or not, they've actually had two other players finish in the top five WRs (as Boldin did last year) in the last seven seasons.

Year
Player
Yr1 FP/G
Yr2 FP/G
Diff
1999
David Boston
13.5
7.5
6.0
1997
Rob Moore
12.9
8.0
4.9

Additionally, as Doug Drinen mentioned, Boldin scored an extreme amount of fantasy points in garbage time. I think he took a lot of teams by surprise last year, and a better Arizona team will lead to less garbage time chances. We've already seen that Boldin was essentially the Cardinals offense last year-well this year, they've added Larry Fitzgerald. Dennis Green has said that Boldin won't catch 100 passes again.

Boldin had a tremendous rookie season. However, he's on a team that doesn't throw for a lot of yards, and I think he's going to see his share of the pie decrease this year.

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