Tony Gonzalez catches everything thrown near him. He always has. So the Atlanta Falcons have another weapon – a great weapon. Despite his age, expect Tong Gonzalez to have another very solid fantasy year at TE. But what does this mean to the rest of the Atlanta offense? More weapons mean less stats for the other skill players – except the QB of course, Matt Ryan will have one more reliable target to go to.
*** The FantasyDraftEdge.com Fantasy Impact Take ***
First of all it’s important to know that as of mid-May it remains our stance that the Atlanta Falcons overall may take a step backwards in the 2009-10 season. Michael Turner had a career year and Matt Ryan (no matter how good he was last year) is still a 2nd year QB. Additionally we factor that it’s not uncommon for a team to over achieve one season, then lack the focus and effort to maintain that higher level of play and take a step backwards the following season.
So we expect Tony Gonzalez to be a solid TE but perhaps not match the numbers in KC during recent seasons. For a few reasons – 1st is that that Falcons do have other weapons, in KC Tony G was THE weapon the past few seasons. He’s not likely to see as many balls this season. Additionally, KC was behind a lot which meant more passing anyway. And again we’ll go back to the anticipation of overall down offense from the Falcons.
The bigger impact here is Michael Turner. With another weapon, Turner is likely to get less carries. We also aren’t going to be too quick to jump on a guy coming off a career year. Turner was impressive but we’ve seen him (yes it’s still very early) as high as 2 or 3 in player rankings. That seems too high for a guy that lacks a history of getting it done at this level.
