Sam Bradford: Don’t Sleep On Future Fantasy Football Stud

February 11, 2014 12:18 pm EDT by
Sam Bradford Fantasy Football Quarterback

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Before the season of Sam Bradford was cut short due to a knee injury, the young quarterback was on the verge of his best season ever.

Bradford only played in seven games this past season, but it would have been a promising year if he was able to stay healthy. In three out of seven games, Bradford threw for 250 yards or more and completed three passing touchdowns. Some of his success can be credited to the poor defensive play of the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars, but he was still able to pass for 299 yards and throw two touchdowns against the formidable Arizona Cardinals.

I averaged the statistics of Bradford to find out what his numbers would look like if he had played a full season, and here it is: 3,856 passing yards, 32 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. The number of interceptions would have tied Matthew Stafford for the sixth-most among NFL quarterbacks, but the touchdown and passing yard totals would have been very impressive.

If you owned the St.Louis Rams signal caller and he was able to finish the year with the projected numbers above, Bradford would have thrown the 12th-most passing yards. He would have tied Phillip Rivers for the fourth-most touchdown passes in 2013.

Bradford also has the benefit of having a good group of offensive weapons. While the Rams do not have a prototypical star at the receiver position, Chris Givens, Tavon Austin and Jared Cook are all capable playmakers. The team has high hopes for Austin, and it will be interesting to see how Bradford and Austin can connect and build rapport with a longer season together.

The rushing attack was a nice surprise for the Rams this past season, and Zac Stacy will look to expand on his successful rookie year. With a strong rushing attack, things should open up for Bradford and the rest of the offense.

While injuries and poor performances may have justified fantasy football players avoiding Bradford in previous seasons, you do not want to be the one who misses out on owning Bradford in 2014. Even if you draft Bradford as your backup quarterback, he has the ability and tools around him to quickly become a starting fantasy football quarterback in any league.

Jack Delaney is a fantasy football writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on twitter at @jackbmore13, “Like” him on facebook, or add him to your network on Google


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  • IowaDave

    How did you get to 19 interceptions when he only threw 4 in 7 games?

    • Jack Delaney

      Hey Dave from the four interceptions in seven games he would have thrown nine on the season, but I took into account his touchdown to interception ratio from the 2012 season as well. I did not want to only rely on the numbers from his 2013 season for the interception ratio because I wanted to try to be as accurate as possible. I could have either put him at 19 interceptions which was two percent lower than the previous year, or 20 interceptions which would be one percent higher than his touchdown to interception ratio in 2012. I gave him the benefit of the doubt with 19 interceptions in the belief that he would have less pressure on him with Stacy helping in the run game. Sorry for not including that as part of my metrics.

      • IowaDave

        That projects to him throwing 15 ints in the remaining 9 games, when his career high is 15 ints in 16 games. Realistically, once the running game emerged I could see his TDs going down, because the Rams did not have a single rushing TD when Bradford went down, and the emergence of the run game would have meant fewer pass attempts from inside the 4. But given that through 7 games he was able to increase his TDs from previous seasons without increasing his INTs, I see no reason to assume such an uncharacteristically bad int% over the last 9 games.