Our very first Breakdown article.  We’re not going easy over here and doing something about how “Tony Romo is probably going to throw to Jason Witten a lot this season!” or that kind of crap.  No, no.  I’m going to tell you how Pat White, second round pick of the Miami Dolphins this season, could end up being one of the best fantasy football players, ever.  Now, I will go out of my way right now to say how unlikely this is.  In fact, I’ve got a list of assumptions that I’m going to preface this article with.  But this doesn’t change how, once again, he could be one of the biggest fantasy players in the history of the game.

So here are those assumptions-

1)      Multi-position eligibility (or WR eligibility):

While the ability to play a given player in a number of positions is something very rare in fantasy football, it is not especially outlandish.  The most famous case in recent years is Marques Colston in 2006.  Certain fantasy websites (Yahoo!) made him eligible at both the WR and TE position, because he occasionally spent time against the line during the preseason (or something like that, I’m not really sure).  Colston ended up barely missing the Rookie of the Year award (he lost out to Vince Young) with a 1038 yard, 8 TD breakout season.  He only played 14 games (and only started 12).  In the end, he narrowly edged out Antonio Gates for the top honors at TE. 

Another, less-famous example was Chris Cooley in 2005.  He finished the season with 774 yards and 7 TDs, but he started the season by making occasional appearances as a fullback, getting him RB eligibility in some leagues.  While 774 yards and 7 TDs for a RB is not as impressive as 1038 yards is for a TE, Cooley ended up finding his way into the RB spot in some deeper leagues.  Another case, which nobody really cared about, was Marcus Vick, who was brought in as an undrafted free agent by the Miami Dolphins in 2006, and was made eligible at both QB (where he played in college) and WR (where he played for the Dolphins).  He was on the active roster only twice that season, and nobody really noticed, even when he was there.

For Pat to meet my expectations (potentially), he would need to be eligible at the WR position.  If he ends up only receiving eligibility at QB, then you can just stop reading this.  But right now, logic suggests he will be eligible for both.

2)      Chad Pennington Gets Injured and/or Loses the Starting Job and/or the Dolphins Regularly Use White at QB

I’m a fan of Chad Pennington.  I liked him as a Jet and I loved him as a Dolphin.  But a sidelined Chad Pennington is not a particularly outlandish concept.  There are a lot of things that can put him on his ass (and his ass on the bench) for a length of time.

Jets fans best remember Pennington landing armpit-first into the turf, tearing his rotator cuff.  Then doing it again.  Dash in some ankle sprains and rib cracks and you have a guy who can be safely labeled as an “injury-prone”.  Nobody wants Pennington to get injured (except assholes), but it can happen to any of us…and we all know that Chad’s more than capable of missing some games.  An injured Pennington puts a big hole at QB…one that Pat White could fill (no homo).

If the Dolphins get off to an 0-7-0 start, quickly sealing away any postseason chances early, Pennington could ride the pine just to give their younger QBs some playing time, opening the door for White.  Pennington is going to be 33 in June.  When he was first signed by the ‘Phins, everyone thought of him as a patch that would last, at best, a few seasons.  As spectacular as he was last season (3600 yards, 19 TDs, 97.4 QB Rating), a repeat is unlikely.  And a repeat in 2010?  Well, that’s getting close to impossible.  Parcells and Sparano know that Chad’s days are numbered, and as important as he was to Miami’s epic 2008 season, Parcells isn’t known for sentimentality.  If he has the opportunity to get Henne or White some playing time, he’ll do it.

As outlandish as it sounds, there is plenty of speculation that we will see a lot more of the wildcat from the Miami offense this season.  And, according some people, a WHOLE lot more.  Personally, I don’t buy into all that, but hey, Pat White opens up the passing game in a way Ronnie Brown couldn’t.  If they do something crazy like run the wildcat 20% of the time…White remains relevant.

3)      Get to the Point Already!

The bottom line with Pat White is that this is a guy that could end up playing at QB in real football, while playing WR in fantasy.  Let’s throw out some hypothetical stat lines.  Let’s say that ol’ Pat starts the season out as a WR and gets behind center in the wildcat, and becomes a full time starter at QB half-way through the season.  A semi-realistic stat line for such a situation would be something like…

1400 yards passing

6 passing TDs

5 INTs

300 yards rushing

3 rushing TDs

200 yards receiving

1 receiving TD

1 FL

That would total 147 fantasy points, and would slip him in as the #15 WR in 2008 in standard-scoring leagues.  Not all that impressive, right?  But if he takes over at QB for eight weeks and puts up something like…

1100 yards passing

5 passing TDs

5 INTs

250 yards rushing

2 rushing TDs

…that would yield 96 fantasy points in 8 weeks, or 12 points per game.  12 points per game, by the way, is #6 among WRs in 2008.

But still, #6 among WRs over an eight game stretch isn’t close to being one of the best fantasy players ever now is it?  So how can he come close to the hype I’ve been giving him?  Let’s say, hypothetically, Chad Pennington gets put onto the injured reserves before the season even starts, or very early in the season.  In a situation like this, with an inexperienced Chad Henne as Pennington’s on-paper backup, White could become the starting QB in Miami…and a starting WR in fantasy.  Let’s look at a couple recent examples of young, scramble-capable QBs in their first seasons as starters…2006 Vince Young and 2008 Tyler Thigpen.  Vince Young’s stat line looked like this:

2199 yards passing

12 passing TDs

13 INTs                                                                        

553 yards rushing

7 rushing TDs

In the end, he totaled 213 fantasy points.  Tyler Thigpen’s 2008 season looked like this:

2608 yards passing

18 passing TDs

12 INTs

386 yards rushing

3 rushing TDs

Thigpen finished with 217 fantasy points.  Just for fun, let’s look at Michael Vick, circa 2005:

2412 yards passing

15 passing TDs

13 INTs

610 yards rushing

6 rushing TDs

231 points by season’s end. 

So 213 points for 2006 Young, 217 for 2008 Thigpen and 231 for 2005 Vick.  Keep in mind, these are not jaw-dropping stat lines for a QB.  In ten years, you’re not going to look at your son and say “want to see a real quarterback?  Go look up Michael Vick in 2005”?  Obviously not.  But the gap between WRs and QBs, point-wise, makes it so that if you plug those three guys into the 2008 WR rankings, the three of them end up ranking at #1, #2, and #4.  Larry Fitzgerald splits the group up at #3 with 215 points.  Fitzgerald’s stat line, by the way, was 1434 yards and 12 TDs. 

So what if Pat White puts up a decent stat line for a QB?  Let’s say…

3000 yards passing

20 passing TDs

14 INTs

500 yards rushing

7 rushing TDs

100 yards receiving

6 fumbles

The 100 yards receiving is just because he’s going to be in the wildcat…so it’s possible he’ll end up catching a handful of passes.  Anyway, that stat line would add up to 276 fantasy points.  Point-wise, it would beat out any WR since 2000, save 2007 Randy Moss which, as we all remember, is one for the ages.  He comes short by just 11 points.  But even if Pat white puts up a relatively forgettable stat line like…

2500 yards passing

13 passing TDs

13 INTs

400 yards rushing

4 rushing TDs

100 yards receiving

6 fumbles

he still puts up 201 fantasy points on the season, putting him right behind Calvin Johnson (#3 WR) in the 2008 rankings.  The average score of the #10 WR since 2000 is 168.4.  QBs hovering around that mark are 2008 Trent Edwards and Jeff Garcia (#22 and 23 overall QBs, respectively, in 2008), 2007 Vince Young (#17 QB in 2007) and 2006 Jake Delhomme and Matt Hasselbeck (#20 and 21, respectively). 

If Pat White ends up playing any considerable amount of time at QB, he instantly becomes a must-start WR.  Every week.  If he isn’t horrible, he will be a top 20 WR.  Almost guaranteed.  If you’re in anything RESEMBLING a deep league, do NOT let Pat White go undrafted.  Standard ten team, three WR leagues should consider him a late-round upside pick.  There is just too much potential here to let him stay on waivers. 

But once again, if he ends up not being WR-eligible, then I just wrote up four pages for nothing.