Joe Horn is the player in question.

skipscrew is FOR Horn being a valuable fantasy WR this season
Mattman00 is AGAINST Horn being a valuable fantasy WR this season

Do your best to convince us your side is the right one.

"He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!"
--Horace

Joe Horn is about as a consistent as your cell phone reception inside a domed stadium.

Last year, Joe's "will he or won't he" production frustrated many fantasy owners.

The same Joe horn that produced a 133 yd., 4 TD game against New York in a lopsided December victory also cursed owners with these performances:

9/21 1 rec, 5 yds.
10/12 2 rec, 30 yds.
11/02 4 rec, 39 yds.
11/16 3 rec, 21 yds.
11/30 2 rec, 10 yds.
12/21 2 rec, 39 yds.

Ouch. In fact, Mr. Horn had 8 games with 4 receptions or less.

Now his end of year totals really weren't that bad: 973 rec yards & 10 TDs, but remember that 133 of those yards and 4 of those TDs came in one game.

What's the point? Consistency is a huge factor in picking your #1 fantasy player at any position. When we make our top picks in the draft, we are all looking for the players we can start every week, without having to think about the matchup. You don't draft a Randy Moss or a Ladanian Tomlinson to sit on your bench. Their bad weeks are so few and far between that you can live with them.

This is the sticking point with Joe Horn. He does not generate the feeling of confidence that other players at his position do.

Owners who take him as a #1 WR too early better have a WR 1A in mind, because Joe is simply not reliable.

I cannot debate that Joe Horn is not a #1 WR for a fantasy team. He isn't. The numbers just aren't there. Unless you play in a sadistic sort of league where you can start a lineup with just 1 WR, your league will require you to start 2 and possibly even 3 WRs on a given week. Someone will be stuck settling for Horn as their #1 - sad for them. But definitely do not be scared away from making him your #2.

First off, we all would love consistency from every position. I am a huge believer in consistency. I'd rather have the WR who will get me 60 to 70 yards and a TD on average than one who has one or two phenominal games during the course of a season. The fact is that WRs like that are nearly impossible to find. Pick any given season and you will not find only a small number of WRs who score 10+ TDs. And precious few get beyond the 10 to 12 range. Even the studs do little more. And consistent yardage is also hard to come by. Unless you are looking at the absolute elite players like Moss, Holt, and Harrison, you will get some very bad games by even some of the most highly regarded WRs.

There is no way I can argue against Horn's massive inconsistnecy of last season. But here we have a major flaw in player analysis which we are all guilty of. I'd wager that a significant percentage of fantasy owners rely on the previous year's stats to do their player projections. I'd wager that most fantasy web sites are equally guilty. This is why MLB's Randy Johnson slid in almost every single draft on the planet. He was hurt part of last season and was merely average when he was healthy. All attributed to a rapid decline, instead of a mere anomaly and projections done accordingly.

We can look at Joe Horn and say that his inconsistent play last season is a pattern and he is no longer reliable. We could say that, but we shouldn't. Instead, we need to look back. In 2002, he had just 3 games with fewer than 5 receptions, and posted 6 100+ yard games.

I believe the difference between the two seasons was the disappearance of Dante Stallworth from the offense. Stallworth started with one strong game last season and was virtually gone for the entire rest of the season. Jerome Pathon did a mediocre job of filling in, but was really not a significant threat to take the pressure away from Horn. The team increased their use of the run last season and worked on the shorter game with Boo Williams and Ernie Conwell combining for some nice numbers from the TE position.

To sum up, I'd caution anyone from strictly looking at the game logs of last season and seeing 1 game sticking out as the cog in an otherwise lackluster season from Horn. His past production should make him a more consistent WR than he displayed. It should not be out of line to expect about 1100 yards and 8 to 10 TDs. While those are not staggering numbers, they are the makings of a useful fantasy WR.

You make a good point about not making too much out of one season. To be fair, we do have to really look at what a player has done historically.

In that respect, one thing that concerns me is the production of Aaron Brooks. I was very surprised to see that his production in 2003 (last year) was almost identical to the year before.

2002 3572 pass yds., 27 TDs
2003 3546 pass yds., 24 TDs

Somehow, Joe Horn's receiving yardage dropped from 1312 in 2002 to 973 in 2003. My gut reaction was that Brooks must have had a similar decline in passing yards, but the numbers clearly show otherwise.

So what happened? The obvious answer is that Brooks acheived roughly the same totals by spreading the ball around.

You've already touched on the emergence of Boo Williams, but would you believe McAllister had 69 receptions? (up from 47 the previous year)

Joe Horn's receptions dropped from 88 to 78, more than a 10% drop.

The New Orleans offense is changing. Where Horn was once the only real receiving threat, there are now many. Throw in the fact that New Orleans drafted, and is very high on, Deverey Henderson and Horn is probably less likely to see the ball this year.

One highly regarded Fantasy Football website posted this the other day:

"The Saints would trade WR Joe Horn if they could get a second-rounder for him. The team is that excited about Donte Stallworth and LSU rookie Devery Henderson at the receiver position."

While I can't see a trade happening, Horn's diminished role in the offense is clearly apparent.

Expecting 1,100 and 8 TDs is just not reasonable. As I delve deeper into the information, I'm having a hard time even seeing Horn as a top #2 WR pick.

I would estimate his production this year at around 850 and 5TDs, which would put him in the bottom of the #2 receiver category in my book.

I also was surprised to find Brooks' season to be nearly identical to the previous year, which is why I neglected to put it in my post. My initial thought was very much the same, that there had to have been a decline in the passing game - which was not the case. In fact, Brooks' threw significantly fewer picks this past season. I believe that is the product of a more conservative style of offense, which fits with seeing McAllister getting more touches as well as the ball being spread more to the TEs.

The offense in New Orleans is changing, indeed. But, I'd say that I think this is a situation that will benefit Joe Horn this coming season. I haven't looked at the rookie situation and I usually ignore anyone who is coming in as something other than the projected #1 for a team. Think Jerry Porter. The guy was touted big time as a rookie and hardly saw the field. I expect the same thing from this rook. The 1 and 2 will be Horn and Stallworth. Stallworth has looked great this off-season and is expected to produce much more like he did two years ago.

I believe this will result in the ability to open up the offense more again and thus, production out of Joe Horn. With such a tiny number of elite WRs, even a 1000 yard 8 TD season nears the top 10 in such an overall mediocre crop of talent. He wont post those totals with consistent games, but neither will a whole lot of other WRs.

I believe the argument here is really about how we place his value. He's the poor, poor man's #1 - but if drafted as the #2 will be a top notch second WR for a fantasy team.

I'm in complete agreement with you in that we are collectively arriving at his "true" value.

I believe that the Consistency factor keeps him from being a #1 WR, and the Changing Offense knocks him down further in the #2 category.

The rook, Deverey, is a flat-out burner. That's what makes him so intriguing to last year's "conservative" offense. Was the increased short game due to a lack of a true deep threat? What effect will having that deep threat have on the rest of the offense?

It's possible that Deverey could steal catches from both Horn and Stallworth . . . It's also possible that he could free Horn from some double teams and allow him to increase his production.

Uncertainty like that is going to land Joe Horn in the "boom or bust" category . . .

Although there aren't many elite options at WR, there are plenty of safer options and safer gambles . . . I can think of a certain Seahawk I'd pick before I'd take Horn.