Very quietly, Matt Forte is having a rock star 2013 season. In fact, Forte is on his way to the best season of his career.
By way of background, if you are a Bears fan, most of the talk of player personnel improvement within the past ten years has revolved around the quarterback position. Indeed, it was a monumental when the Bears acquired Jay Cutler from the Broncos back in April, 2009. Suddenly, it seemed the Bears could forget about the twenty-one quarterbacks that started for the team during the Brett Favre era. Suddenly, it seemed the Bears could crawl out of the shadow of the last great Bears QB, Sid Luckman (1939 to 1948). Lost in all this were the quality running backs that have been the backbone of the Bears organization that endured for sixty years while the team searched for its next Sid Luckman.
Matt Forte is part of an impressive Bears running back group which includes, more recently, Gale Sayers (1965 to 1971), Walter Payton (1975 to 1987), and Thomas Jones (2004 to 2006). For Bears running backs, Walter Payton is the greatest in Bears history. As for Matt Forte, he is on pace to greatness too.
Unlike Payton, Matt Forte was not a first round draft pick, but a second round draft pick in 2008. He was drafted to fill the vacancy left by Cedric Benson who the team released. Indeed, back then, Matt Forte wasn’t necessarily seen as an every down back straight out of college. Nonetheless, he became one in short order, and touched the ball 379 times as a rookie, had his first 1,500-plus all-purpose yard (“APY”) season as a rookie, and had his first (and only so far) multiple touchdown season as a rookie. Since then, Matt Forte has been a 1,400 APY to 1,600 APY, and 4 to 9 touchdown running back for the Bears. If he can keep it up, Matt is on pace to be the second greatest Bears running back of all time!
Photo from Wikipedia
In fantasy football, Forte has posted the kind of stats that have made him a top twenty running back since coming into the league in 2008. Besides his rookie season, he’s fallen short of being among the very best, but always been fantasy football relevant. This should change for the better this season.
In three games, Matt Forte has been impressive in the Bears new look offense with 363 all purpose yards and 2 touchdowns on 73 touches of the football. While Matt’s role in the rushing game seems to have declined a bit (it really hasn’t), his role in the passing game has increased exponentially! At his current pace, Forte is on pace for 1,200 yards rushing, 736 yards receiving as well as 11 touchdowns on 389 touches! Forte hasn’t come close to these numbers since his rookie season. Besides rush yards and rush attempts, Matt would set career highs in every other category and come close to, or potentially break the elite 2,000 all-purpose yard mark. Forte is on pace to finish as a top-five running back in 2013.Indeed, Forte has been listed as one of The Fantasy Greek’s top five running backs starts in three of the last four weeks. This week, Matt Forte faces a Lions team that he played well against last season. In each game, Matt had at least 100 all-purpose yards and in one game, he scored once. The Lions are giving up roughly 100 yards rushing per game. Better than that though, the Lions have given up 4 rushing touchdowns and 2 passing touchdowns to running backs through three weeks of play. Matt Forte should be the ‘King’ of the Lions’ proverbial jungle. Matt Forte is The Fantasy Greek’s fantasy football player of the week.
For more Top 5 starts at the quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, and defense/special team positions, visit TheFantasyGreek.com, “Your Second Opinion For Your Fantasy Football Instinct.”
Written By: Jim Saranteas – @TheFantasyGreek and @JimSaranteas on Twitter
Founder of the fantasy football advice site TheFantasyGreek.com
