2013 Fantasy Football: What Percy Harvin to Seahawks Means 

The Minnesota Vikings have officially unloaded an unhappy Percy Harvin on the Seattle Seahawks for multiple draft picks, including Seattle’s 2013 first-rounder. This will have a domino effect and makes an already-tight NFC West race with San Francisco even tighter.

Wherever you have Harvin on your Fantasy Football Draft Board, move him up two spaces or so. Harvin goes from an “AP All Day” offense to a balanced one, with a solid running game and a dynamic young quarterback (a significant upgrade for Harvin) in Russell Wilson. Harvin will also pair with Sidney Rice, a former teammate in Minnesota. The last time Harvin and Rice were together and healthy, it was 2009 and the Vikings came inches from making the Super Bowl. Rice was Option 1 that year, but you can probably expect the roles to be reversed this season.

Harvin, assuming he stays healthy, should be putting up an 80-catch, 1,000+ yard season, and anything less will be a major disappointment. He’s a WR1 in deep leagues, but really, one should try to target him as a high-end WR2 if possible, as he still carries an injury risk and hasn’t reached his full potential yet.
Rice could see a bump in production as he’ll command fewer double-teams, so expect an improvement on last year’s 50-748 line – 60+ catches are now a probability, meaning he’s still a WR3/Flex play at best, but one who could break off a few more big plays and take a step forward with the whole Seattle offense.

Russell Wilson will be a lock to improve his numbers as well, right? That’s actually not a guarantee. Wilson generated a lot of fantasy points with his feet last season, and with a dynamic new option in the passing game, he may air it out more – meaning more TD passes but possibly fewer TD runs. But if you believe that his rookie season was only the beginning, and Harvin stays healthy, Wilson will have no excuse not to put up a 30+ TD-pass season. That’s a lofty expectation, but Wilson brought it on himself by being so outstanding last year.

And what about the Vikings? They now have to be expected to pursue a wide receiver in free agency and/or the draft – they certainly don’t have any other non-AP options. If Ponder is expected to take a step forward, he will need someone to throw to, as well. Expect the Vikings to try harder now for Mike Wallace or Greg Jennings in Free Agency. Jennings would probably be a good fit (as mentioned in a previous article). Otherwise, they head into the season with Jerome Simpson and Devin Aromashodu as their top receivers – and I think Vikes GM Rick Spielman knows better than that.

About the author: Jonathan Pollak

Jonathan Pollak has finally given in and started utilizing the internet to rant about football. He has been playing fantasy sports since a pencil, paper, and newspaper box scores were needed to calculate stats. His earliest and fondest memories are of Lawrence Taylor hurting people.