This story appears in the Dec. 14 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
NEXT 2010 content: No. 1 Kevin Durant | No. 2 Chris Johnson | No. 3 John Wall | No. 4 Stephen Strasburg | No. 5 Melanie Oudin | No. 6-10 | No. 11-15 | No. 16-20
Okay, here's my beef with NEXT: It's not that we can be wrong -- if 60 percent of our picks pan out, we're doing well -- but rather that we set the bar impossibly high. We expect our choices to not just thrive, but to enjoy long, transcendent careers. So I worry for 2009's NFL winner: Chris Johnson, the Titans' 24-year-old tailback.