FIVE STARS (Out of five)
- RB RASHARD MENDENHALL, Steelers: Mendenhall ignited a running back controversy in Steel Town by outperforming starter Willie Parker in his absence on Sunday. Even if Parker (toe) returns to the lineup, the Steelers are facing the Lions and Browns in successive weeks, and Mendenhall would still likely warrant a start.
FOUR STARS
- RB JEROME HARRISON, Browns: Jamal Lewis (hamstring) is breaking down before our eyes. James Davis (shoulder) is out for the season. Harrison ran for 129 yards Sunday. This week he faces the Bills, who just gashed them for 250 yards on the ground. Need we say more?
- TE VERNON DAVIS, 49ers: The former malcontent and fantasy bust is now happy, healthy, more mature and scoring TDs left and right - two in the past three weeks. Get him while you still can.
- WR AUSTIN COLLIE, Colts: No, that's not a designer breed of dog, but rather an excellent WR option if your starter's on a bye. Collie (along with Pierre Garcon) is doing his best to replace Anthony Gonzalez, catching a season-high 6 passes, including one for a TD, against Seattle. This week he's up against the Tennessee secondary, which hasn't stopped anyone.
THREE STARS
- QB DAVID GARRARD, Jaguars: He's been alternating good and bad weeks, stat-wise, so far this season, and he's not a terrible option this week against a Seahawks secondary that just got lit up by Peyton Manning.
Showing posts with label Anthony Gonzalez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthony Gonzalez. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hot Pickups: Week 4
FIVE STARS (Out of five):
- RB GLEN COFFEE, 49ers: Frank Gore's understudy got rave reviews in Niners training camp. Now the rookie gets a starting gig with Gore out for the next three weeks with an ankle injury. It doesn't seem like San Fran will hesitate to lean on Coffee - he got 25 carries (for 54 yards) in relief of Gore last week against the run-tough Vikings. Now he gets a crack at the run-soft Rams D on Sunday.
FOUR STARS:
- WR KEVIN WALTER, Texans: Some owner may have lost patience with Walter after he missed Weeks 1 and 2 with a hamstring injury and dropped him. He made them look really bad with a 7-catch, 96-yard, 1-TD effort in Week 3. He's back, and he should be on your team and in your lineup as a No. 2/3 WR or flex player against the Raiders this week.
THREE STARS:
- RB FRED TAYLOR, Patriots: His performance last Sunday (21 carries, 105 yards, TD) will automatically stamp him as a hot pickup in any league in which he's not already owned. There will probably be more of these types of performances to come, too. But be forewarned: He's facing the Ravens this week, and there's a decent chance Laurence Maroney or Sammy Morris or Kevin Faulk could lead the Pats in rushing on any given week.
- WR PIERRE GARCON, Colts: The dude with the cool name (wish I knew how to type that little accent thing under the C in his last name!) has now scored a TD in two straight weeks and seems to be rounding into a big-play threat for Peyton Manning in Anthony Gonzalez's absence. And that means he belongs on a fantasy roster.
TWO STARS:
QB CHAD HENNE, Dolphins: Henne's the man in Miami now that Chad Pennington is out for the season. Does that mean he should be picked up? I'd take a wait-and-see approach for now - chances are the Fins will lean heavily on Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown with a little bit of Pat White mixed in.
- RB GLEN COFFEE, 49ers: Frank Gore's understudy got rave reviews in Niners training camp. Now the rookie gets a starting gig with Gore out for the next three weeks with an ankle injury. It doesn't seem like San Fran will hesitate to lean on Coffee - he got 25 carries (for 54 yards) in relief of Gore last week against the run-tough Vikings. Now he gets a crack at the run-soft Rams D on Sunday.
FOUR STARS:
- WR KEVIN WALTER, Texans: Some owner may have lost patience with Walter after he missed Weeks 1 and 2 with a hamstring injury and dropped him. He made them look really bad with a 7-catch, 96-yard, 1-TD effort in Week 3. He's back, and he should be on your team and in your lineup as a No. 2/3 WR or flex player against the Raiders this week.
THREE STARS:
- RB FRED TAYLOR, Patriots: His performance last Sunday (21 carries, 105 yards, TD) will automatically stamp him as a hot pickup in any league in which he's not already owned. There will probably be more of these types of performances to come, too. But be forewarned: He's facing the Ravens this week, and there's a decent chance Laurence Maroney or Sammy Morris or Kevin Faulk could lead the Pats in rushing on any given week.
- WR PIERRE GARCON, Colts: The dude with the cool name (wish I knew how to type that little accent thing under the C in his last name!) has now scored a TD in two straight weeks and seems to be rounding into a big-play threat for Peyton Manning in Anthony Gonzalez's absence. And that means he belongs on a fantasy roster.
TWO STARS:
QB CHAD HENNE, Dolphins: Henne's the man in Miami now that Chad Pennington is out for the season. Does that mean he should be picked up? I'd take a wait-and-see approach for now - chances are the Fins will lean heavily on Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown with a little bit of Pat White mixed in.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Don't overreach for receivers
As much as Chad Johnson might argue otherwise, wide receivers just aren't that important. At least not when it comes to fantasy football.
Terrell Owens might want to slap me upside the head if he were reading this, but it wouldn't make me change my mind: Having an elite wideout isn't as crucial as having one, or even two, elite running backs.
No matter what those ball hogs try to tell you, running back is the marquee position in fantasy. In most standard scoring leagues, the majority of your points will come from runners, based on a simple fact: They touch the ball more often.
Top running backs are handed the ball about 20-25 times a game, or more, and asked to do something exciting with it. Elite receivers might get 15 balls thrown to them if they're lucky. (If Rex Grossman is the quarterback in question, replace "thrown" with "heaved" and "to them" with "in their general direction.") And every time a pass is attempted, only three things can happen, and two of them (interception, incompletion) are bad. I don't like those odds.
Obviously, I'm oversimplifying things, so don't draft running backs in the first five rounds based on what you just read. I don't have an issue with adding Marvin Harrison or Torry Holt or Steve Smith to your roster. I do, however, have an issue with drafters who take these receivers in the first or second round.
Sure, Johnson's a fine fantasy pick, and arguably the best at his position. But do you really want to reach for him in the third round, when it means you could be stuck with some clunker like Jamal Lewis or Ahman Green as your No. 2 back? That's just not gonna cut it, especially when you consider those weeks when Johnson gets held to under 60 receiving yards and no touchdowns - which happened a whopping seven times last year.
Another reason not to reach for a receiver: There are a bunch of guys at the top of the rankings - Johnson, Harrison, Holt, Smith, Owens, Reggie Wayne - who are more or less interchangeable. And behind them, there's an even larger pool of about 10-12 wideouts who could conceivably finish with about the same stats this year. That's certainly not true for running backs, where the drop-off in production is much steeper as you go down the list, making the importance of grabbing a couple studs even more crucial.
Let someone else reach for Owens. In the meantime, you can add some serious depth at running back and wait for one of those other top wideouts to trickle down to you in the third or fourth round. Plus, there's always going to be receiver talent on the waiver wire later in the year, even if you're just grabbing guys who have favorable matchups. That simply isn't so for running backs; even most of the talented backups will already be spoken for on draft day.
While we're on the subject of receivers, here are some other tidbits:
• If the top wideouts are so interchangeable, what made me rank Smith No. 1? Two things: He's his team's clear No. 1 at the position, and he's the most capable of making big plays and erupting for a huge season, a la 2005. The rest of the upper-tier guys are valued for their consistency.
• Folks are way too high on Indianapolis Colts rookie Anthony Gonzalez. The odds are already stacked against first-year receivers, let alone guys who will be their team's No. 3. Sure, Brandon Stokley had a magical year in that role in 2004 for Indy - then caught one touchdown the following season (he was hurt for most of '06).
• Here's a sleeper: Brandon Jones, Tennessee Titans. Vince Young has to throw to somebody, and Eric Moulds just doesn't scare anybody anymore. You won't find too many other NFL No. 1 receivers as late in the draft as Jones.
Terrell Owens might want to slap me upside the head if he were reading this, but it wouldn't make me change my mind: Having an elite wideout isn't as crucial as having one, or even two, elite running backs.
No matter what those ball hogs try to tell you, running back is the marquee position in fantasy. In most standard scoring leagues, the majority of your points will come from runners, based on a simple fact: They touch the ball more often.
Top running backs are handed the ball about 20-25 times a game, or more, and asked to do something exciting with it. Elite receivers might get 15 balls thrown to them if they're lucky. (If Rex Grossman is the quarterback in question, replace "thrown" with "heaved" and "to them" with "in their general direction.") And every time a pass is attempted, only three things can happen, and two of them (interception, incompletion) are bad. I don't like those odds.
Obviously, I'm oversimplifying things, so don't draft running backs in the first five rounds based on what you just read. I don't have an issue with adding Marvin Harrison or Torry Holt or Steve Smith to your roster. I do, however, have an issue with drafters who take these receivers in the first or second round.
Sure, Johnson's a fine fantasy pick, and arguably the best at his position. But do you really want to reach for him in the third round, when it means you could be stuck with some clunker like Jamal Lewis or Ahman Green as your No. 2 back? That's just not gonna cut it, especially when you consider those weeks when Johnson gets held to under 60 receiving yards and no touchdowns - which happened a whopping seven times last year.
Another reason not to reach for a receiver: There are a bunch of guys at the top of the rankings - Johnson, Harrison, Holt, Smith, Owens, Reggie Wayne - who are more or less interchangeable. And behind them, there's an even larger pool of about 10-12 wideouts who could conceivably finish with about the same stats this year. That's certainly not true for running backs, where the drop-off in production is much steeper as you go down the list, making the importance of grabbing a couple studs even more crucial.
Let someone else reach for Owens. In the meantime, you can add some serious depth at running back and wait for one of those other top wideouts to trickle down to you in the third or fourth round. Plus, there's always going to be receiver talent on the waiver wire later in the year, even if you're just grabbing guys who have favorable matchups. That simply isn't so for running backs; even most of the talented backups will already be spoken for on draft day.
While we're on the subject of receivers, here are some other tidbits:
• If the top wideouts are so interchangeable, what made me rank Smith No. 1? Two things: He's his team's clear No. 1 at the position, and he's the most capable of making big plays and erupting for a huge season, a la 2005. The rest of the upper-tier guys are valued for their consistency.
• Folks are way too high on Indianapolis Colts rookie Anthony Gonzalez. The odds are already stacked against first-year receivers, let alone guys who will be their team's No. 3. Sure, Brandon Stokley had a magical year in that role in 2004 for Indy - then caught one touchdown the following season (he was hurt for most of '06).
• Here's a sleeper: Brandon Jones, Tennessee Titans. Vince Young has to throw to somebody, and Eric Moulds just doesn't scare anybody anymore. You won't find too many other NFL No. 1 receivers as late in the draft as Jones.
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