This season is getting out of control and fast. There have been so many injuries that it is extremely unlikely after week 7 you aren’t hurting with depth problems. Thankfully week 8 isn’t as painful when it comes to bye-weeks and thankfully a lot of key players had byes. Going into next Sunday the injury reports are going to be crazy and if there was ever a week to check for updates daily, it is this week.
With all that being said, there was football played. It wasn’t the most entertaining day of football, and when it was entertaining you can bet there was a rookie involved. O how the league has changed.
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Browns 6 – Seahawks 3
Game Studs: N/A
- These teams suck.
- Marshawn Lynch hurt his back in warm ups, consider him week-to-week
- Montario Hardesty had 35 touches. He is startable until Peyton Hillis is back, but it isn’t like anyone is going to shine for either of these teams.
- Greg Little is the only receiver worth starting for either of these teams (this includes Sidney Rice).
- Michael Turner continues to be slightly above average.
- Matt Ryan still needs Julio Jones as a deep threat.
- Keiland Williams and Maurice Morris split the carries and did equally as well. Give Morris the slight edge, but neither are great starts regardless.
- As previously stated on this blog, Calvin Johnson’s fantasy floor is 100 yards. That is insane.
- Brandon Pettigrew continues to be apart of this offense and is still a solid plug-n-play during bye-weeks.
- Titus Young and Nate Burleson combined for 1 yard on 1 catch. Both are risky plays at best.
- Matthew Stafford hurt is knee. Hopefully it’s minor as he was able to play on it.
- A healthy Arian Foster is a first overall pick in all fantasy leagues next year. If he was the lone workhorse, his stat-line would of looked like this: 40 rushes for 219 yards with two touchdowns and 5 catches for 119 yards and a touchdown. As it were, Ben Tate had 15 of those rushes for 104 yards.
- Ben Tate is a reasonable flex play in bye-weeks.
- Matt Schaub owners need to heed warning. His day was heavily set-up by the run and were it not for Arian Foster it would have been a sub-par fantasy day.
- Jake Locker sighting. 100% completion rating for his NFL career so far.
- Chris Johnson couldn’t find running room in this game at any point. You aren’t benching Johnson, but you can’t feel great about having him in your line-up week to week.
- It’s time to cut ties with Nate Washington. Welcome to Dumpsville.
- Another manage expectations warning here about Tebow. He looked awful, and I mean awful, for 55 minutes.
- You are starting Tebow most weeks. He draws the Lions next week who surprisingly aren’t great against the run, this plays right into his game.
- Willis McGahee hurting is hand is why you saw so much of Knowshon Moreno. Don’t go running to Moreno just yet, Tebow has the goal line rushes and McGahee has to be ruled out for Moreno to be worthy of an add.
- Demaryius Thomas is a decent add this week, but don’t go blowing all of your FAAB budget on him, he had a really good match-up this week and we still don’t know where he sits on the depth chart.
- Matt Moore is an improvement over Chad Henne.
- Try out Daniel Thomas or Reggie Bush if you need five to seven fantasy points for a week. You aren’t going to get much more then that.
- Tolbert is ‘the guy’ if you were picking between him and Ryan Matthews.
- Welcome back Antonio Gates, time to get him back in your line-ups.
- Phillip Rivers has to dial up Vincent Jackson more often to be successful. Football has become a throwing league and quarterbacks need deep threats to be successful. You aren’t going to get it done with Malcolm Floyd and Patrick Crayton.
- Mark Sanchez continues to be a sneaky good play week-to-week.
- Shonn Greene is heavily benefiting from the new ground and pound system the Jets have put in place. He is a borderline top 20 back.
- Don’t overreact to Plaxico’s three touchdowns. He is still a flex play at best and Holmes is the receiver to own and start in New York.
- Roy Williams found the end zone, but the Bears passing game is a complete mess and in standard 10 team leagues shouldn’t be considered fantasy relevant.
- Something about Matt Forte being the Peyton Manning of the Bears.
- Josh Freeman has really regressed as an NFL quarterback. His fantasy line was alright, but he looked bad and rushed too many decisions.
- Earnest Graham may have played his last NFL game. Anything involving an Achilles tendon is scary and almost impossible to come back from. Kregg Lumpkin, a favorite of mine, stands to see a gigantic spike in workload. In PPR leagues, he is a must add if Blount is out any more games.
- Mike Williams is officially fantasy relevant, again.
- Not buying into the Dezmon Briscoe hype, so don’t come to me if you are expecting advice to start him.
- Just gonna say it, John Beck doesn’t hurt Redskins receivers but please don’t start him.
- Santana Moss broke his hand, so he is likely out for a month. Jabar Gaffney stands to see an increase in workload but Anthony Armstrong is the better add here. Armstrong won’t find himself double covered like Gaffney.
- Ryan Torain, two carries, minus five yards. Yikes. Remember when I said Torain doesn’t touch the ball if Hightower is available? Well, I was right.
- O wait, Hightower hurt is knee, if he is out next week Torain should be started. Probably.
- Fred Davis a great play while Cooley is out.
- Standard Cam Newton is awesome comment.
- Jonathan Steward had another goal line carry, and scored. He is clearly outproducing DeAngelo Williams and the Panthers must know it. They are basically splitting carries but the production isn’t even close.
- Jeremy Shockey is getting more looks then Greg Olson. No idea what to make of that situation, still sticking with Olsen for now but Shockey is becoming start worthy.
- Carolina is a run first team, remember that.
- Jackie Battle did about as well as expected, still like him going forward.
- Dwayne Bowe is a must-start.
- Steve Breaston is close to one.
- What do you get when you cross Kyle Boller with Carson Palmer? The worst quarterback performance I have ever seen.
- Heyward-Bey was the only receiver to eclipse 30 yards and should be seriously considered for starter status, especially if Palmer can find his stride.
- Darren McFadden left with an injury which give the work load to Michael Bush. If McFadden is out for any extended period of time, Bush is a top 20 play.
- Ben Roethlisberger may have finally found his stride. He looks confident in his throws and that is huge.
- Emmanuel Sanders and Antonio Brown are great plays moving forward if Hines Ward is kept out of play for any amount of time.
- Welcome back to reality Rashard Mendenhall. He looked lost on the field. Isaac Redman clearly outproduced him in limited touches.
- Kevin Kolb looked great against arguably the best pass defense in the league. Top-15 play moving forward.
- Beanie Wells is hurt. We knew this was going to happen. Consider him week-to-week. Alfonso Smith would be the play I’d think, but not worth an add.
- Early Doucet is getting enough looks to be started during bye-weeks.
- Here is where I get to tell you not to start thinking you have the best back in the NFL. Murray had a great day no one can deny that, but he went against one of the worst defenses in the league. He was running around guys who didn’t have jobs last week (literally). Consider him a top 15 play but don’t go buying unless you are desperate.
- Tony Romo really needed to have a much bigger day to silence the critics, but to his defense, they didn’t need him to throw much.
- Miles Austin was unable to break free, which is unlike him.
- Dez Bryant is clearly happy with being the number two receiver with his talents. It is impossible to double cover Austin, Witten, and Bryant.
- Steven Jackson looked good. Caddy Williams only has value if Jackson gets hurt again, which is very possible.
- A.J. Feeley isn’t on Kyle Bollers level of bad but he is about on par with Curtis Painter.
- Brandon Lloyd is definitely going to be the target of choice. Once Bradford is back Lloyd is going to be a great play.
- James Starks is clearly outproducing Ryan Grant and is the back to start in Green Bay.
- James Jones found a way to make catches again. At some point he is going to disappear and I don’t want anything to do with it.
- Jermichael Finley just isn’t as much apart of the offense as he once was, hard to argue with benching him at this point.
- Christian Ponder looked great for his first start. He was the reason the Vikings almost came back.
- Adrian Peterson would like everyone to remember he is in a class of his own. Due to the offense he is attached to, his production is ever so slightly limited. If he ever found himself on a top team, he could easily break the single season rushing record.
- Percy Harvin will likely sit week 8 due to a reoccurring rib injury.
- Michael Jenkins and Christian Ponder have a good chemistry.
- Visanthe Shiancoe is getting enough targets to be considered during bye-weeks.
- Lone bright spot for the Colts was Delone Carter who changed tides and outproduced Donald Brown. It remains to be seen if Addai will miss time, but my hunch is he won’t. Reports are that Addai re-aggravated his hamstring injury. Since the score wasn’t close, we don’t know if he was available to come back in.
- Curtis Painter was two kinds of awful. Watching him gives you even more appreciation for Peyton Manning.
- Reggie Wayne and Pierre Garcon had similar days, but Garcon had more opportunities had he and Painter been able to connect more.
- Drew Brees had a dream fantasy day.
- Mark Ingram actually had a good day on the ground. Sproles is still ‘the guy’ though. Ingram got a lot of touches towards the end (same with Pierre Thomas) when the game was completely over.
- Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, and Darren Sproles appear to have a huge hold on the targets for the Saints. Any other player is a complete wild card to get over two catches.
Do you have any advice on how to not panic when your team has the worst week imaginable? Next Sunday is so far away…
Personally, I am a fan of Jameson Whiskey. But in all seriousness, this fantasy week isn’t over yet. Your outcome for this past week may have been decided but there are so many unknowns for next Sunday that you still have a lot of opportunities to make good decisions. This past weekend was tough for me but the likes of DeMarco Murray saved my week.
Let’s just say, 200 yards and 3TD for MJD tonight would solve the problem!
On another note, do you like Alfonso Smith off waivers for additional depth at RB?