Hiatus Ends

My Team:

So, who's all battling for the fantasy championship in their league? I've made it there in one of my three leagues, and I'm using the following lineup:

QB: Ben Roethlisberger
RB: Brian Westbrook
RB: Frank Gore
WR: Reggie Wayne
WR: Andre Johnson
WR: Anquan Boldin
TE: Tony Scheffler
K: Shayne Graham
D/ST: MIN

My current lineup looks nothing like the one I started the year with, but I had a poor draft and had to use waiver wire pickups/trades to re-build my team. Big Ben and AJ are sadly the only players I drafted, but I did a good job selling high on Reggie Bush, LaMont Jordan, and Roy Williams to get me to where I am.

This Week:

The Colts are very tricky this week. Dungy says he'll play them a usual amount, but don't listen to what he says....logic states that they'll be rested quite a bit. I'd have a hard time benching Manning or Wayne as they'll likely put up a half of very good production against a weak Houston secondary. Gonzalez should be a safe WR3 as well this week as he might play the most of the starters, plus coaches don't usually worry about WRs as much. Dallas Clark is a decent TE1, but his recent inconsistent play is cause for concern. Addai, however, is a very risky start. There's no way he plays more than a half, and that's his ceiling of playing time. Unless you have a very weak 3rd option, I'd consider sitting him.

The Patriots might pull their starters a little earlier than usual once they get out to a comfortable lead, but I'd consider Brady, Maroney, Moss, and Welker all safe starts. Stallworth is losing snaps to Gaffney and isn't worth using as a WR3. Ben Watson is a poor bet as he's pretty worthless unless you get a TD from him.

The Packers are playing for homefield advantage, and Favre will want to avenge the loss to the Bears earlier this season. The Packers were killing the Bears in the first half, then inexplicably took their foot off the gas pedal in the 2nd half and watched the game slip away. Play Fave, Grant, Driver, Jennings, and Lee as you usually would.

You don't have to worry about any other teams resting players. Keep an eye on Westbrook's status tomorrow, but he's expected to start, and we've seen this song and dance plenty of times where he doen't practice, but then puts up his 100+ total yards. Let's hope we get one more week of that, preferably without the kneel down at the one. That cost my a playoff win last week, but Brady's horrible game and Galloway's 0 didn't help either.

Fitzgerald and Boldin are both gametime decisions, but Boldin put in a lot of work before taking Friday off this week and appears close to full health. Fitzgerald should not be benched, but won't be 100%, and he appears worse for the wear than Boldin does. Warner should find plenty of both of them against a poor Falcons secondary.

Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew should both post solid stats against a hideous Oakland run D. I got stopped in the playoffs last week in one league thanks to Addai's hideous game against the Raiders, but you can blame that squarely on the shoulders of either OC Tom Moore or Manning as they stubbornly, and ineffectively, tried to throw the ball all over the place against a strong secondary and poor run D. Jacksonville won't make the same mistake.

Shanahanigans? Yup, full force. Don't even think about using Selvin Young or Travis Henry this week. Thanks to Henry's injuries and legal problems, yet another timeshare has reared its ugly head in Denver.

Going Forward:

I will do a full wrapup of my QB value picks after this week, and I'll also post some lessons learned. Then, it's about time to start thinking fantasy baseball... :)