NFL Season Opener!

It's football time ladies and gentlemen, and all of our draft preparation is about to enter it's first phase in week 1.  Pittsburgh and Tennessee will start us off tonight.  I wanted to do some live blogging of the game, but I have a doubleheader in softball and will probably catch most of the game at the bar.

As far as thoughts for tonight, keep a close eye on the TEN defense.  They were probably overdrafted in most leagues simply given the fact that they lost arguably the most dominant defensive lineman, Albert Haynesworth, in the offseason.  What type of ripple effect this loss will have on the rest of the defense is well worth watching not only for TEN defensive owners, but also for people on the fence about playing offensive skill position players against them.

Kerry Collins and Big Ben were drafted as QB2s most likely, so I doubt either of them are starting for many teams tonight.  I'm predicting a bounce back season for Big Ben, so we'll see what type of start he gets off to tonight.  Chris Johnson will have some tough sledding, but keep in mind how often TEN used him in space against Baltimore in the playoffs last year, and how effective he was prior to his ankle sprain.  He's your first round pick, and while a big game is pretty much impossible, it'd be really hard to bench him in week 1 unless you have two obvious top ten guys also around (Ray Rice versus KC would be awfully tempting).  Willie Parker won the goal line duties kinda by default with Mendenhall being unimpressive and nobody else stepping up, so he's a quality RB2 against the Haynesworth-less Titans D.  Holmes is an obvious start at WR, but I wouldn't be ecstatic to start anybody else.  Gage isn't a bad WR3, but he was probably drafted as your WR4 anyways.  Ward should put up workman-like numbers with a chance for a TD.  No TEs are worth using, which is a shame as Heath Miller continues to be under-utilized in the Pittsburgh offense.

It should be a great game between two physical teams, and I'm looking forward to week 1!