Week 5 Thoughts

Arizona Cardinals - Talk about bi-polar when it comes to Warner.  He lit up Houston in the 1st half, and then sucked in the 2nd half as Houston almost came all the way back.  Luckily his 1st half was so good that he put up a great fantasy outing.  Fitz turned in a big game, and Boldin put up a solid receiving performance, but hurt his owners by losing a fumble.  Wells and Hightower split carries evenly, but neither impressed as Arizona continues to pass as often as they can.

Atlanta Falcons - Matt Ryan was great again, and I hope you were able to buy low on Roddy White as the window of opportunity slammed shut with his ridiculous performance.  Michael Turner looked much better coming out of the bye, putting up his first good game with respect to YPC and also scoring 3 TDs.  Gonzalez took a backseat in the high scoring affair this week.  This was a very impressive performance against a good defense.  Ryan, Turner, White, and Gonzalez are all great options moving forward, but I maintain my concern regarding Michael Turner's workload.

Baltimore Ravens - Flacco has officially become a QB1 as the Ravens have moved from a run-first to a pass-first offense.  Flacco struggled in this one, but still tossed a TD thanks to a ridiculous play from Ray Rice on a dump-off pass.  Heap managed 7 catches, which was huge for PPR leaguers.  Speaking of Ray Rice, he dominated touches in the backfield in this one.  He has been one of the most productive RBs in football this year on a per-touch basis, and he's even scored twice despite not being the preferred goal line runner.  I apologize to anyone who used McGahee on my "solid bye-week replacement" recommendation from last week...he saw two touches all game.  We'll continue to monitor this seemingly inconsistent backfield, but there's no question that Rice is here to stay as a RB2.

Buffalo Bills - Trent Edwards still sucks, and this has dragged Owens down to a WR3 and Evans to a "stay on the bench" WR.  In hindsight, we all should have seen this coming from a conservative coach with a conservative QB.  Lynch lead the team in both carries and catches, although he only had 4 more than Fred Jackson.  Most noteworthy, however, is the fact Lynch was definitely more productive with his touches.  Lynch is sneaking his way back into RB2 territory, but with an upcoming game against the Jets, he's got a touch match up ahead.

Carolina Panthers - Carolina tried to run the ball more coming out of the bye week, but they weren't very effective doing it.  Delhomme looked blah again.  Williams posted a miserable day including a fumble while Jonathan Stewart was more productive per rush and added a TD run.  Steve Smith did about as well as expected given his current situation, but he has regressed into a WR2 with the state of this offense.  Williams and Stewart are both RB2/3 moving forward and that's it.  Williams better not do so little again with his touches or he's going to lose his lead back title of this committee.

Cincinnati Bengals - Palmer started off hot with a big first half in regards to yardage, but then Cincy turned to the ground game as Benson became the first 100 yard runner against Baltimore in quite some time.  Palmer then saved his best for last, again, marching his team down the field and throwing the go-ahead TD pass late in the 4th quarter.  He posted another solid, but not spectacular fantasy line as he's moving along as a lower-end QB1 right now.

Chicago Bears - Bye week.

Cleveland Browns - Absolute barf.  Jamal Lewis came back to wreck Jerome Harrison's day by taking 31 carries and being somewhat productive with them.  He's a RB3 in the right match up, but that's about all I can say regarding this offense.

Dallas Cowboys - Romo's pretty productive when his WRs make ridiculous plays for him, as they did in both week 1 and week 5.  He looked shaky again, even against KC, but Miles Austin obviously made things happen after the catch.  We'll try not to over-react to one big game given he hasn't done much in his career thus far, but Austin has the skills and the opportunity to be the leading receiver for the Cowboys over the rest of the year.  Roy Williams and Patrick Crayton aren't doing anything, and Witten is doing a bit more blocking than usual.  Someone has to step up, and Austin has the talent to do just that.  Barber was again hampered by his quad injury, so once again Choice stepped in and made the most of his touches.  This has been the case for two weeks now, so the bye week comes at the perfect time for Barber.

Denver Broncos - They are for real.  Orton played the best game of his year as this offense is starting to get comfortable with each other.  Marshall has predictably emerged as the top target, using his size and speed to get open and make plays after the catch.  The rest of the receivers are still in a rotation, but Eddie Royal finally gave his owners something to cheer about with a 10/90 performance.  Until he shows some consistency, and given the coaching staff said his performance was match up-based even, it's not safe to say he's back.  Moreno was good with his touches, but a fumble hurt him.  Unfortunately he didn't get a crack at the end zone in this one

Detroit Lions - Well, that was about as much as could be expected.  Culpepper was solid, and after Calvin left in the first drive with a knee injury, he spread the ball around and also made a play or two with his legs.  He'll remain the starter while Stafford recovers, but with Green Bay and their tough secondary up next, he's a low end bye week fill-in.  They aren't opening up holes for Kevin Smith, but thanks to his passing game production, he's posting solid weekly yardage totals.

Green Bay Packers - Bye week.

Houston Texans - Schaub posted another monster week thanks to the nature of this offense.  With Slaton not providing the same spark on the ground that he provided last year, expect Houston to pass as much as ever this season, which means big things for Schaub in most weeks.  It also means big things for AJ, who posted another monster week.  He's been more inconsistent than last year, but his numbers are there.  Daniels continues to rack up solid yardage as well and seems to be the secondary option for Schaub.  Slaton was again ineffective on the ground, but thanks to his receiving yardage, he posted another solid yardage performance.

Indianapolis Colts - Manning continues to be on fire.  Wayne would have had an even bigger game had he not dropped an easy TD in the end zone at the end of the game.  Clark continues to see a ton of targets, and Garcon actually took a back seat to Austin Collie in this one.  I think this was because TEN used a decent bit of zone and over-the-top coverage, so the Colts passed plenty to Clark and Collie over the middle.  Collie has solid tackle breaking ability.  The Colts weren't able to run, but Addai benefited quite a bit from the Colts underneath passing attack, hauling in 10 passes.

Jacksonville Jaguars - Mike Sims-Walker was declared inactive right before the game for violating teams rules, and unfortunately they haven't released exactly what he did wrong.  Garrard and the rest of the passing attack sorely missed the downfield element that Sims-Walker gives them, so they struggled mightily against Seattle.  Holt posted the best day of the season, but don't think he's back since they had no one else to throw to.  Jones-Drew was hit in the backfield quite a bit, but luckily the handful of yards he picked up in the passing game saved it from being an absolute disaster.  He probably would have scored, but a reception that he took to the 1 was called back by a stupid illegal formation penalty.

Kansas City Chiefs - Well, for one week this looked like a reasonable offensive attack.  Cassel has done pretty well in a real football sense so far despite getting little help, and against a mediocre Dallas defense, he actually posted a solid fantasy day.  His line still has him on the run quite a bit.  Dwayne Bowe benefited too, although he again posted most of his damage late in the game on the last drive, including the game tying TD.  The rushing attack is miserable, and LJ is barely worth owning at this point.

Miami Dolphins - Chad Henne still isn't being asked to do much yet, but his running game is making his life easy.  When he was asked to make a play, he hit Ted Ginn on a perfectly thrown play-action bomb.  He's definitely a game manager, he's out there less than most quarterbacks thanks to the continued success of the Wildcat, and his receiving targets are among the worst in the league, so it's hard to recommend him as a QB2 despite the solid numbers last night.  Still, there are worse options out there.  The running game continues to dominate thanks to Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams.  Brown has cemented himself as the top dog in this backfield since week 1, but Williams plays a very important part.  Both have shown their all-around games in what makes this the best rushing attack in football through 5 weeks.

Minnesota Vikings - Favre posted another solid game this week, and while Peterson's work load was limited by the game situation, he was plenty productive with his touches, and he scored twice to make his fantasy owners plenty happy.  Minnesota keeps humming along, and their defense is creating havoc.

New England Patriots - Once again, Brady looked a bit off.  He's overthrowing Moss on big plays when Moss gets open, and he just doesn't look right.  His ridiculous preseason performance definitely gave some false hope to all who drafted him as he has struggled to start the year, but expect him to get better.  Welker continues to benefit from the situation, hauling in a bunch of passes and scoring this week.  Without Fred Taylor, it appears as though Sammy Morris will carry the load of carries each week.  Maroney isn't doing anything with his touches, but he's still worth stashing as a RB5 to see what happens.

New Orleans Saints - Bye week.

New York Giants - Eli Manning rewarded all who had the balls to start him by posting ridiculous numbers considering he didn't even play the full first half.  Manningham bounced back with a big play TD, and Nicks also scored while Steve Smith was the leading receiver again.  Jacobs continues to struggle and took a backseat production-wise to Bradshaw who posted a monster game.  Jacobs continues to get his carries, but he's not doing much with them, and this has now become a serious concern.  He couldn't even score from inside the 5 on their first drive, and Bradshaw replaced him on 4th down to plunge it in for the first of his two TDs.

New York Jets - Mark Sanchez had his 2nd straight shaky outing, but it was much improved over last week.  He's still a decent QB2 that will improve as the season moves along.  Edwards arrival gave him a big play threat, and he loved throwing it to him.  It was perfect timing, too, as Cotchery did not look 100% last night and was barely targeted.  Edwards is a WR3 with WR2 potential for the rest of the season now that he's in a solid offense, and the rushing attack will open up some big plays in the play-action game for him.  Thomas Jones looks his age, but he's still the preferred option at the goal line, scoring twice last night.  His YPC is way down, and he's a dicey RB2 moving forward who is reliant upon TDs.  Leon Washington was more involved and looked great with his touches, but he tends to get himself in trouble sometimes with his dancing.  He's a solid RB3.

Oakland Raiders - What's to say?  Russell continues to prove his the worst QB in the NFL, and the entire team is suffering.  Bush and Fargas split carries, but Bush tossed in a TD to reward those who used him on a bye week.  Bush is the great part of this committee, but the fact Fargas is stealing carries on a bad offense severely limits whatever upside he could muster out of this offensive mess.

Philadelphia Eagles - McNabb looked perfectly healthy on his way to carving up the Bucs secondary, and both he and Westbrook took it easy in the 2nd half as the offense wasn't called upon to do much.  Jeremy Maclin exploded onto the scene with Curtis' injury, so he'll be a hot add this week.  Celek continues to rack up targets and catches.  Westbrook scored to save his fantasy day.

Pittsburgh Steelers - Big Ben posted another big day by tossing 3 TDs.  The Steelers inexplicably went to the air in the 2nd half despite nursing a lead, so Mendenhall was limited to 17 carries and was a slight disappointment from a fantasy standpoint, although he still generated solid yardage and a TD.  The coaching staff acknowledged this mistake, so don't expect it to happen again.

San Diego Chargers - Bye week.

San Francisco 49ers - The whole team sucked this week, but at least Josh Morgan is showing some signs of life.  This team will be happy to get Frank Gore back after the bye week.

Seattle Seahawks - Matt Hasselbeck continues to prove me wrong.  Given he was playing at home against a bad Jacksonville secondary, I should have recommended him.  It's obvious that he still has it and this offense can move the ball in the air when he's healthy.  Housh and Burleson are both solid WR3s when Hasselbeck is starting.  The running game can be ignored thanks to their horrible offensive line.

St. Louis Rams - Boller sucked it up again, and Bulger actually came in and looked great, although it was with an out-of-hand 31-3 game.  He hooked up with Donnie Avery several times, including a TD, providing a glimmer of hope for this offense moving forward.  He'll likely end up hurt again, however.  Steven Jackson continues to amaze with the yardage he's cranking out behind the most inept offense in football, but he killed his owners by fumbling at the 1.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Josh Johnson actually put up solid yardage, but he didn't look that great doing it.  He was under constant pressure and isn't very accurate when he has his feet set, much less throwing off of his back foot.  240 yards and 2 TDs looks good, but not when you contrast that with a 52% completion rate, 4.8 YPA, and 3 INTs.  Winslow posted a huge game and Bryant looked solid, but they will be limited by Johnson for as long as he's starting.  If you can sell high on Winslow after this game and get a proven stud TE on a better offense, go for it.

Tennessee Titans - 0-5...wow.  What a difference a year makes.  Their defensive holes are killing this team as it is not built to pass and score a lot of points.  Collins looked poor again, and Chris Johnson is being held back by the state of this team.  Johnson can be viewed as a RB1/2 moving forward, and Washington is a decent WR3 as their most explosive passing game option, but this has been bad news.

Washington Redskins - Campbell continues to look mediocre and will likely be gone at season's end.  Moss suffered from this performance, but at least posted a few catches.  Portis saved his day with 2 TDs, but he again wasn't productive with his touches.  Nothing much has changed here.