Week 7 Thoughts

Arizona Cardinals - At this point, you know what you're getting with the Cardinals.  Warner just doesn't go deep much anymore, but he's still effective.  Fitzgerald is limited to a possession receiver, but luckily the large amount of red zone looks help keep his value up as a WR1.  Beanie Wells is starting to come on, and he's slowly passing Tim Hightower as the lead back.  Hightower remains the starter, but he's showing the same problems as last year, while Wells looks decisive, explosive, and finishes his runs.  He put another ball on the ground, but there's no question he's a better runner.

Atlanta Falcons - Just a bad game.  They fell flat on their face.  I wouldn't worry too much about the passing game in this one, but Michael Turner again looks slow.  Luckily he keeps scoring thanks to his offense.

Baltimore Ravens - Bye week.

Buffalo Bills - Well, at least Fitzpatrick is using Lee Evans more than Trent Edwards did.  Evans has emerged as a WR3 option with Fitzpatrick behind center.  Lynch was stuffed quite a bit, but he did manage to score and post a decent fantasy day.

Carolina Panthers - Steve Smith was targeted more, and he posted a good yardage day, falling 1 short of 100 on the day.  Williams also looked good again, and it's amazing that Carolina didn't pound the ball more.  Delhomme is about done, and Carolina has to be thinking about using either AJ Feeley at this point.

Cincinnati Bengals - There's the Palmer we've been waiting for.  He executed a perfect game plan against the Bears Cover 2, finding all the soft spots and repeatedly hitting Chad Johnson for big gains.  They were constantly in the red zone, and Palmer tossed 5 TDs to various receivers.  He was perfect, so hopefully this jump starts him into a big second half.  Benson torched the Bears D as well, and unfortunately for his owners, it was mostly the Carson Palmer show near the end zone as Benson only scored once despite ripping off  long gains at will.

Chicago Bears - The Bears seem to be quite bi-polar this year.  Thanks to their defense, they were down big before they could find a rhythm on offense, and the ended up passing the ball almost all game.  Forte again had no holes to run through, and Cutler made some poor throws trying to force things to happen.  You gotta take the good with the bad with Cutler, and Forte has dropped all the way to a RB2 at this point.

Cleveland Browns - I'm not going to waste any words beyond these to describe this fantasy wasteland.

Dallas Cowboys - Holy Miles Austin.  Romo has a new toy, and he's back rolling again.  Austin, playing the role of Terrell Owens, is lighting up secondaries with his blend of size and speed.  He runs well, jumps high, and is great after the catch.  Expect him to open up this entire offense moving forward.  The rushing attack took a backseat in this one, but this is good news for everyone involved in this offense.

Denver Broncos - Bye week.

Detroit Lions - Bye week.

Green Bay Packers - Rodgers continues to spread the ball around to all of his receivers, and Donald Driver is the one making big plays.  This has become a serious problem for Greg Jennings as teams are keeping him from getting deep while letting other players beat them.  Expect this to change as the season moves along, but after nominating Greg Jennings as my top buy-low guy, this is disappointing to say the least.  Ryan Grant, the winter wonder man, turned in his best game of the season.  The dude digs running in cold weather for some reason.

Houston Texans - Schaub continues to roll along, and it looks like they survived a scare with AJ's chest as it doesn't appear to be a serious injury.  Owen Daniels is fantasy's top TE, and it doesn't appear like he'll slow down any time soon.  Slaton continues to be more productive in the passing game than the running game, and it was also encouraging that he scored from 1 yard out in the 1st half.  He fumbled again, but as long as he's productive, the coaching staff will apparently put up with it.

Indianapolis Colts - Manning had his 300 yard game streak snapped, but it's not like they needed it against the lowly Rams.  It appears as though Collie has passed Garcon in terms of targets, and he's the more desirable receiver to start.

Jacksonville Jaguars - Bye week.

Kansas City Chiefs - Right after singing Cassel's praises last week, he shits the bed this week.  He had been good at avoiding turnovers, but then he threw up the worst game of his season, including 3 interceptions.  This isn't surprising considering he lost his best offensive lineman on a poor offensive line.  As long as LT Brandon Albert is out hurt, he's going to be in trouble.  Dwayne Bowe continues to save his fantasy value by scoring.  Larry Johnson probably tweeted himself out of a job (he blasted just about everyone in another retarded rant), which isn't a bad thing considering that he's worthless as a RB right now.  Haley has been far too patient with the washed up windbag.

Miami Dolphins - Epic fail.  After going up 24-3 on the undefeated Saints, they allowed a TD sneak at the end of the 1st half, and it was all downhill from there.  This team has trouble passing the ball because no receiver can consistently make a play.  Ginn and Fasano, arguably the two most talented pass catchers on the team, both had bad drops that killed offensive drives.  Much to the dismay of Ronnie Brown owners, Ricky Williams had two 4 yard TD runs, at least one of which he took a direct snap out of the Wildcat.  Ugh.

Minnesota Vikings - The Steelers defense finally put an end to Favre-mania, much to the delight of almost every non-Vikings fan out there.  Favre had a bad fumble that was returned for a defensive TD, and Chester Taylor also had a bad dropped pass that was also returned for a defensive TD.  Both of those prevented probably scores, but the Vikings moved the ball fairly well against a tough defense.  Sidney Rice is turning into a stud.

New England Patriots - Business as usual for the Patriots, although more was expected of Moss in this one.  Maroney, ever the fantasy tease, saved his fantasy day with a late TD.  He certainly didn't take the job and run with it like Mendenhall did a few weeks ago.

New Orleans Saints - Brees had a pretty bad day in this one, taking 5 sacks and tossing 3 INTs, but he righted the ship in the 2nd half and led a ridiculous comeback.  Colston and Shockey both had big days, although all of Shockey's damage came in the 2nd half.  The Phins successfully stuffed Pierre Thomas, but then Mike Bell ripped them up down the stretch.

New York Giants - The Giants suddenly look vulnerable after being destroyed by the Saints, and then being dink and dunked to death by the new look Cardinals.  Eli mostly looked solid, but Manningham dropped some big plays, including a sure TD.  Steve Smith did his damage down the stretch, and Eli has to get him more involved early on after these last two games.  Jacobs looked much better, and it's surprising the Giants didn't try to run him more as he was as effective as he's been all year.  This is good news heading forward for Jacobs' owners.

New York Jets - Sanchez went back to managing the game in this one as the rushing attack dominated the putrid Oakland Raiders.  It's a shame for everyone, including myself, that started Leon Washington this week as a bye week fill-in as he would have posted his best game of the season.  Instead, on his 2nd touch of the game, he suffered a compound leg fracture and is done for the season.  Shonn Greene ripped it up in his absence, and he'll take on the lesser committee role with Thomas Jones moving forward.  Braylon Edwards in NY looks like Braylon Edwards in CLE.  Hopefully Cotchery can return soon.

Oakland Raiders - No.

Philadelphia Eagles - Monday night game.

Pittsburgh Steelers - Big Ben posted his worst game of the season, as did Hines Ward, in what looked like a great match up on paper against the Winfield-less Vikings' secondary.  Mendenhall struggled a bit against the Williams wall, but don't put too much stock in it.  It was simply an off-game for the entire offense, but they still managed a win.

San Diego Chargers - Rivers loves him some Vincent Jackson.  Jackson obliterated the KC secondary in the first half, and then took the 2nd half off as the Chargers went into kill-the-clock mode almost from the first minute.  LT looked spry on his first several carries, but repeated attempts to get him a TD resulted in a lot of stuffed runs.  It's hard to tell if it's the offensive line or LT's inability to finish runs anymore, but he doesn't have that goal line magic anymore.  He was stuffed on a LOT of carries inside the 5, so this could affect play calling down there moving forward.

San Francisco 49ers - Shaun Hill finally played himself out of the game, and Alex Smith gave the offense a much needed spark in the 2nd half.  I wouldn't get too excited about this, but Crabtree (who made some plays), Morgan, and Vernon Davis could give Smith enough weapons to close the season strong.  At the very least, it should help open things up for Frank Gore if Smith can continue to throw the ball well.  This warrants monitoring.

Seattle Seahawks - Bye week.

St. Louis Rams - Steven Jackson continues to give it his all, but the passing game and the defense are pretty much non-existent.  Donnie Avery did look mostly healthy, but had a touch match up against the stingy Colts pass D, although he did burn them long once.  A match up against Detroit looms...good news for Jackson and Avery.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Josh Johnson has also played himself out of a job, with rookie Josh Freeman set to take over.  Bryant finally looked healthy, catching his first bomb of the season, but the QB play will harm him over the rest of the season.  He could be a WR3 in the right match up.  Caddy and Derrick Ward are back to splitting time, but neither are worth using.

Tennessee Titans - Bye week.

Washington Redskins - Monday night game.