Two weeks in the books means fantasy owners are now reflecting on their rosters. Waiver wire adds, trade offers and injury reports are becoming more and more important as each fantasy football owner tries to shore up their team in time for the bye weeks. To help you along I thought a nice humnp-day edition of the BOXCAR Blitz would help ease you into the weekend ahead. Read MoreIf you have never checked out FFToday.com you need to ASAP (preferably after reading the rest of this post). The place is chocked full of useful stat-based information. At this time of year and moving forward, trends start to develop such as how many fantasy points defenses yield to each position. You get the typical waiver wire add and start/sit advice mixed in with great fantasy football analysis. I am a contributor to the site but I feel the content is best single stop source for fantasy football advice on the web.
I’m not a big fan of owning players on rebuilding teams. The culture just isn’t the same. That’s why I cooled on Larry Johnson right before the season started and why I avoided Dwayne Bowe and Matt Cassel in every draft. This video of Todd Haley only reinforces my sentiments. It’s one thing when the coach says ‘we need to improve’ or ‘we need to do a better job.’ But when the head coach talks about the progress his quarterbacks are making it clearly reveals the rebuilding atmosphere. I want my fantasy players performing, not progressing.
With Yahoo’s Brad Evans now talking him up, the buzz around Rashard Mendenhall is erasing any potential discounts. I’m expecting him to be a nice match up RB2/flex type by mid-season and a difference maker in the fantasy playoffs.
I realize Mario Manningham is a popular add this week, FF Librarian likes him too, but is he a good start against Tampa Bay? The Bucs were torched on long plays in the Dallas game and failed to prevent Trent Edwards from throwing a touchdown pass. Bruno Boys ranks Manningham at 21 in their weekly positional rankings. CBS Sports projects 5 receptions for 81 yards. Chances are, if you just picked him up, your team isn’t deep at WR so feel good about putting in your lineup this week. For more insight into the Giants’ receiving core check out this Q and A with WR Steve Smith.
Marion Barber’s quad injury should have had every fantasy football GM heading to the wire to scoop up Tashard Choice. The Cowboys play on Monday night but it’s safe to say they will want to continue to dominate the ground game. Regardless of whether MBIII is able to go, Choice should see increased touches. In case you forgot, Choice was solid during the 2008 fantasy football playoff stretch. If you are a casual football fan or just want to know a little more about Eagles TE Brent Celek, Chris McPhereson (philadelphiaeagles.com) wrote about him yesterday.
The Raiders lost OT Robert Gallery last week and face a Bronco’s defense this week that has been surprisingly good thus far. Combined with the poor efforts of JaMarcus Russell, and injuries to Chaz Chilens and Johnny Lee Higgins, I’d park RB Darren McFadden on the bench for Week 3.
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