We’re back with another Fantasy Football Panel. This weekend kicks off Week 8, and it’s time to make some team modifications.

Pick One Lower Tier Running Back

Steve Hartline: Without doubt you need to grab Thomas Jones of the Jets, and I’ll give you three reasons: With Leon Washington suffering a season ending injury, Jones will get the bulk of the touches. With Sanchez playing like a rookie after all, look for the Jets to go with a bread and butter run first offense. And Jones is out to prove he still has what it takes to carry the load.

Nathan Holman: Shonne Green or Jammal Charles.

Daniel Dessinger: Before this season, I would have considered Ray Rice to be a 2nd or 3rd tier quarterback in this league. But despite the fact that he was drafted at an average pick of 128th in Yahoo leagues, Rice has performed so well that he can’t be considered a lower tier back even for this conversation. As a matter of fact, I don’t see a running back in this league who qualifies as a lower tier worth having. Knowshon Moreno is possibly the closest.

Ryan Ritter: Mike Bell, NO – Since he has recovered from injury, he has actually gotten the majority of the touches above both Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas. Also, he appears to be getting more goal line touches as well. Simply put, in that high powered offense, he has a great chance to rack up points and find the endzone.

Pick One Premiere Running Back to Drop

Steve Hartline: Without doubt you need to drop Leon Washington of the Jets. Look at my first answer to see who you should try to pick up instead.

Nathan Holman: Definitely Willie Parker.

Daniel Dessinger: Matt Forte and LaDanian Tomlinson both don’t deserve the high draft status they received this year. In my league, Forte was drafted 4th overall and Tomlinson was drafted 7th. They’re functional as a bye week or 3rd running back alternative, but I wouldn’t depend on either for consistent production.

Ryan Ritter: Clinton Portis, WASH – Let’s face it, Washington is just plain awful. Not only that, they can find any way to score and this includes the running game. Portis has had an abysmal season, scoring only 1 TD thus far and only going over 100 yards once this season. To top it off, he’s already played the worst teams in the league: STL, DET, TB, CAR, and KC. You may have some hope in week 14 against OAK, but the rest of the defenses he will face are no pushovers. Face it, things aren’t going to get any better for him, find another option.

Project the Top 3 Quarterbacks for the Rest of the Season

Steve Hartline: In no certain order you have to go with Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Schaub. Forget Brady, Peyton or Brees. They come at too high of a price. Also, you never win a fantasy trophy with them as they typically get drafted too high, meaning you are going to get a lower level RB. I’m leading my division with Eli Manning, who is serviceable and would be a bargain to pick up now also.

Nathan Holman: Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady.

Daniel Dessinger: For fantasy points, I’m gonna go with Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and Matt Schaub. Yes, I like Phillip Rivers, and while I’d rather have him and Tom Brady on my team than Schaub, their teams aren’t depending on their quarterbacks as heavily as Houston.

Ryan Ritter: Ok, quick disclaimer: Ranking these three QBs is near impossible (as well as picking only 3). So let the debates begin on this: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Matt Schaub.

1) Peyton Manning, IND – There has been no QB that has been as consistent as Manning all year long. Saying he is “dialed in” would be a gross understatement. Ironically, the only sub 300 yard game he’s had all season was against STL; however, he lit them up for 3 TDs still. He has at least 2 TDs in every game except for the opener this season, in which he had only 1 TD. So, yes, you read that right, he has a TD pass every game. It’s money in the bank folks, you can’t get a more sure-fire start out of anyone in fantasy right now.

2) Tom Brady, NE – Well, it was only a matter of time. After a “slow” start, Brady is back and clicking on all cylinders — having a healthy Wes Welker again isn’t hurting either. The Pats offense is extremely pass heavy and now that Brady seems to have everything back in gear, why stop what is working? With Moss and Welker to throw to every week, it isn’t hard to see why he is a constant threat to put up huge numbers week in and week out. While he hasn’t been as consistent as Peyton, just take a look at week 6 against TEN to realize just what kind of scoring potential Brady has this season.

3) Matt Schaub, HOU – He has only three sub-300 yard games and only one without a TD. This kid is good. Even if Andre Johnson happens to be out a week or two, he still has many other weapons available to him, most notably, TE Owen Daniels. He is accurate, rarely throws picks and oh yeah, leads the league in TDs as of right now. The only reason he sits behind Manning and Brady is the fact that Manning is far more consistent and Brady looks to be on the rise again. Schaub has some juicy matchups ahead of him too: TEN, JAC, and STL. He will definitely continue to be placing up great scoring numbers the rest of the way.

“WHAT NO BREES?!” — I can already hear this cry as I write it, but sorry, the fact is that Brees has had two absolutely woeful games and looked rather awful against Miami last week. Fact of the matter is, Brees is hit or miss. If he hits, he hits big, but he is not consistent in the least. Remember, he didn’t lead the Saints back against the Fins, his running game did. He is good no doubt, but there is no way I can place him in the top three over Schaub.

What do you do with these fantasy dogs?

It’s the question we all have to answer when our supposed stars flop around for a week or two. Sometimes the right move is to drop ‘em like a hot potato. Others you want to painfully and patiently wait out, because you have to believe that they’ll turn it around before long and become worth the start again.

These are my top three disappointments of Week 5. I hope for your sake that none of these folks were starting for you this week. Then you’ll get my recommendations on what to do with them in the weeks to come.

Randy Moss, WR, NE

One catch, just one catch an entire game for one of the best WR in the league and one that was surely drafted high in all leagues. This is definitely not the type of production that you would expect out of Moss in the least especially with a healthy Welker on the other side. Thankfully the rest of my fantasy team covered him…

What to do with Moss:

Look, it’s Randy Moss, let’s be honest you aren’t going to drop him. Trading or benching him probably isn’t a move that you want to pull this week either as he faces the woeful Titans secondary that even Garrard of Jacksonville exposed. I think Brady shouldn’t have any issues finding Moss open here. Look for him to get back on track this week.

DeSean Jackson, WR, PHI

What in the world happened here? McNabb goes off for 3 TDs and all Jackson manages to produce is a single yard and reception. Disappointment isn’t even the word here, sometime more along the line of pure rage if you put McNabb and Jackson’s numbers side-by-side. For a receiver that has been doing fantastic all season, this is just mind-boggling.

What to do with Jackson:

Stay the course with Jackson too. The Eagles welcome the Raiders into town and defense is optional for them. I can’t possibly see Jackson having the same awful game twice, he is just too good and has put up fantastic numbers against better defenses (with a backup QB throwing no less).

Willis McGahee, RB, BAL

Oh my, you can’t have much of a worse day if you are a RB than McGahee did. 1 carry for -2 yards, a single catch for 4 yards, and no TDs. For someone couldn’t stay out of the endzone earlier this season, this is beyond disappointing. Not only did he not score, but he didn’t do anything at all to help put any points on the fantasy board; in fact, unless you are in a PPR league, I doubt you even saw a point.

What to do with McGahee:

Time to bid farewell to McGahee. If you have someone in desperate RB need, see if you can’t fire a deal off. Either way, he is rather useless on your roster. This is two weeks in a row that he has failed to see the endzone and it is clear Ray Rice is the man for the Ravens, and McGahee’s touches/targets will likely continue on a decline. He may get a TD here or there, but I think his nice initial scoring streak is done.

It’s that time again. Week 4 has drawn to a close. We’re a quarter of the way through the 2009 season, and a few quick questions have been posed that I want to answer so you’ll be ready to face your next fantasy opponent in Week 5.

1. Is it time to bench the Dallas Cowboys defense?

For now, yes. Thus far I have only seen one half of good, solid play from the Dallas defense. In nearly every format, the deference between the starting defenses and those on your bench is how many sacks and turnovers they can cause (along with defensive TDs as well). While the second half effort of Carolina was good, it isn’t enough to keep them in your starting lineup.

Jake Delhomme is a turnover machine and Carolina isn’t one of the better teams in the league to say the least. The sacks, turnovers and defensive TD from that game is likely to be the exception and not the norm at this point. If you have doubts, watch the first half of Monday night’s game and watch the Cowboys whiff on easy tackles and look lost all through the first half and then flash back to how many yards they had given up the past two weeks ranking them 30th in the NFL before Monday.

You have to ask yourself which defense will show up, and with this recent history, it won’t be one that will put up fantasy points for you.

2. Based on what you’ve seen from the first three weeks, who would you rather start for the rest of the season? Drew Brees or Tom Brady?

Likely, you won’t find yourself in this situation anyways, if you are having to choose between Brees and Brady, you are likely winning your league by a landslide and are the luckiest fantasy football player ever (unless of course, you just drafted crazy!). Anyways, I digress. Right now, give me Brees; however, I’m hesitant to say I’d start him the rest of the season over Brady. As of now, New Orleans has the most consistent high-powered offense in the league, and you have to ride that horse unless you run into a brick wall of a defense. However, I simply can’t write off Brady for the rest of the season.

Right now, Wes Welker is injured and that is hurting the passing attack quite a bit. You also have to remember that Brady is a year removed from the game. Think of it this way: remember last season when Matt Cassell fell flat on his face for a few weeks and then starting putting up some nice numbers — well this is similar except Brady is a much better QB. NE simply has too many potent weapons to ignore for much longer and when they start clicking they will light the scoreboard up again.

3. Surprised that Dallas Clark leads the pack of tight ends in most leagues? Will he keep it up

Never surprised Clark is a top TE, not when your QB is Peyton Manning. Now, I’m not sure he’ll be able to remain in the number one slot for the entire season. Most of that success has been on the back of some rather large gains that aren’t the norm for him at all. However, one thing that is the norm for him is that he is a great target for Manning and will likely see TD receptions very often in the red zone.

Remember, Marvin Harrison is out and while Reggie Wayne is now the top WR, Clark’s production will also step up to cover that void.

Ryan wrote yesterday on three quarterbacks you might want to bench after two weeks of poor performance. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll give you the reasons why you should bench a QB over a backup. I’ll use my own fantasy roster to illustrate.

In my draft, I went with offensive weapons at RB and WR and a top rated defense before I even considered drafting a QB. The reasoning was simple: I can start 2 WR and 1 RB, with an optional 3rd WR or 2nd RB: the pool of top performers for these two positions was much bigger than the top QBs. Our league also is pretty liberal with points for defense. If you can hold a team under 10 points, get a couple of turnovers and score once, chances are your defense will be in the running for most points on any given weekend.

So naturally I wanted the best of these two skill positions and defense before looking at the QB. Also historically the top tier QBs are gone by the third round anyway. And by top tier I am referring to the elites like the eldest Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Rivers. Going into the fourth round there are still quite a few marquee flankers and backs still available, and there had not been a run on defense yet either.

Getting into the mid rounds it was now time to consider a quarterback. So, when it got to the 6th round there were still serviceable QBs to choose from. I took Eli Manning, thinking his numbers really improved last year over his first three as a starter in the league. His touchdown total remained virtually unchanged, but his interceptions really decreased, going from 20 to 10. And by playing the AFC West t draft day thinking was he ought to have a couple easy weeks for good stats potential this season (Kansas City, Denver, Oakland). I was happy with the pick.

As I got into the late rounds, I began drafting by looking at my deficiencies in terms of bye weeks. In the 12th round Jason Campbell was still on the boards, and the Giants’ bye week was week six. Washington was week eight so that would make for a potentially good pickup. Plus, Jason was a bit of an enigma this offseason as by all accounts it seemed the Washington brass had no faith in his abilities by trying to trade for Cutler. So if anything, Campbell was out to prove the front office wrong.

The Process

Week to week, you should analyze your roster and obviously set your line up for the most potential points for that week. In my case, Week 2 already presented a QB controversy. The G Men were travelling to Dallas and historically Dallas mauled Eli: Over his last 5 games, he was sacked an unbelievable 18 times, picked off six and fumbled five times. Granted he threw for 10 touchdowns, but to me the risk was not worth the reward. So Jason Campbell was considered. While his numbers were not stellar, they were serviceable. Plus, the Rams were coming off a loss in which they were shut out. This was a low risk decision and Jason got the start.

Such factors will be considered in future games. Manning’s numbers are pretty poor against Washington too. The scary part of this approach is in the past three seasons he doesn’t have any games against the NFC South or AFC West to consider. Those will just be best guess and gut check decisions.

Which three quarterbacks were popular starters who now look like they deserve the bench? Here are three that top my list.

1) Carson Palmer, CIN – Carson has been a rather solid fantasy option thus far as usual; however there is one slight problem this week. He’s playing against Pittsburgh. As if that wasn’t enough, some showers are in the weather forecast for the game. Needless to say, this isn’t one of the better matchups for the week if you have other options.

2) Jay Cutler, CHI – Last year, he was an no doubt starter. This year, however, you are wondering if there is some secret curse that falls upon QBs that put on a Bears uniform lately. He just flat out isn’t worth a start right now until he starts turning his game around. I still think he’ll eventually start clicking with his offense, but that seems to be a couple more weeks away at this point.

3) Jason Campbell, WASH – I’m sure he isn’t a usual start, save for deeper leagues, but to be honest, I like the rest of the available matchups for the week and this is the only other warning I see. Why raise a warning flag for a QB that hasn’t really done anything then? Simple, the matchup is going to tempt many owners to take a risk they shouldn’t. Yes, the Lions are awful, but so are the Rams and Washington was only able to put up 9 points against them and Campbell didn’t do anything of worth. Don’t fall for the trap a second time, play a safer bet if you have one.

We haven’t heard any quotable slogans out of the Owens camp yet, so maybe T.O. has chosen more of a silent but deadly approach since the “Get Your Popcorn Ready” days.

Tonight, two of the greatest wide receivers in the league square off in a rivalry game that has massive implications for the Buffalo Bills. Should they upset, Buffalo will automatically have a shot at the #1 spot in their division.

Granted, it’s not so easy for wide receivers to have big nights whenever they want. They depend on quarterbacks, offensive lines, beating the cornerbacks, etc. Plus their quarterbacks may feel more comfortable looking to another receiver first, depending on coverage. Still, who do YOU say has the bigger night?

According to Yahoo Fantasy Sports, the following were the top 20 fantasy points leaders among running backs. Of course, this list would change depending on the league.

After yesterday’s Fantasy Panel about which is more important, rushing yards or touchdowns, I thought these Yahoo! rankings would demonstrate how a balanced running back is ideal. I’m a little surprised to see DeAngelo Williams at #1. But that’s only because I never watch the Panthers play.

1. DeAngelo Williams
1st in rushing touchdowns with 18. Also caught 2 receptions for touchdowns.
3rd in rushing yards with 1,515.

2. Michael Turner
2nd in rushing touchdowns at 17.
2nd in rushing yards with 1,699.
2 lost fumbles.

3. Adrian Peterson
Tied for 8th in rushing touchdowns at 10.
1st in rushing yards with 1,760.
1st in lost fumbles with 4.

4. Matt Forte
7th in rushing yards at 1,238.
3rd in receiving yards at 477.
Tied for 3rd in receiving touchdowns with 4.
1 lost fumble.

5. Thomas Jones
5th in rushing touchdowns at 13.
5th in rushing yards at 1,312.
1 lost fumble.

6. LaDanian Tomlinson
7th in rushing touchdowns at 11.
10th in rushing yards at 1,110.
5th in receiving yards with 426.

7. Steve Slaton
6th in rushing yards at 1,282.
2 lost fumbles.

8. Brian Westbrook
7th in receiving yards at 402.
Tied for 1st in receiving touchdowns with 5.
1 lost fumble.

9. Clinton Portis
4th in rushing yards with 1,487.
Tied for 2nd in lost fumbles with 3.

10. Maurice-Jones Drew
6th in rushing touchdowns with 12.
1st in receiving yards with 565.
2 lost fumbles.

11. Chris Johnson
7th in rushing yards at 1,228.
1 lost fumble.

12. Brandon Jacobs
3rd in rushing touchdowns with 15.
1 lost fumble.

13. Stephen Jackson
10th in receiving yards with 379.
Tied for 2nd in lost fumbles with 3.

14. Frank Gore
Tied for 2nd in lost fumbles with 3.

15. Marshawn Lynch
1 lost fumble.

16. Marion Barber
6th in receiving yards at 417.
Tied for 2nd in lost fumbles with 3.

17. Ronnie Brown
Tied for 8th in rushing touchdowns at 10.
1 lost fumble.

18. Kevin Smith
1 lost fumble.

19.Le’Ron McClain
Tied for 8th in rushing touchdowns at 10.
1 lost fumble.

20. LenDale White
Tied for 3rd in rushing touchdowns at 15.

In our league, at least, LenDale White

We asked our panel the following question: For running backs, is it better to have a top yards rusher or a top touchdown scorer? Which type of running back will give your team more points?

Panel Member #1 – Ryan Ritter

When examining this, the first thing you have to ask is: What kind of league am I in? Are there big bonuses for 100/150/200/etc yard games? How much are TDs worth? Do I get points per reception (PPR)? Do I get points for rushing attempts? You’d be surprised what kind of rules you can get in for a bunch of different fantasy leagues. However, no matter what your answer is to the above questions, the most important conclusion you must come to is: Which player will give me consistent points.

Sometimes the yards just don’t add up unless your RB goes off for 100 or 150 in a game, and even then all it will take is a goal line back to steal the fantasy point thunder. All of a sudden that zero TD 150 game is dwarfed by the guy on cleanup duty that gets 3 TDs and 5 yards — Earnest Graham became a huge fantasy player in the past because of this (but probably not so much this year with Cadillac Williams and Derrick Ward being good goal line choices).

In the end, the bottom line is that you have know the scoring of your league like the back of your hand. In nearly any format, rushing/receiving TDs will always get you the biggest chunk of points. If your league is standard like that, you have to make sure you hitch your wagon to the horse that gets in the endzone without question. Don’t rely on the yards solely, look for the yards as the boost to your RB scoring because you can’t count on a RB to go 100+/game, especially in this era of 2 RB systems. That is one of the reasons I’m predicting big things for Pierre Thomas this season — no matter what, the Saints want him to pound the ball in, plus they want him to shoulder a bigger load. Again the yards build on the TDs here.

Now if you are in a PPR league, that throws a whole other wrench into the equation. A little dump pass in the endzone all of a sudden scores 7 points. 5 catches means 5 points — and that’s before yards come into play (that’s nearly a TD in most formats). That makes backs like Felix Jones extremely dangerous week after week. He’ll likely give you a few consistent points game after game, and then bust a run or reception for a TD giving you a huge game for the week. Matt Forte tore up my cash PPR league last season being the favorite target for Orton and Hightower did much of the same as well. You’ll be surprised how quickly those little dump routes add up in a PPR league. Again though, you want to make sure, even in a PPR that your top horse can get in the endzone. A few points a game is nice, but getting the 5 or 6 point boost every other week or so is even better.

Panel Member #2 – Timothy Leckie

I think it all depends on the way your league is set up for scoring. One of my leagues scores rushing TD’s as 6 points and rushing yards as 1 point for every 10 yards. I would like to think my running back will average 100 yards and 2 touchdowns a game, but we all know that’s wishfully thinking! Most likely my running back will average 1 touchdown a game easier than 100 yards a game.

If your running back is not sharing any time, like Adrian Peterson, and they will average 100 yards and at least 1 touchdown a game, than you got the best of both worlds! If your picking between a Marion Barber and a Felix Jones, I would have to go with Barber! In my league touchdowns beat out yards all day!

Panel Member #3 – Steve Hartline

A balanced attack, unless you have one of the first picks.

Unless you have some weird settings in your FFL, you are better off with a balanced attack when it comes to RB production. What do I mean by balanced? You take both a grind it out yardage specialist and a x and goal bruiser. A back who hosses up and has the bulk of the carries quite often times puts up numbers similar to those that are brought in during Red Zone situations. Call me a homer, but if you had both Felix Jones and Marion Barber starting every week, you ought to garner 6-8 points with Felix for rushing yards, and 6-12 with Barber. That would be a nice balance.

But this also is dependent upon your draft order. If you have one of the first six to eight picks, you gotta go with the best back available (by best I am just going with default ranking). I had the #2 pick in one of my leagues and Adrian Peterson was still available. So DUH! I grabbed him. This totally changed the philosophy as described in the first paragraph.

Two final factor to consider are those *tweeners* that only rush 12-15 times a game, but also get thrown to 6-8 times: a Brian Westbrook type of player. These guys can also come up big if played in opportune matchups. Or who knows how many teams are going to employ the wildcat offense. Adding and knowing when to start this season’s Ronnie Brown might earn you a couple of additional ticks in the win column.

Bottom line is to draft to your weekly starting lineup, and keep an eye on the wires.

Don’t get too confident with your fantasy picks just yet. We asked our panel of experts which QBs in the league were most likely to disappoint this year. Check out what they said. We won’t tell anyone where you get your info.

Panel Member #1 – Timothy Leckie

	Donovan McNabb No question McNabb can be great, especially against the Cowboys, but he can also be very inconsistent. McNabb can be a risky fantasy player, for me last year when I benched him, he was great and when I played him, he wouldn’t live up to expectations. Remember Last year he was benched for Kevin Kolb, now with Vick as back up, you never know how long Mcnabb will be a starter.
	Kurt Warner I think after last season, everybody expects another great year. I wish I had some great intellectual reason or some great facts to back this up, but it’s just a gut feeling. I think this aging QB will have an ok year, but nothing to write home about.
	Matt Cassel Let’s not kid ourselves, Cassel had a great season last year leading the Patriots, but he was leading the Patriots. Kansas City is a far cry from New England. I want to see him play a season without one of the best receiving cores, and without New England’s offensive line before I make him my starter.

Panel Member #2 – Steve Plunkett

	JaMarcus Russell Top draft pick, LSU superstar Radiers starter who may disappoint, be pulled and get replaced by Jeff Garcia.
	Tony Romo No Jessica, No T.O. = No Drama the dallas favorite will throw more interceptions this year than last year.
	Donovan McNabb After week 6… will Michael Vick be the man in philly? They have shown him lined up as WR, RB will he be the points leader in philly?

Panel Member #3 – Ryan Ritter

	Matt Cassell Injury aside (he may miss 2 weeks at most), we aren’t in New England anymore Toto. Gone are the wonderful targets of Moss and Welker. Gone is one of the better O-Lines in the league. Gone is anything that looks like a running game…I could go on and on. Cassel may have put up some amazing numbers last season, but if you are expecting his production to be anything like that with the Chiefs, you are out of your mind.
	Tony Romo It isn’t just the loss of T.O. that will bring his numbers down. The Cowboys have mentioned several times that they want a more “Romo friendly offense” — translation: Dallas is looking to run the ball more. Romo has been able to put up solid fantasy numbers because Dallas offense was primarily Romo driven and the offense should be much more balanced this go-around. Add onto that, Dallas best chance at a legitimate deep threat come in the form of Miles Austin or Sam Hurd — guys that won’t be getting too many looks with the Cowboys wanting to run majority two TE sets. The new offense may be better for the Cowboys W-L record, but it will be horrible for Romo’s fantasy numbers.
	Brett Favre Seriously, just flat out don’t buy into any Favre hype this season. His only use on your roster is to sucker a major Favre fan into a ridiculous trade. He has once again missed another training camp. The result of that with NYJ was Favre not knowing the playbook and making things up as he went along…I’ll let his numbers speak for how well that worked out last season: 22 TD, 22 INT, 81 QB rating, 217 yards/game. He is also claiming he has a partially torn rotator cuff and a cracked rib. Do you need more reasons to NOT expect anything from him? Ok fine, beyond Bernard Berrian (whom Favre has yet to even play with) who else is he going to pass to? The theory that Adrian Peterson will help Favre see more production this season just blows my mind, as well as why there is any optimism that somehow this season will be different than the last failed experiment. Yet because he is Favre, it continues to show up year after year — don’t be the sucker in your league that falls for it yet again.

Panel Member #4 – Nathan Holman

I’m a firm believer that value can consistently be had by taking a QB late. There are many consistent performers and typically only 10-12 starters in an entire fantasy league. Picking those that will significantly underperform can be a crapshoot, but I’ll give it a shot:

	Matt Schaub Oh such a tempting player, shows real fantasy scoring ability when he’s actually in a game. His ADP is QB10, so he’s being taken as a starter. I’m torn with Matt because I think he has top 4 upside, but think due to inevitable injuries he’ll end up lower than that.
	Tony Romo Currently being taken as QB7 and probably QB5 or higher in leagues made up of Dallas fans. Despite his NFL playoff failings not to mention his fantasy playoff letdowns, he can produce some stats, but he might be destined to under preform QB7 due to a strong running game, and a number 1 WR that’s never quite put it all together.
	Matt Cassel Even without the injury I don’t like him. With an ADP of QB12 right after Jay Cutler and right before Carson Palmer. (Interesting if for no other reason than Cassel backed up Palmer the year he won the Heisman.) If I was stuck with Cassel as the highest QB on the board, I’d wait another 25 picks and take David Garrard or another 80 picks and take Jason Campbell.

These are the results of my long term fantasy league: No keepers, fairly balanced offensive stats, a little love is given to the defense.

I had the #2 Pick on odd rounds and #27 for even rounds in a 14 team league. Here’s who I got:

1. Adrian Peterson – if the owner before you does not take Peterson, what are you thinking? There are 90 seconds on the board, so you research if there are any late injury updates is what you do….nope. Did you see that 75 rip the other night for a touch? Easily the only #1 choice.

2. Thomas Jones – why is he still here? 1310 rushing yards with 13 TDs last season? With Favre running the offense? Furthermore, why is Leon Washington pushing you in camp? More motivating reasons to draft I guess. I game missed in the last 4 years, Jones is dependable.

3. Andre Johnson – the BEST WR not named Randy Moss. Still on the boards, he must be drafted. With a solid running game from Steve Slaton and Ahman Green, AJ ought to have great numbers again.

4. TJ Houshmandzadeh – New team, new location ought to do him well. Running game is suspect. I predict 1100 yards and 5 TDs in Seattle (Carlson will be effective in the red zone and take away from TJH’s TD chances.

5. Eli Manning – He can only improve on his TD/INT numbers. Why? Maturity and experience.

6. San Diego – easily the best Defense in the AFC West. Look for Merriman to once again dominate, but perhaps not at such a prolific level. Plus, for the first time in years LT is healthy, so the D is on the field for fewer minutes/game.

7. Visanthe Shiancoe – do you realize he had 600 yards and 7 TDs last year? And with Favre throwing tosses, there will be flashbacks to his Green Bay days with Chumura.

8. Felix Jones – lots of yards, both rushing and receiving. I personally like Barber, but think he begins to wear down late in the season this year. That means more touches by Jones.

9. Torry Holt – new team gives his legs new potential. I worry about an injury though in this division.

10. Ahmad Bradshaw – my best sleeper still on the boards. I expect great numbers early in the season with the loss of Plaxico.

11. Nate Kaeding – kicker is needed, ho hum

12. Jason Campbell – would LOVE to see a repeat of last season’s September.

13. Seattle – best in a weak division

14. Martellus Bennett – last of my sleepers. Let’s hope Galloway (who is always full of hot air) is on to something.

What do you guys think?