Andy Richardson
During the exhibition season and regular season, this Monday column will recap the previous day's games -- NFL developments, fantasy developments, and a review of the games I caught the most of. There are no games going on now, obviously, and precious little actual NFL news, but I've got some random thoughts anyway.....
Too harsh on Favre? A few weeks back, when it came out that Favre had had surgery and thus was clearly going to return, I talked about him as a late-round fantasy flier. That might have been too negative on him. He's not going to have many (any?) 300-yard, 3-TD games, but if you're looking for a guy to start every game, throw for at least 1 TD (and probably 2 half the time) and 200-220 yards each week, there's a decent chance you'll get that from Favre, even with him turning 40 during the season.
Pierre Garcon? Lots of talk about Pierre Garcon's sleeper potential in Indianapolis. I'm calling this just preseason happy talk. So he's the favorite to be the No. 3 receiver. That's not going to be a huge points producer for the Colts, with Dallas Clark lining up in that spot as often as not and the Colts probably throwing more passes to running backs -- maybe running the ball more, too -- this season. Plus he might not even win the job.
Crowded backfields. Last week there was an item about the Cowboys maybe using Marion Barber and Felix Jones in the same backfield. I'm sure this will happen on occasion, but let's not overrate it. Every preseason, whenever there's a team with two good running backs (three in Dallas' case), you hear talk about getting both backs on the field at the same time. Sometimes it's an actual plan, sometimes it's a response to reporter ("Hey, Felix is really good -- any plans to use him more?" "Why sure, in fact...."). But then the games start and it's clear that if they don't have a blocking back in there the quarterback stands a greater chance of getting crushed. In short, if you want to draft Felix Jones, understand that if you're not in a PPR league, or don't get return yardage, or don't expect Barber to get hurt, you're going to have a very hard time finding a place for Felix in your lineup -- especially as early as I've seen him being drafted thus far.
Brady Quinn vs. Derek Anderson. The Browns say they won't decide on a starter until after the first couple exhibition games. It must be exciting for new head coach Eric Mangini, who faced the same scenario with Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens last preseason, until the team traded for Favre. Anyway, I'm questioning the legitimacy of this story, too. I will be stunned if Quinn isn't Cleveland's week 1 starter. I wouldn't even use a roster spot on Anderson in a dynasty league.
Defense stuff. I'm pretty high -- higher than most, I think -- on the Jets defense, but I'll admit to being a little bit worried about some recent developments. First, the Jets traded away some decent players -- not all starters, but at worst decent depth -- in the deal to get Mark Sanchez. Abram Elam and Kenyon Coleman would have been the first guys off the bench this season; Coleman might have started. Then Calvin Pace got suspended and Vernon Gholston (last year's top pick) didn't garner much praise during OTAs. Not a big deal except Rex Ryan has been something of an over-praiser thus far. In the magazine the Jets are ranked No. 4. At this point, 7th or 8th is probably a safer spot.
Steve McNair. No fantasy relevance, so I won't dwell on this one. But it's kind of the biggest NFL-related story. All I'm going to say is that the fact McNair was apparently having an extramarital relationship doesn't make it any less of a tragedy, from a human perspective or an NFL one. The guy was a great quarterback who entertained a lot of fans for a long period of time, and did some good for people along the way. I'm going to remember him for the only stuff that was my business, his play on the field, just like I will every other player I rooted for or against over the years. Look for players who wouldn't let you down personally and before long you run out of players to root for.
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