Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

Continuing last week's (and next week's, and the week after's) tour, today we move to the two remaining NFC divisions. Please remember that while these columns mean to offer general insight, they pertain specifically to national challenge contests, which differ significantly from traditional fantasy formats. Also, remember that while I occasionally disagree with something Ian Allan has written in Fantasy Football Index magazine, I'm kind of an idiot.

NFC EAST

Dallas

This is the best season yet – and may be the best one ever – to own Tony Romo. For one thing, his numbers from last year show distinct growth: passing yards up to a career high of 4,483 with a typically respectable 8.2 per attempt; interceptions all the way down to 9. For another thing, the personnel around him sets up as well as it ever will.

Miles Austin has emerged as a legitimate No. 1 receiver. Tight end Jason Witten still has a year or two of peak effectiveness in him. Rookie Dez Bryant adds at least an X factor to the passing game, and could prove to be the best receiver to enter the league since Larry Fitzgerald in 2004; in any event, he figures to contribute some big plays when Austin draws extra coverage. Meanwhile Roy Williams, previously miscast as a frontliner, should make an effective third or fourth option – or Patrick Crayton could take that role instead. (Considering how much the Cowboys seem to like Kevin Ogletree, odds are fair that only one of Williams and Crayton will make the final roster.)

Just as important for Romo is that no running back on the roster can harbor a realistic hope of being the focal point of the offense. Springtime rumors had Felix Jones serving as the starter, while Marion Barber waited to bust up tired defenses in the second half – but however they split the work, they will indeed be splitting it. Every piece of the personnel seems to slot perfectly into the likely schemes. This offense looks a lot like the Saints' did a year ago; that worked out fine.

So one possible move is to own Romo instead of Drew Brees. The numbers should be comparable; Brees may throw a few more touchdowns, but he also costs more in our games. It won't be possible to play Brees and Aaron Rodgers together in most weeks, but mix in an extra cheapo and Rodgers and Romo might work.

As for the other 'Boys ...

Austin ($3080) makes a fine play in Fanball's points games, where I try to keep my expensive WRs below the very top salaries (Randy Moss, $4020; Larry Fitzgerald, $4000). In the Football Challenge Austin is expensive enough ($1590) that I'll have to decide between him and the two guys I liked best last week: Calvin Johnson ($1690) and Roddy White ($1650). The decision may depend on what we see from Bryant in the preseason; the better he looks, the more the other side of the field should open up.

Bryant's own salaries – the defaults given to first-round picks – are neither here nor there, unless he proves to be a major rookie-year talent like DeSean Jackson two seasons ago (or, dare I say it, like Randy Moss in 1998). Again, the preseason should help us decide.

You may recall that I loved Jones a year ago as a salary saver in the Football Challenge, where his speed seemed to guarantee a helpful rushing average even as he battled Barber for carries. It still does (2009: 5.9 yards per rush), but this year he's more expensive by enough that he'd have to play more to earn his pay. So – will he?

Yet another reason why Dallas is worth following through the exhibition schedule.

New York

When I wrote a couple of weeks ago about relaxing my usual restrictions on owning mid-priced QBs, I had Eli Manning in mind. It's finally time to consider him a star. He's 29 years old and coming off of a season in which he bumped his passing yards from 3,238 to 4,021, his yards per attempt from 6.8 to 7.9 and his touchdowns from 21 to 27 – and yet his salaries moved only slightly. So the question is whether those bumps were somehow fluky. I say no.

Eli has better receivers now than ever before, but he also has something crucial heading into 2010: better receivers than he had in 2009. They're mostly the same guys, but Hakeem Nicks should be greatly improved in his second season as a pro. That pushes Mario Manningham down into the No. 3 role, which gives the Giants excellent options all over the field.

Frankly I'm not convinced that any of the three main guys – Nicks, Manningham and last year's No. 1, Steve Smith – are great players individually, but they complement each other beautifully. Nicks adds size to Smith's quicks and Manningham's big-play ability (14.4 yards per catch in 2009). It should be hard for defenses to key on any of them, and meanwhile Eli has grown into reacting automatically to defensive adjustments.

For the first time in years, the Giants have reason to see themselves as a throw-first team. Nothing wrong with that in a league full of copycats; three of the last four teams to make the Super Bowl have had bottom-10 rushing totals, including the very worst rushing teams of both 2008 (Arizona) and 2009 (Indianapolis).

Because of the new emphasis on the pass in Gotham, and because Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw will share carries anyway, there's little reason to own any Giants RB. Bradshaw is in the same boat as Felix Jones: more expensive in 2010 by just enough to cancel out last year's protect-the-averages strategy in the Football Challenge, not busy enough to be worth a play in points games. Unless an injury hits – which is always possible with Jacobs, but isn't worth thinking about until it happens.

Philadelphia

Obvious changes here, with Donovan McNabb in Washington and Brian Westbrook ... somewhere ... other than Philadelphia.

I agree with Ian wholeheartedly on this: LeSean McCoy is nowhere near as good – as great – as Westbrook was in his peak years. He won't be used as extensively as Westbrook was, because when you have that version of Westbrook you want the ball in his hands, and when you have this version of McCoy you want the ball in the hands of DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin.

In short, there's no reason to expect Andy Reid to shy away from the pass just because he dumped McNabb for Kevin Kolb; if anything, the fact that he made the move is reason to expect Kolb to perform as well as McNabb has in recent seasons. So Kolb makes all of my rosters with his bargain-basement salaries, and I'll start him as often as needed until he proves me wrong. And won't have any interest in McCoy until he does, too.

About Jackson and Maclin.

The former comes off of one of the most amazing seasons we've ever seen. He posted 1,156 receiving yards on just 62 catches – 18.6 yards per catch – and seemed to score a long touchdown every game. Don't I know it; the one time I got cute with the matchups and sat him down, he not only caught a 57-yarder but also ran for a 67-yarder.

Unfortunately, all of that has Jackson looking like kind of a sucker bet for 2010. He's priced so near the top among wide receivers that he'd have to keep putting up huge scores on a regular basis to earn what you're paying him – with a new primary QB (however good Kolb turns out to be), and with a nearly-as-dynamic WR now manning the other side of the field.

Maclin is much bigger than Jackson, he isn't terribly much slower, he's much cheaper (less than half of Jackson's price in each of the Fanball games) and he has Jackson drawing coverage away from him. All factors including the price differences considered, Maclin is clearly the better play. It's not inconceivable that he'll post better numbers heads-up.

One more thing: I've seen speculation recently that Maclin will be limited to working underneath routes this season, while Jackson remains the team's primary deep option. I'll buy that Jackson remains primary, but not that Maclin is limited. Didn't Brent Celek just catch 76 passes for 971 yards? Isn't this the same arrangement the Cowboys should have (at least between the twenties), with Miles Austin on one side of the field, Dez Bryant on the other, Jason Witten in the middle – only if Bryant were a year further along in his development?

Washington

Why is it, exactly, that running backs seem to fall apart at a certain point?

Is it that they reach an age at which their old explosiveness becomes just plain old? (Larry Johnson is 30 entering the new season.)

Is it that they only have so many carries in them before their legs can take no more punishment? (Clinton Portis, 28, has 2,176 career rushing attempts; Johnson has only 1,421.)

Or is it something else?

By grouping Johnson, Portis and Willie Parker (29; 1,253 career rushing attempts), and having considered adding Brian Westbrook as well, Mike Shanahan seems to be banking on some third possibility. Maybe he thinks it isn't that RBs lose all effectiveness after years of use, but that they lose the ability to sustain their effectiveness carry after carry in any given game. So by shuffling together a bunch of former feature backs, he can avoid the question of how much any one of them would have left if asked to carry the load on his own.

Whatever, it's an interesting experiment in real football, but it removes all three guys from challenge consideration. Even if it works, we'll never know who will have the best numbers the following week.

As for the passing game, Donovan McNabb's age concerns me less than the ages of the running backs, but it has become a consideration as he (a) enters his mid-thirties, and (b) just got dumped by his long-time betrothed, Andy Reid. And since the receivers the Hogs drafted in 2008, Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly, have yet to develop (each caught 25 passes last year), the whole offense would seem to be out of play unless you really, really like Santana Moss. Even at tight end, where Washington has two very good players in Chris Cooley and Fred Davis, I can't see a way in.

I don't doubt that Shanahan will find ways to move the ball and score some points, but the parts here look like a lot less than their expected sum.

NFC WEST

Arizona

It may not be easy to remember, but Ken Whisenhunt started his coaching career working with tight ends, focusing primarily on getting them to block. When he took over as Pittsburgh's offensive coordinator, he scaled back the more gimmicky offense Mike Mularkey had favored during the Kordell Stewart years. Ben Roethlisberger came on board as a game manager. The Steelers still mixed in the occasional trick play, but they won and won some more on the ground.

In Whisenhunt's second season in Arizona, he got to coach a game against his old team. The Cardinals ran for all of 33 yards in Super Bowl XLIII; Kurt Warner passed for 377 yards. Given everything we knew at the start of his tenure, it's probably fair to say that Whisenhunt's pass-first style as a head coach ranks as one of the most surprising developments of the past decade.

That is, given everything we knew then, except this: The Cardinals had an enormous disparity between the talent of their passing personnel and what can only loosely be called the "talent" of their rushing personnel.

No more.

Anquan Boldin has departed for Baltimore, but he leaves Steve Breaston and Early Doucet behind in Arizona; slot those two in with Larry Fitzgerald and you still have one of the best receiving corps in the league. Or you would, anyway, if Kurt Warner hadn't retired.

Warner's departure leaves the passing game in the hands of Matt Leinart, still mostly an unknown quantity after 29 career appearances (17 starts) in the NFL, or Derek Anderson, who appears to fall much closer to Jay Cutler than Brett Favre on last week's turnip/gunslinger scale.

Bottom line: You can't pay Fitzgerald a salary set by Warner when he'll be working with Leinart or Anderson. And Breaston, coming off of 1,718 receiving yards in the last two seasons combined, isn't cheap enough to gamble on. And while Doucet is cheap enough, now we're talking about Leinart's (or Anderson's) No. 3 receiver. There isn't an angle to play here.

Luckily, Whisenhunt seems to be making other plans.

The offensive line, while not yet ideally constructed, has gotten a massive upgrade in the middle from the recent addition of Alan Faneca and recently improved play of Deuce Lutui – just in time for last year's first-rounder, Beanie Wells, to emerge as a fantasy force as the Cardinals deemphasize the pass. Or so the theory goes. (It's a little troubling that Lutui, a 6'4" guard who played last season around 340 lbs., had reportedly ballooned up to 400 lbs. in June.)

Own Wells, hope the move from air to ground takes, and if Leinart (or Anderson) turns out to be nearly as effective as Warner, chalk that up as a circumstance that could not have been foreseen. Unforeseeable circumstances are what new player purchases are for.

San Francisco

At best, the 49ers' quarterbacks are good enough to make both Michael Crabtree (hereinafter, since it matches the nickname I've given Vernon Davis, Crabs) and V.D. viable challenge plays in 2010. Even then, Crabs could siphon off just enough of V.D.'s numbers that neither would be worth playing, despite the fact that both would occasionally have big games.

Crabs somehow played his way past the realm of truly cheap WRs with his 625 receiving yards and 2 TDs in 2009. Meanwhile V.D. avoided top-shelf prices despite 965 yards and 13 TDs – but he did get expensive enough that you can't just write him in without considering how Crabs' full integration into the offense will change the numbers. Remember, Crabs held out until the team's Week 6 bye last year.

The best argument for carrying either of them is probably this: V.D. is actually the faster of the two. Since he's mysteriously cheaper than Crabs in the Football Challenge, and since he continued to produce after Crabs ended his holdout, maybe it's worth hoping that the team will favor Crabs on underneath routes and use V.D. as more of a deep threat. (If V.D. dips much below last year's 12.4 yards per catch, he'll hurt your receiving average while he helps in other categories.)

The best argument against the foregoing is that I'm not sure it's ever been done before. The 49ers believe they have two elite receiving talents. Can you think of a team that used a star wideout on shorter routes than its tight end?

Whatever we decide on V.D., the most important question facing the Niners' offense this season is how well their two first-round linemen will play as rookies. Tackle Anthony Davis was regarded before the draft as hugely talented but perhaps not driven to be great, guard Mike Iupati as more of a sure thing. If both represent immediate upgrades, Frank Gore is in for a very big season.

In fact, if both of the rookies pan out, it's reasonable to speculate that Gore will replace Chris Johnson as the top yards-from-scrimmage player in the league in 2010. He was 7th in the category last year despite missing two games – and he's much, much cheaper than C.J.

Seattle

Two years ago, Aaron Rodgers was obviously the best pick among cheap QBs in the Football Challenge. This year, Kevin Kolb is nearly as obvious. Last year, however, there was no one as obvious or as good. I carried Joe Flacco and was extremely lucky to get 307 yards and 3 TDs from him in Week 1.

Even so, when Matt Hasselbeck opened with his own big game – 279 yards and 3 TDs in a 28-0 stomping of St. Louis – I wondered if maybe I'd missed something.

Here's hoping none of you bought him.

In Week 2, Hasselbeck got crunched near the goal line just before halftime. He spent the second half at a San Francisco hospital and didn't return to the field until Week 5.

And so ended Hasselbeck's last chance to be a viable challenge quarterback. The Seahawks are in rebuilding mode, with so little speed among their receivers that they can't shake speculation that Mike Williams (yes, that Mike Williams) could make the team and perhaps even start. I like Golden Tate to become a good pro eventually, but the last rookie receiver who excited me as a challenge play was DeSean Jackson in 2008 – and that was partly because the Eagles had enough weapons that it would be hard for defenses to keep track of him. Tate faces exactly the opposite situation in 2010.

The only 'Hawk I can see challenging for a spot on any of my rosters is Justin Forsett – but for the same salary in the Football Challenge, and only slightly more in Fanball's points games, you get your choice of the rookie RBs. If Forsett makes the cut it will be because of something he shows in the preseason. No sense holding our breath in the meantime.

St. Louis

With precious little talent among his receiving options, and rookie Sam Bradford unlikely to make a consistent threat out of anyone anyway, the only question that matters is whether Steven Jackson is worth his salaries.

And the answer, scanning lists that have only a few names above his, is no.

Comments and questions welcome below, as always; good to see many of you already talking football.

On to the AFC next week.

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