Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

Below is the third of four columns intended to provide an overview of how each NFL team's skill-position players should perform in 2010's national challenge games. This second sentence is dedicated to my editor, Bruce Taylor, who will never again have to remind me that the first two sentences of every column appear as a kind of preview at the Fantasy Index homepage.

AFC NORTH

Baltimore

After a sneaky 3,613 passing yards and 21 TDs in 2009, this should be the season that decides which player Joe Flacco will become. He has the arm to be a superstar, but his career average of only 7.1 yards per attempt -- despite a healthy completion percentage of 61.7 -- suggests he may simply have been limited by subpar receiving talent to this point.

Toward that end, the addition of Anquan Boldin helps some, but it would have been nice to see the Ravens add speed at the position, not just Boldin's indisputable tough-guy presence. Donte Stallworth used to be fast, and reports out of the spring minicamps were encouraging, but who knows what he'll do coming off of last year's absence?

Assume Stallworth's speed is intact.

Q: Is Flacco then poised to break out?

A: I just don't know.

He had several excellent games last year, but he laid more than his share of eggs, too. Consistency seems to be as much of a problem as the talent on the other end of his throws, except that he was perfectly consistent -- and putrid -- in the playoffs.

One line of thinking has John Harbaugh taking the reins off in Flacco's third season, and another has Harbaugh sticking with the run-first-and-second approach that has worked for this franchise in the past. I'm not convinced we'll know which of those lines is the right one before November. Last year's preseason suggested Flacco was sharply on the rise; I carried him on that basis; he had some great games early on but was mostly useless thereafter.

Luckily and unluckily, as reader David DiGregorio pointed out last week (apologies to David if I've botched the capitalization of his last name), Flacco shares a bye this season with almost every other playable QB in or around his price range. Flacco, Jay Cutler, Kevin Kolb, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan -- all are off in Week 8. I'm tempted to carry as many as four of them, but my uncertainty concerning Flacco makes him the odd man out for now. Think of quarterbacks the way you should be thinking of starting pitchers in the baseball challenges: You can sit a QB for a bad matchup, same as you can sit an SP for a road start against a tough lineup and/or in a tough park. But any hesitation to use a guy in the absence of those considerations makes him a guy you should not own. Roster spots are too valuable in these games to carry deadweight.

Continuing last week's suggestion that we're a year too late to own certain RBs, Ray Rice is probably out of my Football Challenge running. I like him as a player, but $2360 is a lot to pay for a back who'll destroy your receiving average as he piles up catches. In points games, by way of contrast, all of his production works for you -- and since I'd probably pick Rice as the player with the third-best chance of displacing Chris Johnson atop the NFL's yards-from-scrimmage leaders (after Frank Gore and Adrian Peterson, in whichever order), and since he happens to be the cheapest of the three, he probably makes my teams.

Cincinnati

The yapping heads at ESPN keep asking each other which team will win the AFC North in 2010 -- Baltimore or Pittsburgh?

Considering that the Bengals won the division a year ago, and did so by winning all four games against those other teams, for once we have a team that can legitimately complain of being disrespected.

There is no shortage of ability here. Cincy ranked 4th in total defense (Baltimore: 3rd; Pittsburgh: 5th), and the offense is stacked with skill-positioners who rank comfortably in the second tier of leaguewide talent at their respective positions. Carson Palmer is not elite but not chopped liver, either. Ditto the new man that is Cedric Benson, and ditto the aging man that is Chad Ochocinco. Antonio Bryant may still be having knee problems, and Terrell Owens may be ancient, but either of them makes a fine No. 2, and one should last the season.

Problem: In the challenges, we really need either elite players or truly cheap ones, and these guys fit neither bill. If healthy and motivated and still under contract with the devil, Benson might be worth playing against some opponents -- but the Bengals' new first-place schedule spaces out their easier matchups.

The player I'm most interested in may be rookie TE Jermaine Gresham, who carries palatable salaries everywhere. I know, I know -- he missed all of last season with torn cartilage in his right knee. But he'd torn his left ACL during his senior year in high school, and you saw him play at Oklahoma. Dude must've been born a superduperfreak; he ran a 4.73 at the combine (at 261 lbs.) just six months after suffering his latest injury. I don't expect him to have lost much, so I'm shortlisting him for my second TE slot in most games.

Cleveland

Starting Jake Delhomme at quarterback, I repeat, is not fatal to a team's chances of running the ball. It wasn't fatal to Carolina in 2008 or even 2009, and it won't be fatal to Cleveland in 2010. Of course, something else could be.

There is no DeAngelo Williams or Jonathan Stewart on the Browns' roster -- or, if there is, we don't know who it is. Jerome Harrison was sensational down the stretch last year, rushing for 561 yards in the team's last three games. He was so great, in fact, that the Browns drafted Montario Hardesty in the second round in April.

With luck, the preseason will settle things between Harrison and Hardesty and any other comers (James Davis?). If Cleveland has a clear first-stringer heading into the season, we have one of our cheapos. The Browns sport what could be a dominating offensive line, with Joe Thomas, Eric Steinbach and Alex Mack making an especially formidable left side. And they open the season at TB, then vs. KC -- i.e., against the teams that ranked last and next-to-last against the run last season. Gimme.

You may have noticed that I've generally started these capsules by discussing each team's passing game, then moved on to the running game, and that I did not do so here.

Because starting Delhomme at quarterback is fatal to a team's chances of passing the ball.

Pittsburgh

It's kind of a nasty secret, but the Steelers do not run the ball well anymore. In 2008 they ranked 23rd in the league in rushing yards. Last year they ticked up to 19th, but scored only 10 times on the ground. Betting on this running game is betting on the past, not the present or immediate future. Written slightly differently, betting on this running game is betting on Rashard Mendenhall behind an offensive line that just isn't very good. Maurkice Pouncey helps. Now to replace all four other guys.

Elsewhere, you've no doubt seen Mike Wallace listed among the top WR sleepers by every fantasy publication, both in print and online. (So Wallace is only a sleeper among those who will do no research heading into this year's drafts -- and you should be able to beat them without any sleepers.)

I'll buy Wallace as a breakout candidate, but so what? His 19.4 yards per catch have already pushed his Football Challenge salary out of the range that can be considered cheap, and his 6 TDs have nudged his salary in the points games up toward the position's average. I certainly can't see carrying him at the start of the season; maybe once Ben Roethlisberger returns from his I-am-an-utter-moron-and-complete-*******-at-best suspension.

AFC SOUTH

Houston

Does still having doubts about Matt Schaub make me a lunatic at this point? I do. Maybe it does.

Schaub led the league in passing yards in 2009, averaged 8.2 yards per attempt and threw for 29 touchdowns. He's working with the best receiver of the last couple of years in Andre Johnson, and there are other talented pass catchers on the roster as well. What's not to like?

Maybe I should rephrase the question. It isn't that I dislike Schaub; it's just that I doubt he can repeat his season. It's hard to duplicate any league-leading performance in the NFL. Tough league; the leaders can usually point to a run of exceptional luck; luck seldom repeats from one year to the next.

For one thing, there's more than a little uncertainty among the pass catchers behind Johnson. Owen Daniels missed half of last season with an ugly knee injury, and as much as Gary Kubiak seems to like Jacoby Jones' potential, neither Jones nor anyone else has established himself as the Texans' clear No. 2 wide receiver. (Mind you, I like Jones myself, plenty. At the moment I see him as a likely inclusion on my Football Challenge roster.)

For another thing, I have to think Houston will run the ball more effectively this year than last. The team lost 371 rushing yards from 2008 to 2009 (and the loss would have been bigger had Arian Foster not come up with big games in Weeks 16 and 17), but the personnel is not without talent.

So I'm not tempted by Schaub in the Football Challenge, despite the fact that his league-leading numbers failed to get his salary quite up to the level of Drew Brees or Peyton Manning. I'm confident that both Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo will have better per-game numbers in 2010, and another QB in the same price range may also.

In the points games, on the other hand, my doubts about Schaub only go so far. Somehow he's not only cheaper than Brees and Manning, but ten other quarterbacks as well, including -- and this defies all logic, rushing production be damned -- David Garrard.

One no for Schaub, one yes, and let's watch for Jones and a No. 1 running back in the preseason.

Indianapolis

Not enough has yet been made of the Colts' inability to run the ball. In 2008 they finished 31st in the league with just 79.6 rushing yards per game. In 2009 they drafted Donald Brown late in the first round and got all the way up to 80.9 yards per game -- but the league improved. They ranked dead last.

So -- Peyton Manning. He's good.

The verdict on Manning is the same as the verdict on Drew Brees. Fit him in if you can, use him as often as you can, try not to let using him wreck the rest of your numbers. Both guys are great, obviously, and both were clearly worth this year's salaries in their best seasons, but I can't imagine fitting both of them onto a roster in 2010, and it's very possible that I'll open the year with neither of them on any roster. Too many good options at pennies on their dollars.

Unlike with Brees, however, I may recommend making use of Manning by owning one of his targets. Not Reggie Wayne or Dallas Clark, who both stand within spitting distance of the top salaries at their positions, but maybe Pierre Garcon (the deep threat; too bad he isn't cheaper in the Football Challenge) or Austin Collie (the slot receiver). That is, if Anthony Gonzalez doesn't return from his knee injury to muddle the picture entirely. Remember, I was not alone in liking Gonzalez (and rostering him, everywhere) last year. Manning seemed especially disappointed by his injury; the bigger a role Gonzalez wins back for himself, the less valuable both Garcon and Collie become.

Jacksonville

If there's a quarterback less likely to make any of my challenge rosters than David Garrard -- and I mean ever, not only in 2010 -- I can't think of who it is. Not that he's terrible; for our purposes, he may be worse than that. He's just good enough to hold a job year after year, which means he's just good enough to have played his salaries past the levels at which he'd have any chance of earning them. I think Chris Simms (now in Tennessee) may be the worst QB still hanging around the NFL, but I could see owning Simms before Garrard. Move Simms to the Bears and make him Mike Martz's starter after an injury to Jay Cutler, when Simms is unlisted and thus cheap in the games that allow unlisted players ...

But Garrard has nothing going for him -- and now he seems to have led the rest of the Jags' roster into the same salary no-man's-land. Mike Sims-Walker played well enough in 2009 that he's more expensive than he really should be in the Football Challenge, as is Maurice Jones-Drew in all of Fanball's games. For the most part I can't see buying into this offense unless the depth chart changes in the preseason -- or unless it has already changed at one position without our knowing it.

That position is tight end.

Marcedes Lewis has been a perennial disappointment since Jacksonville made him a first-rounder in 2006. Every year some challenge players carry him, whether because he's cheap or because they still expect a breakout, and the next year more challenge players carry him, because he's still cheap, because he never breaks out. This year, however, for the first time, I like a TE behind Lewis on the Jags' roster.

Zach Miller, not to be confused with Zach Miller, is short on experience at the position but appears to be long on potential. He played quarterback in college at Division II Nebraska-Omaha. Last year he got his only heavy use in Week 17, and turned in a sparkling game: 8 receptions, 69 yards, 2 touchdowns.

Nearly three-quarters of the way through the league now, I've written only sparingly about tight ends. I love Jermichael Finley and will roster him everywhere, but otherwise I'm kinda stuck for ideas. Many challenge players will have V.D. (Yuk, yuk.) I wrote above that I think Jermaine Gresham could be a play. But this Zach Miller is about the best sleeper I can give you, at least until August sheds light on someone else.

Tennessee

How does a team that opens 0-6 stay motivated and finish 8-8? Apparently, the whole roster decides to turn Chris Johnson's second season into an all-timer, and thereby help him see that he's woefully underpaid, which leads to a semi-nasty spat between team and player, which leads to a very modestly renegotiated contract, which does nothing to change the fact that the player is woefully underpaid. That'll teach all involved.

Me?

I'm hoping the all-timer doesn't repeat. If you've read along you know I've been a fan of C.J.'s since his first game in the league. But I am now openly rooting for him to come up short of last year's numbers -- because I can't really afford to roster him.

It's hard to fit any running back carrying the highest-end salaries onto any challenge roster, and I'm hoping it will be apparent early on, as it was with Priest Holmes in 2004 and with several others subsequently, that we need not try with C.J. in 2010. He's a tremendous talent, a lethal late-game scorer (try owning him in your office league; he seems to specialize in 70-yard plays in the late possessions of games in which he has otherwise disappointed), but I don't want to have to own him.

Another thing: I never root for injuries, but Javon Ringer looks marvelous at this year's salaries. Ringer and Cincinnati's Bernard Scott are my favorites among the current crop of second-string backs (unless Felix Jones counts). I may never root for injuries, but I sure was rooting for a holdout to start the season, when Ringer could have taken C.J.'s place vs. OAK in Week 1. Alas.

The passing game in Tennessee remains more rumor than fact, and with Vince Young re-entrenched as the starting QB, that doesn't figure to change. I owned Kenny Britt in the Football Challenge after he caught 4 passes for 85 yards in last year's cheat game. Seems like I wind up with a cheap WR from that game every year, and sometimes -- most notably with Brandon Stokley in 2004 -- he turns out to be a player I can spot-start all season. Britt? Not so much. I like his potential long-term, but he may have to reach free agency and bolt in order to reach it.

We finish this tour next week, finally, then move on to position-by-position discussions. Hang in there. I know 3,000 words per column is a lot to take in, but remember that we're moving toward decisions that will make us money, and I want us all armed with the same information (whether you agree or disagree with anything I write here) when we make those decisions.

NOTE TO READER PETER DEBIASE: Looks like Fanball has killed the Internet Challenge points game after all. When you asked about it a couple of weeks ago, the Challenge Games page at their website still included a link to the game. I said to give them a week or two to iron out the kinks, and they seem to have done that -- but in the opposite direction of the one I expected. No more link. My apologies if I got your hopes up.

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