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Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

I said in the comments section after my last column that I wasn't looking forward to writing this one. Here's why:

I keep resisting the suggestion that owning cheaper (platoon) running backs with more expensive receivers is smarter than owning top-dollar RBs with cheapo WRs. That's an oversimplification, of course, and every challenge roster will feature expensive and inexpensive players at both positions, but there's a real debate to engage in here.

Give in to the RBBC, and spend the bigger bucks on generally more reliable big-buck receivers? Or stick with the classic arrangement that puts LaDainian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson and maybe two other top-shelf backs on almost every roster?

Adding to the debate is the fact that the most expensive WRs are far cheaper than the most expensive RBs - in the Football Challenge, the difference between Tomlinson and Chad Johnson is $1220 in salary (exactly the same salary as Michael Turner, to give one easy illustration) - but the cheapest players at both positions cost about the same.

I keep resisting, though, for one reason alone: I don't see the cheapo RBs to make a bargain backfield work. I've already professed my devotion to Willis McGahee, Marshawn Lynch, Darren McFadden and maybe Selvin Young. I'll let Ian Allan talk me into Matt Forte. Otherwise? Slim pickings. And you'll almost never be able to play all of those guys together (let alone want to), what with bye weeks and injuries and terrible matchups. I'll carry 11 backs to start the season. I see almost no chance that four or five of them won't be verrrrrry pricy.

Of course, here's the rub - and the reason I didn't want to write this column.

Where, exactly, are the cheapo WRs?

Who will prove me right in 2008?

In the abstract, outside the context of the RBBC debate, think of it this way: The Football Challenge allows you $30,000 in salary for 20 players, $1500 each. If it weren't for expensive QBs and RBs, you'd have no problem piecing together a killer team; there are half a dozen or more receivers priced under $1500 who could easily be elite fantasy players in 2008. It is only the urge to carry costlier players elsewhere that forces us down the salary list here - and this year there doesn't seem to be a Brandon Marshall waiting at the bottom, a guy just itching to break all the way out, all at once.

I gave you Marshall a year ago.

This year, I hate to say it but I'm not giving you much.

By salary class:

$1500 AND ABOVE

Randy Moss ($2000) is the obvious top choice. The only argument against him is the same one I made last year - that the Patriots spread the wealth (usually, anyway), not keying on one player to the exclusion of others. The arguments for him come to this: One, there's 2007. Two, at 75% of his 2007 numbers he'd be more than useful. I see no reason to carry a moaning Ocho Cinco or an aging T.O. ahead of a player coming off the greatest year ever at this position.

My second choice at the very top of the list might be Reggie Wayne ($1960), but I'm hoping to use another player to capitalize on the Colts' prowess instead. Keep reading.

My second choice at or above $1500, subtle salary differences accounted for, is Braylon Edwards ($1740). Nearly as gifted as Moss, perhaps more gifted than T.O., and catching the mad bombs of Derek Anderson (to the tune of 16.1 yards per catch a year ago, right between Moss' 15.2 and Owens' 16.7), Edwards is the surest bet to step into the $2000 salary range for the first time in 2009.

Third choice might be Santonio Holmes ($1710), perhaps a surprise but one still coming into his own and coming off a season in which he averaged 18.1 (!) yards per catch. Ben Roethlisberger has some bomber in him, too.

Which concludes my shopping in this section of the store. Old favorite Steve Smith ($1700) punched his way out of consideration. Marques Colston ($1650) may work, but I want to see how frequently Drew Brees will target Jeremy Shockey before I buy. Greg Jennings ($1620) was phenomenal a year ago - I was wrong about him - but I still don't see him as the best receiver on the roster in Green Bay (again, keep reading), and there has to be at least some drop-off from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers. Poor Lee Evans ($1610) is better than he can show with the current quarterbacking in BUF - maybe I'm stubborn, but I swear that's true - and Anquan Boldin ($1500) is too fragile, physically and perhaps emotionally, to carry.

BETWEEN $1500 AND $1000

Here's where the bulk of the high-dollar temptation lies in 2008. No team will carry Moss and Edwards and T.O. and Wayne, say, and use them every week, but I suspect many will carry and use several of the following:

Andre Johnson ($1380) is the top choice, criminally underpriced if he lasts for more of the season than he did in 2007. If reading the stats bores you I apologize, but Johnson averaged 95 yards per game and scored 8 times in his 9 outings.

Second pick in this range is a matter of taste - as, by extension, are picks three through whatever. The best plays, in descending order by salary and without meaning to suggest that I've split all of the hairs, are probably Roy Williams ($1480), T.J. Houshmandzadeh ($1430) and Brandon Marshall ($1360) when not in jail. Calvin Johnson ($1210) will be on almost every roster, and I suspect he'll also be on almost every winning roster; like everyone else, I expect a substantial breakout.

For sleeping purposes - not that anyone priced this high is really a sleeper - consider what Favre did for Jennings a year ago, and then consider Jerricho Cotchery's track record with bubblegum-armed Chad Pennington throwing to him. Cotchery ($1260) is probably 50/50 to make my roster as the last receiver I settle on. He strikes me as that kind of play - last minute, yea or nay, won't really surprise myself with either decision.

Wes Welker ($1200) will be popular but I say no at this year's price, given the likelihood that he'll repeat last year's awful 10.5 yard average over the full damage of 112 catches.

Dwayne Bowe ($1150) outproduced Calvin Johnson last year, but a vote for Bowe is also a vote for Brodie Croyle behind an offensive line that ranks with the game's worst; you can't seriously consider Bowe without considering Roddy White ($1300) as well, and I refuse to do that.

EVERYONE ELSE

Which brings us to the prestige part of the column, wherein Justin waves his magic wand, reaches into the hat and comes out with ...

He comes out with ...

I'm trying to make it work, readers, I really am. I want to find a Marshall down here. It's just ... really ... hard.

My basic approach at this end of the list is to focus on yards-per-catch first. You're unlikely to find 10 TDs or 1,000 yards down here, but you can help yourself (and, more importantly, not hurt yourself) in the ratio category. If a guy's only catching two or three balls per game, make them count.

Devin Hester ($680) strikes me as automatic, because you may well get 10 (combined) TDs from him and you can be sure his catches will average 14 yards or more. Last year's average was 15.0; you won't be surprised to learn that his long reception went for 81 yards.

Anthony Gonzalez ($820) averaged 15.6 yards per catch, which does surprise me, and he's probably next-most automatic as the No. 3ish target in Indy. Dallas Clark was useful a year ago. Brandon Stokley had been before. If Marvin Harrison were to miss significant time in 2008, Gonzalez would be on every roster as the Colts' No. 2.

When I said I didn't think Greg Jennings was the Packers' best WR, I wasn't thinking of Donald Driver but of James Jones ($830), who averaged 14.4 YPR as a rookie. I can even see Rodgers-to-Jones becoming one of those signature Young-to-Rice exactas in a few years - a sentence guaranteed to look either prophetic or absurd within a few months.

Vincent Jackson ($940) still moves me a little, and 15.2 per catch is more than solid, but 623 total yards with 3 TDs is not what I expected a year ago.

Otherwise we're looking at Ted Ginn ($550), maybe, and I liked him much better before Pennington was his QB.

Everyone else is badly flawed. Andre Davis ($850) was brilliant in 2007, but his brilliance came when filling in for Andre Johnson. All of Davis' best games came during Johnson's absence in Weeks 3 through 9; much of his production goes back to Johnson now. In the same vein, David Patten ($800) was good but some of his numbers go to Shockey now. Nate Burleson ($900) scored 9 TDs but has thrived in some roles and not others in years past - paradoxically, Bobby Engram's injury could hurt him more than it helps.

The last name I could get excited about is probably that of Bryant Johnson ($870), but it's faux excitement, Mike Martz excitement, system excitement. Johnson was just OK filling in as a starter when Larry Fitzgerald or (more often) Anquan Boldin missed time during his days in Arizona. He's good, maybe, no better than that. And Martz is now working with some of the saddest sack QBs in the league. And - and this is no small and, so to speak - it's not like Martz has always worked miracles for his best receivers, anyway. Mike Furrey. Shaun McDonald. Best case: Maybe Johnson has a season something like Welker's from a year ago - better in terms of bulk production than receiving average. Or maybe Arnaz Battle ($830) does. Or maybe my brother Brandon, who'd look deathly ill in a football uniform, but then you'd never heard of Furrey when Martz broke him out, either.

I'd love to tell you I'm sure I'll look like a genius in time, and I'd really love to tell you that I've just named the biggest bargain WR of 2008, but I won't, and I probably haven't. Sit up and pay attention early in the year. Look for roles, not performances. Look for guys getting balls thrown their way more than guys happening to catch a slant and take it 60 yards on freak chance. Buy guys who seem to be breaking out in ways they might sustain rather than guys on pace to do ... well, anything. Someone will lead the NFL in yards-per-catch after Week 1, and it won't be Moss or Edwards or Calvin Johnson. Be smart about whether that guy is really worth burning a purchase for.

My likeliest mix of receivers to start the year - there will probably be eight of them - is Moss, Edwards, Andre Johnson, Cotchery, Calvin Johnson, Jones, Gonzalez and Hester. I know I'm about to hear how much better the mix would look minus Cotchery and Jones, plus Wayne and Houshmandzadeh, and I can't say you're wrong about that. But you'd better find the right RBs to beat my Tomlinson and Joseph Addai.

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