The Thursday night game between the Patriots and Jets was a quarterback-friendly, overtime shootout. The kind of game fantasy owners dream of, unless of course they were part of the faction that watched New England quarterback Matt Cassel’s 400 yards and three touchdowns waste away on their bench. Brett Favre, meanwhile, had the far better game in reality, efficiently completing 26-of-33 passes for 258 yards and two touchdowns in a 34-31 overtime win.

For football fans and Bill Belichick bashers, there was more joy in reality than in fantasy Thursday night. For fantasy owners with enough reason to put Cassel in their starting lineups, there was plenty of joy in a breakout performance that went into the NFL record books. In addition to monster passing numbers, Cassel rushed for 62 yards and became the first quarterback in league history to accumulate 400 passing yards and 60 rushing yards in a game. Read more »

Small sample sizes can often mask what players are actually capable of doing, for better or worse. If a guy plays over his head for three games, fantasy owners go nuts and start drinking his Kool-Aid. If he struggles for three games, owners cut bait and offer him in trades for 50 cents on the dollar. After nine weeks of the NFL season, season numbers are starting to weed out imposters and exposing players for what they really are.

Just like in baseball, hot streaks don’t change who a player fundamentally is. DeAngelo Williams came out of nowhere to score three touchdowns in Week 5, but does that change a fact that he is undersized and incapable of shouldering a heavy work load? Willie Parker found paydirt three times in Week 1, but does that mean his touchdown-scoring woes are officially behind him? Read more »

Panic is setting isn’t quite setting into the New York Jets locker room, but it’s not far off. It was about 15 yards away - as in the winning TD toss to Laveranues Coles with a minute to play - on Sunday when New York went down to the wire against a hapless Chiefs team.

The Jets were able to overcome three Brett Favre interceptions and escape with a 28-24 home win.

With the win, New York improved to 4-3, but the moderate success has been more a product of the team’s schedule than its performance. The cushy schedule, which has included three wins over last-place teams Miami, Cincinnati and Kansas City, gives way to road contests against Buffalo, New England and Tennessee in the next four weeks. Read more »

New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush will reportedly miss the next 2-to-4 weeks with a torn meniscus in his left knee, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Bush had missed practice time this week with swelling in the same knee, then left the Saints’ 30-7 loss to Carolina when he injured it on a punt return.

Needless to say, Bush’s absence from both the Saints’ and fantasy teams’ lineups will hurt. Entering the week, he led the NFL with eight touchdowns and was a force in PPR leagues with 42 catches. While he struggled to move the ball on the ground — he averaged just 3.4 yards per carry — Bush was the league’s only player to score at least one rushing, receiving and return touchdown. Read more »

NFL quarterbacks are dropping faster than bad guys in a cheesy Sly Stallone movie. Only, instead of bringing disgrace to the box office, these walking wounded are exiting games early, being scratched from starts late, and piling up losses for fantasy owners.

The Big 3 have been at the front of the line, obviously highlighted by Tom Brady’s season-ending knee injury in Week 1. Peyton Manning is only now himself after two offseason knee surgeries contributed to an uncharacteristic slow start, and Tony Romo is on the shelf for the next month with a broken pinkie finger. Read more »

Might as well get used to it. The annoying “Gametime Decision” tag isn’t being removed from Eagles running back Brian Westbrook anytime soon. One of the game’s most dynamic, dual-threat running backs just happens to be one of the most slightly built and most heavily used. Sore ribs are the most recent nuissance, an ailment that doesn’t promise to get better in the coming weeks.

So, the big red “Q” next to Westbrook’s name is going to be a fixture. More than that, fantasy owners have already been burnt by one early exit and one DNP, making it hard to trust Westbrook on a weekly basis. That’s a hard cycle to break, the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario, where you risk big points on your bench or another early exit in your lineup that can lose a weekly matchup.

At this point, a fantasy owner isn’t left with many options. Be extra diligent leading up to kickoff on Sunday and hope for the best. Trading Westbrook away at rock bottom value is not wise. Recklessly playing him without considering how he fared in practice is even worse. Benching him for lack of trust is also a bad move because there’s an excellent chance he burns you. Read more »

We cannot understate the impact of getting team-specific news from local newspapers. While reading blogs like this one certainly can paint a big picture of what’s happening around the National Football League, questions about players and teams can best be answered by local beat writers. These are true journalists who cover a team all week, have locker room access and get a much better feel for all of the developing storylines - big and small.

There are two difficult things for a fantasy owner in their plight to find this kind of information. First, locating hometown news sites online can be time-consuming and difficult. Second, once you find the news you need, what do you do with it? How do you put it into the perspective of YOUR fantasy team? Read more »

This Oakland Raiders situation has turned into a real mud slinging party. By the time Lane Kiffin’s firing disappears from the headlines, we will have heard from every former Raiders player, coach, towel boy, janitor and secretary about how [fill in the blank] Al Davis is as an owner. This is what happens when your coach-firing news conference turns into a public pimp slapping. People are going to have opinions.

Monte Poole of the Oakland Tribune points out that Davis seems to be learning from his mistakes and plans to hand over more football control. This franchise, the way I see it, isn’t light years away from contending. It just needs a little jolt, one that would come from Davis taking a step back from the football operations. Read more »

For the fourth straight week, I thought I had a handle on the NFL.

Broncos ae great, Chiefs are terrible. Cowboys are unbeatable at home. Rams are not competitive. Brett Favre will never learn the Jets offense in time to make big fantasy contributions. Matt Schaub will be benched by Week 5. Lane Kiffin will be out of a job any day now.

None of those things happened this week, though Kiffin could be canned by Raiders owner Al Davis at any moment. The point is, no assumptions are fool proof in the National Football League, which makes predicting fantasy football results a nearly impossible feat, too. Read more »

Plaxico Burress is a bad dude, in more ways than one. We’ve known for a while, dating back to his days with the Steelers and at Michigan State, that Burress has his share of shortcomings as a human being. Unfortunately for the rest of the National Football League, we’ve also known just how big a force he is on the football field.

Lots of dirt is being dug up on Burress after the Giants announced a two-week suspension for him Wednesday. The first week is a bye for the Giants, but the second is a road contest Burress will miss at Seattle. All told, the suspension will cost Burress $230,000 in salary, the New York Post reported.

The suspension came down after Burress failed to report for Monday and Tuesday team meetings and workouts, according to the Post. Read more »