With Week 14 in the books, the fantasy season is officially winding down. Top performances down the stretch prove crucial when playoff spots and championships come into play. For the second straight week Westbrook owners rejoiced as he turned in an MVP-worthy showing against the Giants in a rivalry game.

The Colts looked like the Colts of seasons past as they routed Cincinnati, and Brett Favre and the Jets fired a blank in a Week 14 loss to Mike Singletary’s revitalized 49ers. Read more »

The entire country, or at least those with the NFL network in their cable package, tuned in to the beginning of Thursday Night Football this week to watch former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn make his first professional start. What they got was a front row seat to watch one of the most disappointing offenses in the league break out of its funk and light up the scoreboard.

The Denver Broncos came out of the gates hot to start 2008. They weren’t held to under 34 points until they suffered their first loss in Week 4 to the Chiefs. In their first five games Denver’s quarterback Jay Cutler eclipsed 300 yards passing on three occasions, including games of 350 and 361.

Rookie wide receiver Eddie Royal blew up in his pro debut by receiving for 146 yards and a touchdown. The next week, in his first game of 2008, wideout Brandon Marshall followed Royal’s example and hauled in 18 passes for 166 yards and a score against division rival San Diego. Sitting at 4-1 during an AFC power-shift, Mike Shanahan and company seemed poise to grab the reins and ride the wave of success to a playoff berth and then some. Read more »

Finally, a lopsided game on Monday Night Football in 2008. However, it was the team not expected to prevail that was on the winning side of a 41-7 rout.

The host New England Patriots spanked the Denver Broncos in a game that left Patriots fantasy owners smiling. Oppositely, the blowout also left us wondering where in the heck has Denver’s high-powered offense gone over the past few weeks?

In what was billed to be a clash of AFC powers, it seemed that only one contender showed up to play; likewise, the quarterback in white expected to shine on the national level was upstaged by a no-name fill-in not named Brady. Read more »

Time to shake it up.

No more standing by and watching top dogs Adrian Peterson and LaDainian Tomlinson get out-produced by the likes of Clinton Portis, Frank Gore and Marion Barber. That trio is no doubt a placeholder until A.P. and L.T. break out of their funks, but the body of work still deserves the recognition.

Philosophically, we’ll be treating this poll just like an AP Top 25 in college football. Just because a team keeps winning, it doesn’t mean it has chance after chance to retain the No. 1 ranking. Peterson was the equivalent of, say, Georgia eking past Alabama-Birmingham, Jacksonville State and Troy: while he technically didn’t lose a ton of ground, he didn’t gain any of it, either. Read more »

Just because there’s one more game left on the Week 3 schedule, it doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to hand our Week 3 fantasy hardware. After some of the performances - the unbelievable and unbelievably lousy alilke - we couldn’t wait to get to our awards column.

Any football fan took note of Miami’s unfathomable 38-13 win over New England, and it was impossible not to attribute the victory to running back Ronnie Brown, who found the end zone five times (four rush, one pass). The huge performance prevented Falcons’ running back Michael Turner from twice being named our Most Valuable Player, as the first-year starter accumulated a measly three scores. Read more »

We want to get cute with our Week 3 wide receiver rankings, but it’s just not wise to bet against the likes of Brandon Marshall, Terrell Owens and Plaxico Burress to put up big days. There are really no surprises in the top 15 projected wideouts, with the lone exception being Carolina’s Steve Smith, who returns from a two-game suspension.

We are also cautiously optimistic that the Cincinnati Bengals offense will get back on track, which would mean quality performances by the duo of T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson. For at least one more week, both of these guys should remain fixtures in fantasy lineups, so don’t push that panic button just yet. Read more »

Time to shake things up in our Week 3 rankings, especially at the top where the unthinkable happened - LaDainian Tomlinson lost his weekly home at No. 1 to Adrian Peterson. More struggling backs were bumped from the top five, as we try and let go of our preseason draft stocks and start seeing reality for what it is.

Reality is, Steven Jackson and Joseph Addai are no longer more desirable than Clinton Portis and Marion Barber. Ditto for Randy Moss, who was passed by Terrell Owens as our No. 1 wide receiver after seeing New England’s revamped offense with Matt Cassel at the helm. Read more »

With all but two games (MNF and the Ravens at Texans match-up moved to November 9 because of Hurricane Ike) said and done in Week 2, it’s time once again to award those who put forth influential fantasy performances. And, when seven teams post 30+ points, a lot of guys are going to be deserving of recognition.
 
We’ll start in Denver where seven passing touchdowns and more than 940 yards of combined offense tell the tale of two division rivals who found themselves in the middle of a good old fashioned shootout. Also, be sure to take note of Week 2’s dream lineup. If you had any piece of this team, there’s a good chance you embarrassed the rest of your league. Read more »

There is much difficulty in pulling the trigger on a player who is guaranteed to miss three crucial weeks of the season. So, when it was announced that Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall would have his three-game suspension reduced to one, the young wide receiver surged up rankings boards and altered the fantasy football landscape.

One of the league’s premier talents is finally being selected where his skill level dictates he should. This season’s class of wide receivers was already deep, but the added certainty for Marshall creates yet another dimension. Now, what’s left in the wide receiver pool is a group of nearly 20 players who could produce like No. 1 receivers for fantasy teams. Marshall is a legitimate No. 1 option and moves into the position’s top 10 rankings. Read more »

Each season, right around this time, a number players are put on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, making them ineligible to play in regular season games until Week 7. The writing is typically on the wall during training camp for these injured players, so their names don’t come as a huge surprise. Fortunately for fantasy owners, they also should have much impact, if any, on their teams this season.

Tampa Bay running back Cadillac Williams was the most significant player on the PUP list, but his inclusion doesn’t come as a surprise. Because of his lengthy rehabilitation from a PCL tear he suffered last season, 2007 dynamo Earnest Graham has been an early draft pick as the Bucs’ top running back. No fantasy owners were expecting contributions from Williams until midseason, regardless of his official standing with the NFL league office. Read more »