Tuesday Morning Stampede

Morning folks. Hope this Tuesday finds you with more W's than L's - was a wacky first weekend and the best advice I can give you is not to panic or overreact. Of course, you need to make moves, but make sure they are the right ones and try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater on many of the players who struggled. Of course, conversely, some players may have peaked in week 1 as well. Today and tomorrow, in preparation of waivers, I will try to help you sort out who is who.

With the Daily News show, these morning news posts will probably morph into something more in the way of analysis and strategy so I am not just repeating myself and you'll get full value. There will still be plenty of news-centric posts throughout the days - especially on days were the injury reports come out. But you need more analysis going forward and that's what I'll be doing.

In direct contrast to what I have just written, here's the morning news stampede -

Darren McFadden
McFadden left last night's disaster against the Broncos in the 4th quarter with an apparent shoulder injury. His constitution was a concern for some analysts but what should be more of a concern was the majority of the carries going to Justin Fargas. Fargas had a solid day, no doubt (18 carries for 97 yards), but McFadden was supposed to provide a huge offensive spark and he averaged around 5 ypc. What was going on? Along with the terrible play by the rest of the offense, that's a huge concern for me.

Well that and Mike Ditka sounding hammered in the booth. TE Zach Miller also played well, both blocking and catching the ball. A lot of his touches came in garbage time, but that's about when the offense started clicking. Very worried about the Raiders offense though not surprised that it remains a mess.

Aaron Rodgers
Aside from Tony Kornheiser's inability to talk about anything but how Rodgers looked like 'someone the Green Bay Fans should know', this game should ease concerns about Rodgers taking over for Favre. While not a huge game by any means (18-22, 178 yds and a TD) Rodgers played with poise behind an offensive line that was shaky at best and with run game that never really got going (Ryan Grant's 57 yard TD notwithstanding). He also ran for 35 yards and a game clinching TD. He did what he needed to and made plays when he needed to. As far as what he holds for your Fantasy team, he remains a solid part of a QBBC. He probably won't kill you but he won't put up too many 300 yd, 3 TD games either. At least not until that Oline gets fixed. That group nearly got him killed and had way too many penalties. I wasn't happy with Ryan Grant's performance for most of the game. Half his yards came on one - admitedly spectacular - run. He didn't look good for most of the game and if you played him, you dodged a bullet. I want to hear about that oline getting healthy and Grant getting full carries before I start doing cartwheels about a weak 92 yard performance which lacked a TD.

Tarvaris Jackson
Why pay Bernard Berrian big money if you aren't going to throw deep? Berrian might have had a huge day but got tripped up on with nobody in front of him and couldn't get both feet in bounds on a catch in the end zone. But Tarvaris Jackson continues to look like he can't get an accurate ball thrown beyond 10 yards. When you have the run game they do and the oline is giving you time (which it mostly was) there is almost no excuse. I am not calling Jackson a bust - this is just another example of a guy who missed too much preseason and looked out of synch. Here's hoping he gets a little better next week. One to watch, by the way - and this is notthe first time you have read this - Sidney Rice looked good gathering 5 targets which resulted in 2 catches for 31 yards and a TD. Again, I think you will see Berrian start to get his (if Jackson can get it straight) but Rice will put up decent numbers and may be the better value play for a great deal of the year.

Denver RBBC
Finally, you can once again see why Fantasy owners hate Mike Shannahan. I know he doesn't care, but what the hell is going on in that backfield? Pittman 2 TDs? Andre Hall got the majority of the carries? And Selvin Young just flat dissappeared for almost half a game? No clearer today than yesterday than preseason. It's goign to be tough top start anyone with confidence in the backfield anytime soon.

So basically, same old, same old.

Ok - News Blurb at noon EST/9am PST - we'll see you then and back here for some analysis of the studs and duds of Week 1.