FanHouse BrandonJacobs

FanHouse's crack squad of savvy fantasy football personnel put our five heads together and amassed consensus rankings for non-keeper, standard scoring leagues. We'll update as the season gets closer, but this is our "incredibly early yet still fun" version.

In an otherwise jumbled mess, there is one thing we know about the running backs when it comes to fantasy football drafts: Adrian Peterson is easily the class of the position. After that, there appears to be a large clump of running backs who have a good chance to excel this season. If you think the old school fantasy football "running back-running back" draft strategy (drafting a running back in each of the first two rounds) is truly antiquated, ask yourself the difference between a Frank Gore and Marion Barber tandem in your backfield as opposed to Ronnie Brown and Jamal Lewis. Is it worth taking a wide receiver, then, before a Barber type?

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Instead of trading a bunch of draft picks for either Anquan Boldin or Braylon Edwards, the Giants elected to address the need to replace Plaxico Burress via draft. Nicks is a solid possession receiver and should see the field with regularity in 2009. Of course, the Giants have spent several draft picks on receiver in recent years -- Steve Smith (2nd round), Sinorice Moss (2nd), Mario Manningham (3rd) -- and they also added Domenik Hixon, so it's really tough to tell how everything shakes out as of now.

They'll be hoping Nicks develops into their go-to guy in the future, but the transition to that role in the pros will take more than a season. Let's check out the fantasy spin on the passing game after the jump.

There will be no retired player on the cover of EA Sports' Madden NFL 10. Instead, EA Sports will return to its custom of jinxing an active player picking one of the NFL's biggest stars for the cover of their best-selling annual game.

The game itself won't be released until August, but the process of choosing this year's cover boy is well underway. The company has narrowed its choices down to nine finalists. If you think we're due for a defensive player on the cover, this may be your year.

For all those secretly coveting and projecting Derrick Ward as the 2009 version of Michael Turner (you know the capable back-up who signs with a new team to be the man) you just might wanna pay attention. Ward just signed with the Tampa Bay Bucs with aspirations of finally being the man.

If another season plagued by knee injuries wasn't the signal of the end for Carnell Williams, this should be. Ward had other suitors in the fold, but chose the re-vamped Tampa Bay offense that is beginning to take on a new shape in the early going of this new regime. You may recall Ward was quite the steady contributor the past few seasons in New York and he caught the eye of many in the fantasy football world after he blistered the Carolina Panthers for 215 yards on National TV. So who else is impacted?

Thanks to the NFL's most recent television deal, very few teams have had trouble in recent years getting under the salary cap. But it should become even easier in 2009 now that the league has announced that the cap will be $127 million this year, $4 million higher than what was expected.

The teams had been told to expect the cap to rise to $123 million, up from $116.2 million in 2008. That was already a big enough bump that most teams were millions under the cap. Even before the recent wave of cuts and Brett Favre's retirement, only six teams had more than $120 million in cap commitments. Now, nearly every team in the league will have millions to spend even after setting aside money for their draft picks. In the case of the Chiefs, they have more than $40 million in cap room.

Two days before the start of NFL free agency, the New York Giants have ensured that running back Brandon Jacobs isn't going anywhere.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

The New York Giants were an afterthought in 2007, but made their way to a Super Bowl title. In 2008, the Giants found a way to earn home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs, only to last one game. Their playoff loss to Philadelphia was certainly disappointing, but the fact that they earned the top seed after the drama they went through was impressive in itself. Now, it's time for the Giants to re-tool, reload, and get back to the Super Bowl.

Brandon Jacobs' contract with the New York Giants is up, but the team wants to make sure he's not going anywhere.

The Giants have slapped the franchise tag on Jacobs, giving the team the right to match any offer for him or pick up two first-round draft picks from a team that signs him. Jacobs is guaranteed a one-year salary of $6.6 million for 2009 if he signs the franchise tender, or he can sign a long-term deal with New York.

Here are a few random thoughts during the Eagles-Giants game that have absolutely nothing to do with anything ... besides questionable commercials, comedians and commentators.

-- The "safety" symbol has to be the most fun motion to make in sports. Honestly, whenever a safety occurs, every defender on the field tosses up the safety symbol. I think it is like the "fist blow up" thing from three years ago. Everyone loved doing that.

-- Did Eli Manning call his brother and ask him, "How do you do that 'God, I can't believe my kicker sucks this bad,' face?" Because he sure has perfected it.

-- Do you think Jesus points back when athletes stick their finger towards the sky after a good play?

It was a defensive struggle Sunday at Giants Stadium. In the end, it was the Philadelphia Eagles making more plays on both sides of the ball. They beat the NFC's top seed, the New York Giants, 23-11 to advance to their fifth NFC Championship game under head coach Andy Reid.

The Eagles led for most of the second half, but didn't put the game away until the fourth quarter. It was then that the Giants' chances were destroyed by their inability to either convert short-yardage situations or trust their struggling quarterback to make plays.

Eli Manning is going to be ripped in the New York press for his performance in this game. He should be. But he didn't have the ball in his hands on either of the game's biggest plays.