FanHouse DonaldDriver

Another NFL draft has come and gone, and it's possible that you spent much of your weekend glued to a television set laughing at the Raiders and screaming for your team to find the next Tom Brady at the bottom of the sixth-round. If you're like me, you live in an area of the country where your only option for draft day coverage is ESPN's wire-to-wire mayhem.

If you happened to miss the draft, or watched it on the NFL Network, here's what you missed.

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

On its surface, the 2008 season appears to have been an unmitigated disaster for the Green Bay Packers. After the Packers made the NFC Championship Game the season before, fans painfully watched the Brett Favre retirement/unretirement/stick-it-to-Ted saga play out, and then got to see new starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers play well before the team fell apart around him.

When NFL free agency starts, the free agents are typically not the only ones who are looking for a new contract. A handful of players who have years left on their current deals are bound to decide that they've "out-performed the contract." Some of these players will decide to politely request a new deal or a raise, with no intention of doing anything in retaliation should they not get what they want.

What many fans don't necessarily know is that a lot of the rumblings start at the Pro Bowl.

The playoffs are either upon us or one week away in the majority of fantasy football leagues. With this in mind, Fantasy FanHouse is examining what you can expect from the fantasy relevant players on each team.

Chicago Bears

The Opposing Defenses: vs. JAX (14th against pass, t19th against run), vs. NO (24th against pass, t19th against run), vs. GB (5th against pass, 27th against run)
The skinny: Playing three games at home is nice, and none of them are especially good run stopping defenses. You know what the Bears want to do, and that is run the football with Matt Forte. He's even performed beautifully against rock-solid fronts -- like the Vikings. They'll need to mix in the pass as well, though, and at least the Week 15 game should be a good opportunity for that.
The must-start: Matt Forte
The likely-starts: Greg Olsen, Robbie Gould
The spot-starts: Kyle Orton, Devin Hester
The no-starts: Rashied Davis, Desmond Clark, Brandon Lloyd
The D/ST: They are a great start against the sad Jags offense, which happens to be visiting in a second consecutive road game on a short week. Lick your chops if you own the Bears for this week. The Packers and Saints don't pose especially good matchups, so you may have to look elsewhere. Still, both games are at home and you know the Saints outside in the cold doesn't exactly bode well for them, historically.

This is a story that is sure to make you shake your head.

According to a report by WBAY in Green Bay, Donald Driver's father was taken to an intensive care unit in Houston after claiming he was beaten by police officers who arrested him on outstanding traffic tickets.

Marvin Driver Jr. (not pictured), father of the Packers wide receiver, was apparently picked up this weekend by officers outside a Valero station and ended up at Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center, where he is in good condition but is still hooked up to a ventilator after he claimed he was "elbowed in the throat" and forced to swallow a pill.

FanHouse fantasy positional rankings are compiled weekly by the staff in order to provide answers to possible lineup questions. These are assuming most leagues use Fleaflicker's standard scoring structure. If you need clarification, you need more players ranked, or have funky league rules, feel free to shoot us an email question.

There's very little dispute that Anquan Boldin is a beast and/or arguably the best week-in-week-out fantasy receiver on the planet. If you ever miss his name amongst the top five in the weekly rankings, one of us forgot to drink our coffee or we drank too much. That said, every now and then it's safe to switch things up a little bit.

Yup, that's why for this week -- and maybe this week only -- the top spot is going back to Andre Johnson. He's been rather quiet for the past few weeks after his torrid pace in October, however, Sunday should be a 'Dre day. It just seems about time that he breaks out of his mini-slump... if you can even call it that. Also back to prominence this week? Look for Terrell Owens to finally snap his eternal funk. Yes, I like that Tony Romo is back and this game is at home. I just smell the popcorn.

The other usual suspects grace the top of our rankings, as usual. Essentially toss each name into a hat and pull them out for your random order. Yup, you just know what you're getting from the elite receivers... usually. Sorry about Steve Smith last week. Hmm.

Aside from the Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald tandem, keep an eye on Eddie Royal and Brandon Marshall, who should torch the Raiders. Yes, I know all too well about Nnamdi Asomugha facing up with either Marshall or Royal, but I'm not scared. My deep, deep sleeper - check in on Joey Galloway against the Lions. I mean, check in on his health, too, but who can't embarrass the Lions these days?

Speaking of the Lions - isn't it time we just admit that even if he catches only two passes a game, Calvin Johnson is a fixture amongst elite fantasy receivers? Yes, we can, thank you. Let's hit the ranks...

1. Andre Johnson, @ CLE
2. Anquan Boldin, NYG
3. Terrell Owens, SF
4. Greg Jennings, @ NO
5. Reggie Wayne, @ SD

Value Machine checks out the overall perceived value of fantasy players. If you want to commit a fantasy felony, you'll sell high on the up arrow guys and buy low on the down arrow guys.

What we saw this past weekend in Oakland was a mind-boggling shift in value for several guys on one team, both up and down.

Jake Delhomme was atrocious. He completed only seven passes to his own team while heaving four picks. His 72 yards passing for the game was 21 less than Jay Cutler achieved on one play ... and the Panthers were playing the Raiders. His value will never get any lower.

Steve Smith only caught one pass for nine yards, as he was locked up all day by Nmamdi Asomugha. His value can't get much lower.

Jonathan Stewart was banged up and only gained 21 yards on seven carries. He's losing carries to DeAngelo Williams, so his value is also really, really low right now.

That brings us to Williams, who -- just as we said he would -- ran all over the Raiders for 140 yards and a breakaway 69 yard score. The value won't get any higher for Williams.

The Panthers face the hapless Lions this week, so you'd expect an uptick from Delhomme, Smith, and Stewart without a Williams letdown.

Value Machine checks out the overall perceived value of fantasy players. If you want to commit a fantasy felony, you'll sell high on the up arrow guys and buy low on the down arrow guys.


Sammy Morris - That was a stellar half last night, which qualified for a great game. The problem is, there are two caveats ... he tweaked his knee, and the Broncos run defense is abysmal. I do think the Patriots will try to limit the heavy lifting done by Matt Cassel the rest of the season, but worry that Bill Belichick will be reluctant to have one man carry the entire load for the rest of the season. Now is probably the best time to deal Morris, but holding him wouldn't be horrible, in light of the knee injury limiting your possible returns.

Calvin Johnson - Megatron is the only Lions receiver worth guarding for opposing defenses. He was only able to grab two catches Sunday against a suspect, at best, Texans defense. The reason he's here, though, is because he shook free for a long catch and a ridiculously long touchdown. You can't count on that every week, despite his enormous talent.

Yes, yes, I know. You followed our fantasy advice all weekend and your teams are already far enough ahead. But there may still be some people filtering in on the hot street rumor that FanHouse pwns and what not. So we've got to show some love and examine some of the important fantasy players in both games tonight.

Minnesota Vikings @ Green Bay Packers (7:00 EST)
Denver Broncos @ Oakland Raiders (10:15 EST)
You should probably know, at this point, to start Adrian Peterson. You do know that, right? Don't bench him for Ryan Grant or anything. Who you should probably have already benched. If you haven't, I actually rank him last out of all the backs involved in tonight's games, so, yeah: bench him if you own (in order) AP, Selvin Young (who you should also start if you own), Darren McFadden or Justin Fargas. The Vikings' rush defense is just too stout to expect a whole lot.

New QB Aaron Rodgers is only a start in a two QB league but if he's in your lineup at this point, you're probably going to end up rolling the dice. Tonight only Jay Cutler is better and if you've got Rodgers penciled in to start right now, you've already got issues. I'd avoid JaMarcus Russell or whatever corpse the Vikes roll out in place of Tavaris Jackson.

So it appears I wasted my time earlier in the week when I figured the Packers were lying about there being a QB competition in camp. Of course, they were. I just was wrong in reference to how they were lying. Turns out they never had any plans for good ol' Brett to stay in the organization.

And now he's playing in New York, following in the footsteps of Broadway Joe.

We're gonna hit this from a fantasy perspective, and the move affects a lot of people.
Brett Favre -- He loses some value from where he'd be if he was still in Green Bay. The surrounding cast for the Jets isn't quite as stout. I'd actually rank him right behind the other quarterback in New York who has won one Super Bowl, which makes him our No. 14 QB.

Aaron Rodgers -- Right where we had him. He seems to be dealing well with the pressure right now because he hasn't snapped. Seriously, he's got kids telling him they hate him and he sucks everyday in addition to the thousand microphones in his face asking him about replacing Favre. There's obviously a strong mental makeup in there.

There are tons of weapons on the team. People thinking the Packers are going to suck because of this trade are severely overreacting.