FanHouse Dwayne Bowe

On Second Thought is Matt Snyder's look back at the initial FanHouse staff rankings, which were compiled nearly a month ago. As we all know, fantasy players' value changes frequently, even when no games are being played.

Formerly a relatively unpredictable position with just a small handful of reliable WR1-types, wide receiver now sports a solid upper-echelon. With the overemphasis on the pass game in the NFL, you must have one elite wideout to compete in fantasy football.

There is also good depth. It seems to me most of the shaky players here in terms of good value are in the teens. Meaning after the elite wideout, you should let everyone fill out their WR2 while waiting to stockpile good value guys in the seven and eight round range.

---

---

Perhaps the best way to ease a young NFL quarterback into the starting job is to surround him with playmakers, the support of a suffocating defense, or both. That way, he's seldom in the position of having to win a game, but has the benefit of gaining experience.

The strategy worked for the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger in 2004, and the Ravens and Joe Flacco and the Falcons and Matt Ryan last season. Pittsburgh was 15-1, Baltimore and Atlanta were 11-5. It helps to have most of the pieces in place before handing over the offense to a young QB, but it's not mandatory; the Ravens won five times the year before Flacco arrived, and the Falcons won four.

In the three drafts prior to Scott Pioli's arrival in Kansas City a few months ago, the Chiefs selected in the first round defensive end Tamba Hali, wide receiver Dwayne Bowe, and defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey.

For varying reasons, all three players could be elsewhere a year from now. Pioli, who came to Kansas City from New England, hired Todd Haley to replace Herm Edwards, and Clancy Pendergast to rebuild a defense that lost its way in recent seasons under Gunther Cunningham. This includes a switch to the 3-4 defense, a scheme Pendergast had some success with during the Cardinals' 2008 late-season surge.

In the weeks leading up to the Biggest Weekend of the NFL Offseason, I've wondered why the Rams haven't shown more interest in quarterbacks Matthew Stafford or Mark Sanchez. St. Louis has the second overall pick, managed just five wins in two seasons, and Marc Bulger looks like he's had enough.

Bulger's perceived disposition is a familiar one; quarterbacks who play behind an offensive line in name only often exhibit some combination of apprehension and apathy after years of physical abuse (Jon Kitna, David Carr, and Joey Harrington also come to mind). Of course, that's a solid argument for why the Rams should take Jason Smith or Eugene Monroe -- offensive tackles who could start immediately.

While other people were hung up on the logistics of the trade this past week -- which sent Matt Cassel to the Chiefs, among other pieces -- I was busy running through the fantasy fallout of the deal. You see, just because our season doesn't start for another six months doesn't mean you should entirely forget about fantasy football during the offseason.

This particular move helps the fantasy value of several people, while also hurting the value of a few others.

Matt Cassel is now the Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback, thanks in large part to new teammate Bernard Pollard, the man responsible for ending Tom Brady's 2008 season 15 minutes after it began and paving the way for Cassel's emergence.

The talk of Cassel's offseason value began sometime around Thanksgiving, shortly after he had put together back-to-back 400-yard passing performances. He would finish out the season with a quarterback rating of more than 100 in five of the final seven games, and before the Patriots franchised him in early February, the consensus was that Cassel was the best available free-agent quarterback -- by a wide margin.

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

After winning just twice in 2008 and six times in two seasons, the Chiefs have decided to blow up the whole operation and start over. Scott Pioli and Todd Haley have replaced Carl Peterson and Herm Edwards, and the rebuilding process is currently underway.

Conventional wisdom suggests that such turnarounds might take a couple seasons, but after what the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins were able to accomplish, expectations are almost certainly higher -- which means that Kansas City could be just a few personnel moves from returning to the playoffs. The issue, of course. is which personnel moves will give Kansas City the best chance to make a postseason run in '09.

Scott Pioli is tasked with turning around the Chiefs, a franchise that backed into the playoffs in 2006 but has since won just six times in 32 tries.

There are reasons for optimism, however; Kansas City's 2008 draft class was one of the best in recent memory; Dwayne Bowe is quickly becoming one of the AFC's best wideouts; and Tyler Thigpen, a draft-day afterthought with the Vikings in '07, played like a legit NFL quarterback for most of the season. And, of course, Pioli is now running the show.

I initially just wanted to do a Johnson vs. Johnson debate (you can see the two studs to the right), on the wide receiver front, for a dynasty diaries selection. Then I realized that I'd have to wedge Larry Fitzgerald in there somehow.

Then, I realized you guys deserve some rankings. You deserve them for each position, dammit. So you'll be getting them all on Fantasy FanHouse. For now, though, we're gonna start with wideouts since that's where my head already was.

Yes, as I mentioned, there are three gentlemen head and shoulders above everyone else when it comes to keeper value. Remember, with keeper leagues we are trying to think about someone you could own throughout his prime and enjoy five to eight absolutely elite seasons. This is especially true with wideouts, because you probably won't be keeping many (if any). Finally, do not keep someone slightly unproven like Ted Ginn over an established stud like Terrell Owens. While Ginn might be the better player in three years, he definitely won't be for the next two. You aren't just building for the future. You are trying to win now and in the future.

So here you go, our top 15 keeper-league wideouts ...

There are two weeks remaining in the regular season and we've already seen Mike Nolan, Lane Kiffin and Scott Linehan lose their jobs for varying degrees of incompetence. But more heads will roll in the coming months, and some bone-headed decisions made yesterday will go a long way in cementing the fate of the less fortunate.

Dick Jauron, Buffalo Bills:
A crappy economy might be the only thing to save Jauron's job, because after jumping out to a 4-1 start, the Bills are now sitting at 6-8. And the last two minutes of yesterday's game against the Jets was a microcosm of their season.

With Buffalo leading 27-24 and trying to run the last 240 or so seconds off the clock, somebody thought it would be great fun to let J.P. Losman throw a pass on second-and-five from the Bills' 27. Predictably, he fumbled, the Jets' Shaun Ellis recovered, and 11 yards later, that's your ball game.