FanHouse James Jones

Weeding through those unwieldy waiver wires requires a keen eye and a quick trigger. Thus, Waiver Wire Wonders provides a weekly snapshot of players worthy of consideration who should be available on a good portion of league waiver wires.

It looks like we have the makings for some steamy waiver wire action as Week 9 provided a host of interesting plays. In the "one man gathers what another man spills" department, we saw a perennial backup step in as a fantasy big shot suffered a concussion, a couple of forgotten old-timers break out for their new teams, a couple of deep-on-depth-chart overachievers make a name for themselves, and we even saw a Lion play a good game. With the trade deadline looming, waiver wire moves get even more important down the stretch, so stay on your toes. Let's go.

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Editor's Note: Bruce Ciskie, a lifelong Packers fan, opines about the state of his beloved team.

High expectations greeted the Green Bay Packers in August, as the team arrived at training camp. Practices -- held across the street from Lambeau Field -- were very physical, as the Packers tried to show they wouldn't be bullied around like they were far too often in 2008.

That 6-10 season, we all were told, was a memory. It was a fluke. It wasn't how things would be conducted in Green Bay. Bad tackling, soft defense, poor special teams play, and stupid penalties were going to be a thing of the past.

Or not.

Everyone loves fantasy football sleepers, but they change depending on league size and availability. We're here each and every week to give you a look at good plays for all types of leagues.

You know it's going to be a great week when your featured sleeper suffers an injury so bad, his bone sticks out of his skin. While that was unfortunate (and likely very, very painful) for Leon Washington, the matchup advice turned out to be sound, as Shonn Greene stepped right in and put up a great line for absolutely no fantasy teams.

This week's slate of sleepers features many players coming out a bye week, hopefully feeling refreshed and ready to put up big points.

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Need a last-minute fill-in for this week? 4th and 26 is here to throw you a couple deep sleepers, guys available in at least 90 percent of Fleaflicker leagues that could give your fantasy football team a big boost.

Our friends in PPR leagues were probably happy with last week's selections in this column, as Dennis Northcutt, Keenan Burton and Julian Edelman all caught at least five balls in Week 6, albeit for limited yardage. This week we'll try to hit on players at other positions as well.

Remember to stop by our Sunday Tailgate chat later this morning with your fantasy questions for Week 7.

Go to your league's ranking page and sort the wide receivers by average production per game. It's probably not a shock to see two Patriots in the top six, but did you realize that there were three Giants receivers in the top 15? Steve Smith has obviously caught our attention, and Mario Manningham has caught TDs in back-to-back weeks to remain fantasy relevant. Coming up in a blaze of points is Hakeem Nicks, who has scored over 10 points in each of his last three contests by catching long touchdown after long touchdown -- in fact, he only had one catch in Week 4 and took it 54 yards for a score for an 11.4-point game. Are all three starter-worthy this week?

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Need a last-minute fill-in for this week? 4th and 26 is here to throw you a couple deep sleepers, guys available in at least 90% of Fleaflicker leagues that could give your fantasy football team a big boost.

I've got to tell you, I must have Wes Welker in virtually every fantasy football league I play in this year. When news broke during our Sunday Tailgate chat (which we do every Sunday starting at 10:30 AM ET), I had many rosters that needed some last second altering. If you're in a deep league (one of those leagues I needed a fill-in was a 16-teamer), you might have to go scraping the bottom of the FA barrel at the last second. Here are some guys that might help.

Training camps have wrapped up, the NFL season is right around the corner, and it's still hot as sin outside. But instead of cooling you off with a warm island song, FanHouse break out ye old heat check for our 2009 NFL Season Previews. " We'll rate each club in 5 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Injuries are not an excuse. It's also not permissible to point fingers at guys on the other side of the ball when your team has problems. No one in Green Bay will do this, despite the way things went down last year. The Packers lost eight of their ten games by a combined total of 30 points. Despite this, no one in the locker room pinned the blame on the three-ring circus in training camp, major injuries on defense, or anything else.

GREEN BAY, Wisc. -- For Green Bay Packers wide receivers Donald Driver and Greg Jennings, there is little left to prove. They've already established themselves as top receivers, and easily the best on this Packers team. They've developed an impressive rapport with second-year starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

However, there are seven other wide receivers at training camp who aren't so lucky. With no more than four of them set to make the 53-man roster, they're all working hard to secure a spot.

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.

Meet The ...
The team that happily doesn't have to wonder if Brett Favre is coming to camp. Following a future hall of famer and face of the franchise isn't east. But, Aaron Rodgers make it look that way. In his first full year, Rodgers started all 16 games and threw for 4,038 yards and 28 touchdowns. Rodgers spread the love to two 1,000 yard receivers in Greg Jennings and Donald Driver and enjoyed a 1,203 yard campaign from his running back Ryan Grant, who battled through injuries and a somewhat slow start to the season. The key players from 2008 are still around heading into 2009 and there's no reason to think Rodgers shouldn't grow as a quarterback and the rest of the crew around him benefit from his experience.

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As currently constructed, the Heat don't have a whole lot of room under the salary cap, but they may be able to fill a glaring need for outside shooting by inking James Jones, who hit 43.7% of his shots from long distance last year for the Trail Blazers. From Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

With the free-agent signing period to commence at midnight, a five-year offer has been extended to Jones, starting at $4 million for next season. The final three years of the contract would be conditional, to protect the Heat for the 2010 free-agency period.

Jones has yet to commit, but working in the team's favor is the fact that he'd be returning home -- he was born and raised in Miami and spent four years at the University of Miami before being drafted. Winderman doesn't offer up any other info about the last three conditional seasons, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict those will be team option years.