FanHouse JeffReed

The NFL Network's first day of combine coverage just ended, and here's a quick recap: Alabama's Andre Smith -- all 800 pounds of him* -- went missing Saturday morning, while South Carolina's Jared Cook made himself some money by running 4.5 40-yard dash, the second fastest time by a tight end this decade.

But perhaps the story of the combine -- at least until Rich Eisen runs the 40 again -- is USC kicker David Buehler. Specialists -- kickers, punters, long snappers -- also get invited to the combine but never get any airtime because, well, the only thing worse than watching offensive linemen lift weights and run the cone drill is watching kickers, punters and long snappers do it.

Jeff Reed is Wooderson. He's the guy who graduates from high school but never leaves, cruising around in his '70 Chevelle Super Sport perpetually on the lookout for keggers and girls. It's quite the existence.

But instead of Reed's life playing out in a small Texas town, he's in Pittsburgh, in the role of the Steelers' enigmatic kicker. Or, if it's early Saturday morning, New Alexandria, PA, in the role of disgruntled gas station patron. (Thankfully, there were no incriminating cell phone photos.)

The Steelers have $19 million in cap room with only a talented cornerback and a slew of mediocre or injury-prone linemen heading to free agency. So everything's great, right?

Well, take a look at this list of Steelers who are getting ready to head into the final year of their current contracts (thanks to davaughnci for pulling a list together over at Football's Future Forum): RB Willie Parker, LB James Harrison, WR Hines Ward, TE Heath Miller, C Justin Hartwig, S Ryan Clark, CB Deshea Townsend, DE Brett Keisel, NG Casey Hampton, K Jeff Reed.

Jeff Reed is more prominent in internet photos than Beaker is in D.C. Some of the photos involve Reed hanging out at bars with attractive (sometimes, anyway) women. Including recent shots that were posted over at KISSING SUZY KOLBER (see, it's not that hard to link up a site) and then discussed elsewhere.

Like, for instance, USA Today, where Reed said he doesn't really care about the pics.

Super Bowl Prop Bets are as American as your mother and as addicting as, um, stuff. Will Brinson's got a program for your all-American fix.

Now that we've finally waded through the muck (read: the two freaking days when books aren't putting up the prop bets because they're scared of us taking their money), we can get down to business.

And the first business of every Super Bowl betting guide -- the spread and over/under aside -- is the coin flip. Always, always, always take heads. There's nothing really more to say. Just take heads. Probability tells us that there's at least a 50/50 chance of this winning. And those are pretty good odds, my friends.

You know how the old story goes by now -- defensive back (Frank Walker) tries to take out kicker (Jeff Reed), so punter/holder (Mitch Berger) gets cheesed and goes after defensive back. In the heat of passion, defensive back spits in punter/holder's face, punter/holder pushes defensive back, the media freaks out about it and we all live happily ever after.

Or not. See, Walker has finally admitted that he did spit in Berger's mouth. Except -- get this -- he's trying to play it off as an accident. Or, a "slobber moment", if you will.

Frank Walker acknowledged that he spat in the face of Pittsburgh Steelers punter Mitch Berger, but the Ravens' backup cornerback called it an accident.

"It was just a slobber moment," Walker said.

Berger, naturally, still isn't buying this "accidental" business. That's probably because he was so upset that he spent the next 24 hours basically holding a plunger to his face.

The incident had a lingering effect on Berger.

"I think I kept spitting for 24 hours," he said. "I kept brushing my teeth. To have another man spit in your mouth like that ... it was gross."

And while I suppose you could twist that as homophobic, I'm going to get Berger's back here and say that I would probably be doing the same thing. Of course, he's a punter, so really, this is the most dangerous thing that's happened to him in like 15 years, but still: you never rub another man's rhubarb. Or something like that.

It's seldom (never?) that you see a kicker get slapped with a 15-yard personal-foul penalty, but that's exactly what happened on an extra-point attempt after the touchdown that wasn't. Pittsburgh's Jeff Reed was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after pushing Frank Walker which led to the Steelers having to kickoff from their 15-yard line.

It seemed kind of ticky-tack at the time -- the Steelers and Ravens were beating the crap out of each other all afternoon, to penalize the kicker for shoving a defensive back is, well, odd -- but apparently Reed was defending punter Mitch Berger's honor. You see, Berger, who also serves as Reed's holder, allegedly got a loogie right in the grill, courtesy of the aforementioned Walker.

"The guy dove, he tried to take out Jeff's knee," said Berger, who holds for Reed's kicks. "I went over there and he got up and he spit in my face -- and they called it on Jeff for pushing him!"

Ravens coach John Harbaugh's response: "Poppycock!" Alright, he didn't actually use that term, but he thinks Berger's full of crap.

"That's the first I heard that. I don't believe it for one second," Harbaugh said yesterday ..."Frank Walker wouldn't do it; none of our players would do it. I don't believe it for one second."

I don't know what it is with NFL players and spitting, but, if history's any guide, Berger's accusations aren't completely implausible. That said, spitting is so mid-2000s. If Walker really wanted to make his point, he would've started chucking shoes.

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.

The Broncos offense is really good. The Raiders defense is pretty bad, but they've been able to put the clamps on teams in the red zone and in the passing attack recently. The two teams are playing each other in the sea-level-challenged confines of Denver.

I'm smelling a good fantasy kicker! Loving some Matt Prater this week.

More notes after the rankings.

1. Matt Prater, vs. OAK
2. Jason Elam, vs. CAR
3. Jeff Reed, vs. CIN
4. Stephen Gostkowski, at MIA
5. Nick Folk, vs. SF

Salon's King Kaufman makes a solid point: while it's easy (and fun!) to blame the officials for bungling another end-of-game call that affected the final score, it didn't have to come to that in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon.

Referee Scott Green has been exposed as a fraud, but if Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wasn't such an awful clock manager, we'd be none the wiser. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way, which must've made it a joy for Mike Pereira, NFL head of officiating, to come into work today.

Anyway, Kaufman writes that instead of kicking on third down with 15 seconds left in the game, Tomlin should've instructed Ben Roethlisberger to take a knee and then call a timeout with one second left. Skippy Reed would've had to convert a 34-yarder instead of a 32-yarder, but given how it turned out, he still would've easily converted.

Armchair strategists would point out that Tomlin did the right thing by kicking on third down because there's always the possibility of a bad snap or muffed hold. After all, the Steelers long snapper has been on the job three weeks and almost put a ball over punter Paul Ernster's head earlier in the game. That's a legit point, right? Uh, not quite. Kaufman explains:

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.

Nick Folk was pretty much the consensus number one kicker this preseason, no matter where you looked. I have had the pleasure of avoiding the disappointment of owning him, because he was pretty much always taken before the last round and I thankfully have a rule against that.

This week, though, he's back. The Cowboys are coming off a bye week in which they got nearly all their weapons healthy, most importantly Tony Romo. I expect the scoreboard operator to be busy in Washington, and we can't expect the Cowboys to totally be firing on all cylinders, which means a few stalled drives mixed in with the multiple TDs. Plus, Folk's just the best kicker in the league when given the chance to be.

More analysis after the rankings.

1. Nick Folk, at WAS
2. Jason Elam, at ATL
3. Matt Prater, vs. DEN
4. Rob Bironas, at JAX
5. Matt Bryant, vs. MIN