FanHouse Joshua Cribbs

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.

Big props go to Tom Herrera, who pegged Sam Aiken as a deep sleeper at the end of our Sunday Tailgate chat last week. Lo and behold, Aiken came through with a long touchdown. Will Tom have the magic again this week? Come by the Tailgate and see his pick for deep sleeper this week. As for my picks, read on.

Whether it's torn, sprained, broken or just needs to be taped, Injuries to Watch will keep you up to date on injuries around the NFL and how they'll affect your fantasy football team.

Quarterback

• Aaron Rodgers, Packers - Rodgers participated fully in practice on Wednesday and said that his foot injury isn't a big deal. He'll play on Sunday.

• Derek Anderson, Browns - Anderson participated in full on Wednesday at practice and his ankle injury will not keep him from playing on Sunday.

• Trent Edwards, Bills - Edwards missed practice on Wednesday due to a concussion. He hasn't been ruled out for Sunday's game yet, but likely will be soon.

The last three weeks have been a blur for Minnesota Viking fans. They've gone from a quarterback competition to a completely different kind of quarterback controversy.

When Brett Favre walked into Viking headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minn., on Aug. 18, he brought with him the promise of a Super Bowl run. Either that, or the promise of another glorious Vikings flop. The only certainty with Favre's arrival is that nothing is a given. All the meaningless predictions are cast aside starting Sunday, as Minnesota launches their 2009 regular season at Cleveland.

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.

The Cleveland Browns may have canned Romeo Crennel after a disastrous season (well, more than just one), but they aren't opposed to hiring clones of former Browns and current Patriots coach Bill Belichick. The team went from Crennel, a former defensive coordinator, to former defensive coordinator and -- most recently -- deposed Jets head coach Eric Mangini.

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 ...
Team who fooled us all a year ago! So much promise, so much hype and yes so many wasted fantasy picks. The writing was on the wall for doom in Cleveland last season. Many put their faith in Braylon Edwards and Derek Anderson to be the next great QB-WR combination in fantasy football.

This season the Browns remain a little less profile. Jamal Lewis is on the cusp of crashing into the wall, Braylon Edwards is on the trading block and we aren't really 100% sure who the QB will be week in and week out. One thing is pretty certain, you can shelve Donte Stallworth for a very, very, very rainy day.

One of the most intriguing prospects in this weekend's NFL draft is West Virginia quarterback Pat White. A sensational athlete, White dominated the Big East during his college career and enters this weekend as a man without a position. Can he overcome his lack of size and succeed as a quarterback in the NFL? Will he became the latest quarterback-to-wide receiver project and follow in the footsteps of players like Antwaan Randle-El? Or will he bring back the "Slash" position, combined with the recent fad that is the wildcat offense, and become a unique weapon that gives opposing defensive coordinators fits?

Mike Tomlin said that no matter what Sunday's game meant, he was going to play his guys. With just under two minutes to go in the first half of Sunday's game, that looked like the worst decision of Tomlin's young coaching career.

When Ben Roethlisberger was slammed to the ground like your three wood after you shank a shot into the woods, the Steelers rosy playoff hopes all of a sudden looked very dim. Byron Leftwich may be one of the best backup quarterbacks in the league, but he's still someone who has thrown less than 100 passes in the past two years.

The good news is that Roethlisberger seems OK after suffering a concussion and apparently some momentary numbness. After the game, Mike Tomlin said that the Steelers expect him to play in two weeks in the Steelers' first playoff game. Tomlin and the Steelers may have dodged a disaster.

The bad news is that the injury is another concussion for Roethlisberger. He suffered two concussions in 2006 (one when he took the header into a car and another against the Falcons). The last time he suffered a concussion in a game, he returned one week later to play his worst game as a pro--throwing four interceptions in a loss to the Raiders.

We're heading into Week 15, the Browns have already lost nine times, and head coach Romeo Crennel has pretty much guaranteed that he won't be back after the season. But with three games left on the schedule, he's still -- to borrow a phrase -- playing to win the games.

You see, it only took three-and-a-half months to figure out that maybe Cleveland's sputtering offense could use more Joshua Cribbs and less everybody else.

Browns coach Romeo Crennel said the Browns will use Josh Cribbs more to try to jump-start the offense.

"It looked like Cribbs was a spark, and so I think that we'll have to give him a chance to be more of a spark and try to manage his other duties as well," said Crennel. "That's what I think we can do there."

Spoken with all the conviction of a temporary worker nearing the end of his contract. Why Crennel didn't hatch this plan back in October, when the Browns were beginning their descent to awfulness, is a mystery, and one he'll probably have plenty of time to contemplate in the coming weeks.

For Baltimore fans, it took a rookie quarterback to make football fun again.

Barely a name even to experts before the season started, Joe Flacco has the Ravens on a three game winning streak with the victory today in Cleveland against a Browns team that was starting to get hot.

Flacco began the season with seven interceptions to one touchdown, but the last three have been a different story, with four touchdowns and no interceptions during the winning streak. This game gave us understanding on both the Ravens and Browns.

Baltimore can live in the AFC with a decent offense, a "better than anyone expected" defense and a special teams that doesn't seem to make a ton of mistakes (I'm obviously ignoring the 92 yard return by Joshua Cribbs). The Browns will continue to dwell near the bottom of the AFC North with a quarterback that looks lost, a defense that couldn't figure out that Flacco's favorite target was Derrick Mason and the inability to stop the run (Ray Rice went for 154 yards today).

Derek Anderson has looked like a starting quarterback the last month, winning three of four games for the Browns and throwing five touchdowns to only one interception. The problem is he's about as consistent as a politician, throwing a pass to Terrell Suggs, who plays for the other team, that clinched the game for the Ravens and had Browns fans chanting "Bra-dy, Bra-dy!"

John Beck remains in Miami, but his teammate up to about 20 minutes ago is now a Cleveland Brown. Cornerback Travis Daniels was sent to the great state of Ohio to bolster the Browns' almost-non-existent secondary and the Dolphins got an undisclosed draft pick for their troubles.

MDS at PFT writes that Daniels, a 2005 fourth-round pick and Nick Saban favorite, started just six games in '06 and five games last season and was in danger of getting cut in the coming weeks. Browns general manager Phil Savage couldn't wait around for that to happen, however; the team's secondary is in shambles, beset by injuries and inexperience. So while Daniels provides a warm body, it comes at a cost.

If the compensation is from the 2009 draft, it means the Browns will be without three choices in next year's draft. The team previously had surrendered its third-round and fifth-round selections to move up in 2008 for Martin Rucker and Paul Hubbard, respectively....

The Browns' backup cornerbacks have not exactly sparkled in training camp and two exhibition games and starter Eric Wright was victimized Monday night by the New York Giants' fifth-string receiver.

Next up: getting Joshua Cribbs and Derek Anderson healthy. And finding a way to keep the opponent's first team from hanging 30 on you is sorta important, too.