With nine games in the books, Ricky Williams -- despite being behind Ronnie Brown on the Dolphins' depth chart -- sits at 13th in fantasy points among running backs. Brown is ninth, so the Dolphins have themselves a pretty dynamic duo. For Week 11, they get to feast on the Carolina Panthers' 25th-ranked run defense Thursday night.
And Ricky's left alone in the backfield. With Brown nursing a foot injury, Williams will shoulder the bulk of the Miami offense. He's quite capable, as we've seen in spurts this season. He had 20 carries for over 100 yards last week. This week, he's gonna get the ball more often and run wild. Only the new "big three" are better options.
Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.
Maurice Jones-Drew owes me six points. In fact, he owes a whole lot of fantasy football owners a touchdown after kneeling on the one-yard line instead of scoring a go-ahead touchdown against the New York Jets.
With under two minutes left in the game, the Jets had no timeouts, a one-point lead and the Jacksonville Jaguars driving in the red zone. The Jets decided to let Jones-Drew score so they would have plenty of time for a game-winning drive of their own. Toni Monkovic of The New York Times gives Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio a ton of credit for foiling that plan.
Each Monday of the fantasy football season, we'll cut through the fantasy numbers put up by individuals and tell you what they really mean.
Two weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers went into Arizona and picked Kurt Warner off five times en route to an easy victory over the defending NFC champions. Some began to fear the old man was beginning to lose his touch. If he did, what would happen to the Cardinals' juggernaut of a fantasy football unit?
All they've done since then is score 72 points in two games and looked better than ever.
Sunday Evening Wrap checks out players who increased or decreased their value during the Sunday afternoon games.
Riser of the Week: With the help of Brett Favre's arm, Sidney Rice is becoming a star in the NFL. Favre's affinity for Rice isn't really difficult to figure, either. At 6-foot-4 and blessed with incredible athleticism, Rice is the rare breed of receiver that can play as both a deep threat and possession receiver, which has made him Favre's favorite target. With a 7-catch, 201-yard effort Sunday, Rice now has compiled 27 catches and 553 yards in the past four games. He still needs to score more touchdowns -- he only has two this season -- but he's gathering enough yardage to make up for it in the meantime. The Vikings' remaining schedule isn't especially tough, either, so don't even think about benching Rice.
With attention spans dwindling, we forgo full game-by-game previews to give you the essentials you need to know about every contest this glorious NFL weekend. We call it The Once-Over.
The Early Games
Denver (6-2) at Washington (2-6): Denver has lost its last two games and has shown an inability to score against good defenses. Washington's defense is ranked fifthh in the NFL, and that spells a much closer matchup than two teams with such opposite records should be involved in. It's extremely tough to throw against Washington, so Knowshon Moreno becomes a very important factor on Sunday. If he does well, Denver wins -- If Moreno falters, Denver loses.
In Monday morning's Reality Check this week, I proclaimed that I liked Chris Johnson more than Adrian Peterson -- and everyone else, obviously -- for the rest of the season and in 2010 as the top fantasy running back. In Week 10, I'm already posed with a test. Peterson gets to square off against the hapless Lions. Julius Jones was a stud against them last week and Peterson's coming off a bye week.
Of course, Johnson is taking on the league's worst run defense at home. The Bills allow 5.1 yards per carry, 173.6 yards rushing per game and have given up 12 rushing touchdowns. I'll be surprised if Johnson comes in with less than 150 yards and two touchdowns, but I'm expecting closer to 200 and three. Seriously.
Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.
We kinda saw this coming. Wouldn't it be nice if Calvin Johnson could transform like the real Megatron and withstand even the most crushing blows? Alas, he's human just like the rest of the stars our fantasy football team depends on. After taking a beating against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Johnson limped off the field with a right knee injury, his second ailment in the past two weeks. Now his status is very up in the air heading into what would be a great matchup with Green Bay. Is it time to get worried about our silver-and-blue crusader?
It's not very often you'll find a 4-0 team as a home underdog against a non-undefeated team, but that's exactly the scenario that has played out. New England's only road game this season was in New York, where the Jet defense completely stifled the New England offense as the team handed the Patriots their only loss of the season. No defense has played better than that of the Denver Broncos, and the team has given up just 26 points combined over the first four games of the season. Sure, a couple of those games were against Brady Quinn and JaMarcus Russell-led teams, but you can only beat the teams you play, and Denver has done a great job of that this year.
Here's how it works. We throw some intriguing matchups at the FanHouse staff and ask whether each player will be over or under a certain point total. The result? Fantasy Football Over/Under. Makes sense, right?
The fantasy football landscape is starting to shake out a bit, and it's time to change the way you look at some players. With that in mind, we've listed two of the hottest receivers in football as No. 1 WRs this week.
No need to say much else -- you know how the game works by now. Just remember to stop by Fantasy FanHouse before game time on Sunday, as we'll be answering your fantasy questions from 10:30 AM ET until the first kickoff.
Brian Westbrook is going to enjoy himself as he returns to both the gridiron and the Top 5 in the FanHouse fantasy football running back rankings for Week 5.
In Week 3, Brian Westbrook had the pleasure of sitting out and watching his heir apparent run wild on a terrible Kansas City defense (who I like to call the Swiss Chiefs). In Week 4, the Eagles had a bye week, and Westbrook went ahead and got himself healthy. He's also likely a bit motivated to prove he's still the superior back in Philly, as he's always done after missing a game or two due to injury. In Week 5, the Eagles play the Buccaneers, who are even worse defensively than the Chiefs. The Bucs are allowing 4.8 yards per carry, over 170 rushing yards per game and 28 points per game.