FanHouse Kyle Orton

Sunday Evening Wrap checks out players who increased or decreased their value during the Sunday afternoon games.

Faller of the Week: Steve Slaton was most likely a first-round pick, the centerpiece of your fantasy football squad. Obviously, his being benched after just three touches and a lost fumble had a huge impact on your fantasy game this week, but looking to the future, it's much more scary. Ryan Moats was impressive with Slaton out, which does not bode well for Slaton's future. The Texans are in the midst of chasing their first-ever playoff berth, so they aren't going to run someone out there who repeatedly gives the ball away. It's entirely possible Slaton loses his job at some point this season. Thus, he easily takes the biggest hit in fantasy value for this week.

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The Early Games

New York Giants (5-2) at Philadelphia (4-2): The Giants are supposed to have one of the best pass rushes in the league, but they just haven't shown up in the past two games, with zero sacks over that time. They must get pressure on Donovan McNabb to have a chance on Sunday. Eli Manning also must figure out how to rebound from his four interceptions over the past two games.

Sorry, owners of Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer -- you'll have to look elsewhere, and Matt Cassel ain't gonna help. A number of quarterback controversies and injuries are also making like difficult looking for a spot-starter, and the bottom half of this week's set of rankings are pretty ugly.

For some, this might be the right time to execute a trade to bring a quality signal-caller into the fold. There should be teams in your league with two quality QBs, and if you can trade a Palmer or Cassel along with another piece for one of those two QBs, it's going to help you now and in the long run.

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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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Upon hearing that Jay Cutler was engaging in trash-tweeting with one Chad Ochocinco, my first impulse was obvious. Given his inaccuracy in the red zone, Cutler surely would hit the wrong letters on his cell-phone keyboard and require spell check. It wasn't wise for the Bears quarterback to answer Ochocinco's cybertaunts, not when he's being soundly embarrassed by Kyle Orton -- Kyle Orton, ladies and gentlemen! -- in first-half returns on the NFL's biggest offseason trade.

Yet there was Cutler, firing back when he should have been (a) working on his flawed passing mechanics, (b) pleading with management to find better weapons and (c) studying game film to determine why he went 2-of-9 with a bad interception inside the Atlanta 20-yard-line in Sunday night's loss. This while Orton has been the model of efficiency and near-perfection for a Broncos team that is 6-0 under coach Josh McDaniels, the first-year revelation who dared to unload Cutler and misses him now about as much as an unflushable toilet. Considering the mounting evidence against him, didn't Cutler have something better to do than play Twitter tag with a troublemaker?

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In the six months leading up to the 2009 season, the Broncos traded franchise quarterback Jay Cutler, refused to do the same for wideout Brandon Marshall (who subsequently sulked, half-assing his way through the offseason and training camp), and then-32-year-old head coach Josh McDaniels seemed so far out of his element that I wasn't sure he'd make it to Thanksgiving.

At the time, I figured a six-win effort would be a moral victory for the organization, and if nothing else, McDaniels would learn a valuable lesson about managing a group of 20-something millionaires.

Conventional wisdom.

I've tried to avoid it in my 26 years of reporting on the NFL. Yet I find myself following the herd when I search for the NFL's most pleasant 2009 surprise. How can I not say it's Denver at 5-0 after the offseason chaos following Josh McDaniels' arrival?

Look at Brandon Marshall hugging McDaniels, who suspended him for the final two weeks of the preseason after Brandon acted like a child; Kyle Orton, the quarterback the Broncos got when Jay Cutler demanded to be traded, has a passer rating eight points higher than Cutler; and a defense that allowed 28 points per game in 2008, third worst in the league, is allowing just 8.6 in 2009.

So like everyone else, I have to go with the Broncos as the most pleasant surprise.

As for the rest ...

When Broncos owner Pat Bowlen hired Josh McDaniels, expectations for the organization were about as high as they have been in recent years. It only took a few months for McDaniels to burn through a season's worth of goodwill, and between the Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall soap operas, fans and media were preparing for the worst when Week 1 rolled around.

Yet here we are, five weeks and five wins later. The Broncos are one of the best teams in the league and McDaniels, who looked like an overmatched, overwhelmed junior high schooler earlier this summer, suddenly is the boy genius everybody figured on when he arrived in Denver after spending most of this decade working for Bill Belichick.

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.

Ever since the Colts selected Donald Brown in the first round of last April's draft, fantasy players have been anxiously awaiting him to take over the No. 1 RB role for the Colts' high-powered offense. Well, they'll be waiting a while, because -- in terms of touches, goal-line carries and usage in the passing game -- Joseph Addai is still clearly the Colts' top option at running back.

Addai has 88 touches to Brown's 51. Addai has scored four times; Brown twice. Addai has 26 catches compared to just seven for Brown. This is not a changing of the guard. This is a starting running back being spelled by a backup.