FanHouse MattRyan

Dre' Bly needs to work on his field awareness. After intercepting a Matt Ryan pass on the 49ers' 10-yard-line, Bly started Primetimin' his way down the sidelines, presumably under the impression that he was going to high-step his way into the end zone.

That lasted for about 30 yards, until wide receiver Roddy White stripped Bly and the Falcons recovered. First down Atlanta.

Moving pictures hilarity after the jump.

Matt Ryan, the Falcons' starting quarterback, played collegiately at Boston College. Sunday, he returned to New England to play in Gillette Stadium against the Patriots in the Atlanta's first outdoor game of the year (including preseason). And while that is technically true, Ryan has had some experience with the elements and fake Patriots when he filmed this spot for Gillette Fusion razors.

The commercial didn't involve paint cans or leather sports jackets, but the after-the-jump YouTube provides a behind-the-scenes look at how to create an indoor Gillette Stadium (it bears a striking resemblance to the stadium in the opening sequence of The Last Boy Scout), which should no doubt come in handy for Pats fans now back on the bandwagon after yesterday's win. It'll make a lovely addition to the miniature Fenway Park many of them have already erected in their back yards.

With attention spans dwindling, we forego 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.

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ATLANTA -- It was one game. They kept saying as much on Sunday inside of the mostly business-like home locker room at the Georgia Dome.

"Yeah, it's one game, so we don't get too hung up on what we just did," said John Abraham, among the Atlanta Falcons defenders who spent the majority of their NFL season opener keeping the Miami Dolphins listless, clueless and scoreless.

It was one game, all right, but this was a scary game for the rest of the league in general and the NFC South in particular.

As the season nears, FanHouse's fantasy football team decided to put our heads together for another set of updated positional rankings. First up, the signal-callers.

We've now established thrice what everyone already knew anyway: Drew Brees is heading into the season as the consensus No. 1 fantasy football quarterback. This time around, though, we did have quite the knock-down, drag-out battle for a spot toward the top -- the two-hole. Rivals Peyton Manning and Tom Brady did battle, and their average ranking amongst our staff was a near dead heat (2.5 to 2.67).

Click through to see who emerged -- along with the rest of our top 45 quarterbacks. (Last Updated: 8/27/09)

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It's been over a month since we last posted positional fantasy football rankings, so it's time to run our second version. Plus, we added some staff. This is now an average ranking from eight Fantasy FanHouse writers. To view the early version of our quarterback rankings, click here.

Since we last checked in, there have been a few difference in the quarterback rankings. Not only have OTAs taken place, but we've also had some changes of heart and done a lot more studying -- plus the aforementioned FanHouse staff additions. One thing that didn't change? The top three ... Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning remain intact.

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It's June, so a lot can change between now and the start of training camp in six weeks, but apparently the Buccaneers are thinking about giving the starting quarterback gig to rookie first-round pick Josh Freeman.

Before last season, I would have had a hard time supporting that plan, but Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco changed all that. Ryan led the Falcons, a four-win outfit in 2007, to the postseason; Flacco made it to the AFC Conference Championship game with the Ravens, a team that finished 5-11 the year before.

Now, the Bucs might have similar ideas for Freeman. And they were 9-7 in 2008, which, in theory, means they have fewer holes to patch.

FanHouse's crack squad of savvy fantasy football personnel put our five heads together and amassed consensus rankings for non-keeper, standard scoring leagues. We'll update as the season gets closer, but this is our "incredibly early yet still fun" version.

Was last season the year of the quarterback or what? You still had the old reliables like Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Donovan McNabb doing their thing, but a whole new crop of passers have elevated themselves. Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler led the way for the youth movement. You could have even waited toward the end of your draft and landed stud QBs in Matt Ryan and Tyler Thigpen (who would have been waiver-wire fodder). Team all that with Tom Brady's Week 1 injury, and we had a really interesting season. Let's see how they fall out presently for 2009.

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Earlier this week, EA Sports released the player ratings for Madden 10. And now, with the NFL Draft in the rearview, and nothing else to do between now and training camps, we'll ponder the important questions. Like: How is [Player who is obviously rated too high] rated above [Player who is obviously rated too low]?

It's fun and original!

Perhaps the best way to ease a young NFL quarterback into the starting job is to surround him with playmakers, the support of a suffocating defense, or both. That way, he's seldom in the position of having to win a game, but has the benefit of gaining experience.

The strategy worked for the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger in 2004, and the Ravens and Joe Flacco and the Falcons and Matt Ryan last season. Pittsburgh was 15-1, Baltimore and Atlanta were 11-5. It helps to have most of the pieces in place before handing over the offense to a young QB, but it's not mandatory; the Ravens won five times the year before Flacco arrived, and the Falcons won four.