FanHouse NeilRackers

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.

After what seemed like about 15 straight seasons heading into the year as the trendy "sleeper" pick of the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals finally realized their potential, winning a home playoff game for the first time in the life of many football fans (myself included) and heading to the first-ever Super Bowl. Now, all of a sudden, expectations are at an all-time high. Can the team thrive, or will they disappoint?

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 ...
Defending NFC champions. A few inches either way, and we could say the Super Bowl champions. Soak that up. The Arizona Cardinals almost took home a title. It was like a bizarro world Super Bowl -- if you only looked at the NFC side, that is. Regardless, the Cardinals did it with a prolific passing attack, and you know we love that in fantasy football.

They've lost their offensive coordinator and replaced Edgerrin James' aging legs with some fresh ones. Other than that, they look pretty similar in fantasy land. And that's a good thing.

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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 kicker rankings, click here.

I'll beat the dead horse here, because I feel like it is my duty. Please don't draft a kicker until the last round and never pay more than a dollar for one in an auction. It's just not worth it because of the turnover from year to year. Check this out:

Top three kickers in '08: Gostkowski, Akers, Carney
In '07: Crosby, Bironas, Folk
In '06: Gould, Kaeding, Scobee
In '05: Rackers, Feely, Graham

I could use a lot more data to continually hammer the point home, but it would be a waste of time. So, uh, yeah. Don't waste a pick until you have to.

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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.

Notes from the press box at Bank of America Stadium for Panthers - Cardinals.

Jake Delhomme hasn't had that fantastic a season, at least in the second half of the year, so expecting him to totally dominant the Cardinals tonight would have been just a flat-out mistake. But at the very least, you would think that the term "halftime adjustment" might mean something to the Panthers' coaching staff.

Apparently it didn't, because on second and 16, after Kurt Warner gave the Panthers a free red zone opportunity, Delhomme again forced a pass into tight coverage that got double-tipped and resulted in his third interception (fourth turnover) of the evening, as well as a 41-yard interception return that set up a Neil Rackers field goal and set the score at 30-7.

Delhomme just overthrew his receiver on fourth and five at the 40 in a fashion that could best be described as "embarrassing," and a good number of Panthers fans -- at least the ones not leaving the stadium -- started booing him. Or perhaps booing the coaching staff. Both have been completely ineffective tonight.

Bonus: Matthew Stafford can't fall far enough to land in Carolina at the draft.

Notes from the press box at Bank of America Stadium for Panthers - Cardinals.

Jake Delhomme's job tonight was two-fold: don't turn the ball over and occasionally hit Steve Smith on deep play-action passes. So far tonight, he hasn't really done either quite well. In fact, aside from the one deep throw (that he didn't complete), it's pretty safe to say he looks more like David Carr.

Granted, Delhomme did get a ball deep to Smith at the end of the first quarter that drew 14 penalty flags in .01 seconds, so I suppose he deserves some credit there. But the fact of the matter is that the Cardinals have 14 points and are driving, and the last 10 points are nothing but gifts from Delhomme and unnecessary wastes of red zone opportunities.

It doesn't matter your affiliation to a certain team, we can all admit that, during a sports year, athletes make just as many idiotic decisions on the field as they do off it. You have backward passes, premature celebrations, and rare "I'm not even sure what was supposed to be happening there" plays that can make you go bald from all the head scratching. This year was no different in the NFL, and here is what we came up with as the NFL's dumbest plays of 2008.

Dan Orlovsky's Phantom Safety -- Do you want to know how bad this play actually was? When bringing this idea up to the FanHouse football group, all I had to say about this play was, "Dan Orlovsky." Everyone knew which play I was talking about. The poor guy was thrown into a terrible situation in Detroit, and decided his legacy was going to be "running out of the back of the end zone without ever really knowing what went on." Running out of the end zone as a quarterback is one thing ... not knowing you did so and continuing the play is quite another. I can guarantee Orlovsky one thing -- his video will be shown by high-school coaches all around the nation as what not to do when stuffed back by your own end zone.

The Free Kick Attempt by Neil Rackers -- It sure wasn't the dumbest play of the year, but it was definitely the most confusing. With five seconds left in the first half against the Giants, Ken Whisenhunt actually made the decision to opt for a "free kick," even though nobody knew what in the world a free kick was. Rackers set the ball up on a tee, rared back his heavy leg and ... muffed it. Not only was it unsuccessful, but it gave the Giants a chance to return it. I guess the good news was that we learned what a free kick was and that Rackers has no 68-yard leg.

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.

It's no secret that opposing teams score points on the Lions. The Titans are coming into Ford Field with a massive chip on their shoulder, following a loss at home. They won't find many problems, and that includes their kicker, Rob Bironas. He'll feel quite comfortable inside.

Nick Folk is coming off a 19-fantasy-point day, and the Cowboys get another hapless defense. Hopefully the Cowboys' offense doesn't score only touchdowns.

I also love both night-game kickers, as the Cardinals and Eagles should be able to move the ball. There's a good chance of many kicking points in that game.

All told, four of this week's top six kickers are participating on Thanksgiving.

More notes after the rankings.

1. Rob Bironas, at DET
2. Nick Folk, vs. SEA
3. Rian Lindell, vs. SF
4. Jason Elam, at SD
5. Neil Rackers, at PHI

FanHouse's resident referee will chime in weekly with thoughts on major topics relating to officiating. We call it The Zebra Report. Matt Snyder is a high school official with eight years experience. While this is like a third-year resident critiquing the work of a world-renowned surgeon, it's still better than someone who has never worn the stripes.

First of all, my apologies to those legions of loyal Zebra Report fans. Last week some things arose personally which prevented me from compiling my report. I do, however, still have listed most of the plays I was going to cover for last week, so we'll just tackle both this week in a double-issue of sorts. Does that sound good? (You do realize I don't care about your answer, since officials don't listen to fan feedback, right?)

Week 11

- The Troy Polamalu touchdown. This has been covered everywhere. There's no real need to rehash it much. With an illegal forward pass, as long as it didn't hit the ground, the Steelers should have been able to either accept the penalty or the result of the play (which would have meant declining the penalty). Obviously, they'd take the result of the play since it was a touchdown.