FanHouse Patrick Crayton

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

Riser of the Week: Terrell Owens came into Sunday with just 26 catches for 366 yards and a single touchdown -- in nine games. Considering the Bills were switching back to Ryan Fitzpatrick, who did no favors for T.O. when at the helm earlier this season, there was very little reason to start Owens in many fantasy leagues. Instead, T.O. reminded us how cruel a mistress fantasy football can be. He's still alive and kicking, as he ushered forth a vintage stat line. Nine catches for 197 yards and a touchdown. Is this 2007? I'm not buying any sort of extended rejuvenation moving forward, but it probably felt good for T.O. -- if only for one Sunday in 2009.

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Hey, a win is a win. That's all that matters in the end. The Dallas Cowboys get to see a "7" in the win column of the standings after surviving 7-6 over the Washington Redskins Sunday. It wasn't pretty, but the Cowboys gutted out an old school victory.

Coming into the week, the Cowboys had been amassing a large percentage of their yardage via the air attack, behind the arm of Tony Romo. In Week 11, they seem to have decided to transform themselves. Romo attempted 27 passes, while the Cowboys ran the ball 33 times for 153 yards and counted on their defense to win the shortened game for them. It worked.

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It's that time of year again. Nope, not the changing of the leaves or the holiday season, it's that time of year when a Cowboys wide receiver isn't happy with quarterback Tony Romo, and allows himself the privilege of complaining to the media about it instead of, you know, talking to TONY ROMO!

Roy Williams, who was supposed to replace previously unhappy Terrell Owens as the top wideout in Dallas, has continued his career of underachieving, this year to the tune of 41.5 yards per game and just two touchdowns. While Roy has struggled, Miles Austin, an undrafted receiver out of Monmouth has done incredible stuff, including breaking the record in Dallas for yards receiving in a game (250 in week five) and scoring six times, five of which have come in the last three games.

None of those numbers matter, however, because Roy is the best in Dallas and Roy should get more looks. According to Roy.

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.

A few years ago, I used to swear by the draft-day method of avoiding all wide receivers for at least the first three rounds -- and sometimes up to the fifth in leagues with multiple flex positions. The reasoning was simple: the incredibly fickle nature of receivers. Not only is there more turnover from season to season in terms of production than at any other position, there is week-to-week turnover. Maybe it's time to get back to that theory. Witness, Miles Austin has accrued 16 catches for 421 yards and four touchdowns over his last two games. Anquan Boldin, an upper-tier wideout before the season, entered Week 7 with 306 yards and one touchdown for the entire season.

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ARLINGTON, Texas -- As the Atlanta Falcons' team bus rolled toward the Cowboys' unique stadium on Sunday morning, where more than 81,000 fans would eventually swarm inside, safety Erik Coleman soaked in the sight. No doubt, he was not alone in wonderment.

"I thought to myself, 'So, this is what a billion dollars looks like,' " Coleman said. "And once the bus rolled inside of it we just kept riding and riding. Usually inside of a stadium, the bus stops pretty quickly.''

Not this time. No nasty halt for the Falcons. No rubber burned.

And the Falcons kept it going that way, opening like they were cozily at home, taking the game's first possession, keeping the ball for more than 8 minutes, and building a 7-0 first-quarter lead.

Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.

When the San Diego Chargers have the ball in the red zone with plans to run the ball, everyone on the planet knows that LaDainian Tomlinson gets the football. Especially, say Chris Jenkins and Kevin Gemmell of the San Diego Union-Tribune, when Tomlinson is playing like the Pro Bowl-caliber back we're so used to seeing. But, on Monday night, instead of calling Tomlinson's number, Darren Sproles got the carry.

The odd part about that was, this wasn't another one of those nights for Tomlinson, not one of those games where every one of his rushing attempts seemed so futile and fruitless and belied his long-held stature as one of the game's truly great backs.

Fed up with one of your players? Eyeballing a player on the wire, but don't know who to drop? So Long, Suckers examines a few players widely-owned that probably shouldn't be.

Jim Zorn, facing a likely dismissal if his team dropped to 2-4, decided it was time for a change at QB, benching Jason Campbell in favor of Todd Collins. Well, the Redskins lost anyway, as your fantasy team likely did if you started Campbell as your QB1 (unless you were facing a Kerry Collins-led team, yeesh).

Luckily, you should have more options available to you than either Collins. Get rid of Campbell, owned in 58% of Fleaflicker leagues, as the Washington QB has likely flubbed his last chance to be an NFL starter.

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Cut-N-Go is Fantasy Football FanHouse's weekday roundup of the NFL news with fantasy football impact.

In the months of November and December of last year, Pierre Thomas had a coming-out party. He scored nine times in those two months and vaulted his fantasy value into the Top 20 of many fantasy football pundits' preseason rankings.

Unfortunately for fantasy owners that grabbed him early, Thomas missed the first two weeks of play with a knee injury. While gone, Mike Bell stepped into his place and ran extremely well. But, in a twisted turn of events, Thomas became healthy enough to play in Week 3 and Mike Bell has since injured his knee.

In Sunday's 26-20 overtime victory over Kansas City, Miles Austin caught a 59-yard touchdown pass with 2:16 left in the 4th quarter to pull ahead of the Chiefs. He wasn't done there though. When Kansas City forced overtime, Austin one-upped his earlier touchdown catch with a 60-yard touchdown reception to end the game.

Austin had ten receptions on the day with those two very important touchdown catches. He also set a Dallas Cowboys record when he tallied 250 receiving yards. Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning-News reported on Monday that head coach Wade Phillips said that Austin would now see an expanded role in the offense.

Many of you might have been surprised to see the Giants' Steve Smith and the Jaguars' Mike Sims-Walker (or MSW, for short) among the top dozen options for Week 4. No-names as No. 1 WRs? Well, those surprised people obviously haven't been keeping up with the action.

After another huge performance by Smith (11 catches, 134 yards, 2 TDs), he now sits atop the pack as the best WR through four weeks. MSW is seventh on the list, and that's not accounting for his zero in Week 1. Take the three-game average, and MSW (along with Smith and Reggie Wayne) is one of the three best WRs in football. How will the pair of overachievers rank this week?

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