When one prepares to draft a fantasy football team, myriad criterion should be considered in evaluating who to target, and, likewise, who to avoid. One word bouncing around just as frequently as anything else during said evaluation? Injury. Maybe a guy was injured for several games last season, maybe he suffered a season-ending injury or maybe he's just an injury-prone guy. This affects the value of players on draft day.
Let's check out the value of 10 guys with injury concerns, and judge whether or not they are up to the task for 2009.
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 ... Troops of Tom Brady. Yes, there are plenty of guys on this team who matter -- not sure if you've heard of Randy Moss, for example -- but this season it is all about the health of Tom Brady. He's going to be nearly a year removed from tearing his ACL in 2008 when the season begins. Now that Matt Cassel is gone, the weight of the team of on Brady's shoulders.
Really, the picture here is perfect. There are guys in the background wearing the same uniform, but they are a bit blurry. Brady is front and center, and the focus of the photo.
Retired NFL quarterback Trent Green is the first-ever guest columnist of MMQB, filling in while Peter King is on vacation. Green provided an interesting read on subjects relating to the league's personal conduct policy, concussions and the expanded season. And of course it wouldn't be a MMQB without a healthy dose of Favre thrown in for good measure.
Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady are, on a very rare occasion or two, scrutinized by the paparazzi. The proverbial heat is probably going to get cranked even more based on the newest rumor: Gisele is pregnant.
So sayeth People (who claim that speculation has grown since Bundchen recently appeared in photos with a "perceptible bump" underneath her shirt).
"Gisele will be an excellent mother," a source tells PEOPLE. "She's always wanted kids." Reps for Bündchen reached by PEOPLE for confirmation refused to comment.
His contract says Dick Jauron is the Bills coach until 2011. The fact is he might not last the 2009 season.
Last year, the Bills finished 7-9 for the third consecutive season and Jauron was given another opportunity to prove himself when he received a contract extension in October. The man hasn't produced a winning season of football since the 2001 season when he led the Bears to a 13-3 record.
All he's done in upstate New York is get criticized for the way the team has performed.
Bill Belichick is a lot of things, both real and imagined, but he rarely uses the media to take shots at opponents. Yes, he went off on Freddie Mitchell, but I'm not even sure that counts. Mitchell was flapping his gums about the Patriots prior to Super Bowl XXXIX and it prompted this response from Belichick: "All he does is talk. He's terrible, and you can print that. I was happy when he was in the game."
I mention that encounter because despite Belichick's sometimes tumultuous relationship with the New York Jets -- he resigned a half-hour after accepting the gig in 1999, and didn't appear to be particularly fond of former assistant Eric Mangini once he took the job in 2006 (This probably didn't help; on the upside, Bill and Herm never had any problems, and there's video evidence as proof. [Waves at camera, mouths "hello," laughs hysterically.]) -- he has yet to go "FredEx" on anybody associated with the team.
If you need a quick chuckle on this Hump-Day morning, just picture a future Hall of Fame quarterback needing to be rescued from a kayaking mishap -- while watching his supermodel wife safely scooting down the stream.
Yes, Tom Brady -- the all-everything quarterback of the New England Patriots -- rented a pair of kayaks Sunday with wife Gisele Bundchen so they could ride down the Charles River side-by-side. Whether he was a bit more adventurous or less capable with the kayak, we don't know. What we do know is that Brady cap-sized his ride and needed to be saved by another man.
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.
This is sure to rile up the natives but, well, Rodney Harrison built a career around that -- along with late hits, blows to the head, and 15 years of some pretty solid football.
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. 
Retired NFL quarterback 
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His contract says 
Bill Belichick
If you need a quick chuckle on this Hump-Day morning, just picture a future Hall of Fame quarterback needing to be rescued from a kayaking mishap -- while watching his supermodel wife safely scooting down the stream. 
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. 
