FanHouse TrentEdwards

The best thing about the build up to the next NFL season is the exact same thing as the worst. If that makes sense. It's fun to dissect every aspect of everything, but it can also be maddening when you consider we're still just under three months until an actual, real NFL game is played. Regardless, things constantly change in terms of fantasy football draft value.

What I'll do in On Second Thought is take a look at the rankings we compiled as a staff and point out which players I believe we collectively ranked too high and vice versa. This isn't a slap in the face to my colleagues, as some of the rankings I didn't like were my fault (you'll see one here). Plus, we started working on them a month ago. Things change.

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The Cowboys cut Terrell Owens in early March, and we've been subjected to a story or so a week about why it happened, who was to blame, and what it means for both parties going forward.

This is newsworthy for a few reasons: it's the offseason, it's the Cowboys and it's T.O. Anybody else, or any other time of year, and these headlines have a shelf life of a few days. But it's June, so here we are.

And according to Yahoo.com's Michael Silver, who spent a couple days talking to Jerry and Stephen Jones, the real reason T.O. got axed was because he was too popular. Seriously.

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.

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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The Bills finished with the 14th-best running attack in the NFL last season. Marshawn Lynch led Buffalo with 1,036 yards and eight touchdowns last season -- but the emergence of Fred Jackson (571 yards on 130 carries) made the Bills realize they have something special.

On Tuesday, the club announced the signing of Jackson to a contract extension. Financial terms were not disclosed. Jackson was an exclusive rights free agent which meant he couldn't sign with any other team.

The Bills initially offered him a one-year contract worth $460,000, but Jackson balked at that deal.

The Bills were in an untenable position with Jason Peters. The tight end-turned-Pro Bowl left tackle wanted a new contract, the team wasn't interested in renegotiating, and they wound up sending him to Philadelphia for a first-round pick a few weeks before the NFL Draft.

Armed with two first-rounders -- Nos. 11 and 28 -- it was only a question of when the Bills would draft Peters' replacement. The answer, it turns out, was never. With Michael Oher still on the board, Buffalo took Aaron Maybin and addressed another big need -- pass rusher.

The Eagles are a better team this morning. They've replaced aging Tra Thomas with one of the best, young left tackles in the game, Jason Peters. It cost them a handful of draft picks (including the 28th overall selection next week), but the club still has the 21st pick, and can use it to assuage Donovan McNabb's concerns by taking an impact offensive player. Possible candidates: running back Knowshon Moreno, tight end Brandon Pettigrew, or any of the remaining wideouts on the board.

Eagles head coach Andy Reid described Peters as "the best left tackle in football," which might be overstating it a bit, particularly after a rocky 2008 campaign. Still, Peters is in the top five, and he improves a team that, despite a tumultuous regular season, was a lousy quarter of football away from the Super Bowl.

Kyle Orton doesn't have Jay Cutler's franchise quarterback pedigree. He was taken in the fourth round of the 2005 draft, two years after the Bears had invested a first-round pick in Rex Grossman. And, from the beginning, his role was clear: a raw, strong-armed talent, who would spend the first few seasons on the bench learning the nuances of what it means to be an NFL quarterback.

That lasted up till the moment Grossman broke his ankle in a 2005 preseason game. At the time, head coach Lovie Smith told the AP that "I don't know exactly who there is out there but we like the guys we have right now ... Chad Hutchinson is a good player, we feel comfortable starting him, and Kyle Orton continues to shine as far as we're concerned."

I've mentioned before that I'm a Terrell Owens fan. Partly because of his drama-filled existence, but also -- perhaps primarily -- because I can enjoy the spectacle from afar since he doesn't play for my favorite team. I do appreciate that, at 35, he's still one of the NFL's best deep threats, and, despite all the negative pub, he's never been arrested, murdered a puppy, or made it rain while simultaneously shooting up a club. There's something to be said for that.

Still, T.O.'s persona would be perfectly suited for professional wrestling or Big Brother, but as an NFL player, there's just way too much scrutiny to successfully pull it off. Which is why the Cowboys, an outfit known for taking chances on at-risk players, cut ties with Owens earlier this month.

Not that you asked, but...

...Only the Lions could find themselves in this position -- owners of the No. 1 overall pick in a year when neither they nor anybody else really wants it. It's such a Lion position in which to be. The consensus is that there's no Orlando Pace in this draft -- no clear-cut, impact, franchise-changing No. 1. And the Lions need so much help that they'd love to trade down and get three or four useful players instead of one. But since nobody else seems to know who they'd take if they traded places with the Lions, nobody's lining up to do it.

Personally, having watched a lot of college football last year, I'm an Aaron Curry guy. For me, he's the guy Mike Ditka would be trading his whole draft and putting on a wedding dress for if Ditka were still in charge somewhere. He's the all-around game-changer type in this year's draft. But since he's not a quarterback or a mountainous offensive lineman -- not necessarily a guy who'd even be on the field on third down -- nobody feels like they want to spend the top pick on him. Fair enough, I guess. Seems to me he's athletic enough to do whatever they'd need, but they know better than I do.