FanHouse Chad Ochocinco

During the course of every fantasy football season, we're constantly reminded just how erratic fantasy football can be -- especially when it comes to wide receivers. Thus, when someone like Vincent Jackson is in your lineup, you likely feel pretty good about his chances to keep playing well, especially if you knew Philip Rivers would throw for 231 yards and two touchdowns.

Yet, when you went and checked your fantasy score, you saw a whopping one point next to Jackson's name. Obviously, this brought about a "What the ... ?" You can fill in the blank as clean or vulgar as you want. The point here is that these five wideouts put up seemingly inexplicable stat lines Sunday.

Chad Ochocinco is always looking for the spotlight, but say this for the Bengals wideout: he's more original than anyone else when he's trying to hog the spotlight. And some of his attention getters are pretty nice.

Over at his Twitter account on Friday, Ochocinco tweeted: "Hotel manager name is Jesse, first person to say my name Ocho Cinco to Jesse at the Marriot we about to act a donkey in the mall."

For anyone who drops by the chats, you know I'm a huge fan of Mike Sims-Walker. I suggest him as a start repeatedly nearly every week. Finally, those MSW haters out there can rejoice, because for one week, I'm cooling my jets with him.

He's up against the New York Jets, and who do you think Darrell Revis will be shadowing? The eminently stoppable Torry Holt or our guy MSW? Yeah, I thought so.

He's likely too good to bench for most of you, but if you're debating between MSW and another top-20 option for that last starting spot, I'd go with the
other guy.

---

---

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco has found yet another way to draw attention to himself on Twitter, this time asking the president of the UFC to give him a fight in the Octagon.

In a series of tweets, Ochocinco has said he wants to try an MMA fight against some of the sport's elite athletes, with the proceeds going to charity.

Love him or hate him, Chad Ochocinco is one of those guys you simply can't ignore. Whether he's tweeting all night, staging a ridiculous end zone celebration or arguing with Skip Bayless, he's always doing something to distance himself from the crowd. The latest in a long line of attention-grabbers? He tried to bribe an official with a dollar. Yep, a one-dollar bill.

The attempted -- and fake, by the way, because he was smiling the whole time -- bribery occurred during the Bengals' pivotal victory over division-foe Baltimore. It didn't work -- and, again, he wasn't really trying to bribe the official -- as the play in question went against the Bengals after review. Hopefully Ocho kept his dollar and will be tucking it elsewhere in celebratory fashion.

---

---

It's looking like Anquan Boldin will miss this week's game, so he doesn't appear in our rankings (*until now). Everyone else, including Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, Reggie Wayne and any other injured receiver, has been ranked as if they'll play on Sunday.

Unsure whether you'll actually have your top wideout available to you for Week 9? Join us Sunday morning for our Tailgate chat, where we dole out lineup advice and keep you apprised of all the notable gameday inactives.

And if you're curious, no, Mike Sims-Walker didn't get hurt last week. The Titans finally manned up and played a little pass defense. Is this cause for concern with MSW, or just a blip on the radar? More after the jump.

---

---

Each week in the NFL, there are players that impress and players that distress. One week a certain quarterback might toss four touchdowns and run around pointing skyward, while the next he's laying on his back, holding his facemask as the other team returns one of his three interceptions for the game-winning score. With that in mind, here's Studs and Duds.

Studs

Carson Palmer, QB Cincinnati (20-24, 233 yards, 5 TDs) -- There was an interesting moment during "Hard Knocks" on HBO this year when Palmer was giving his center, Kyle Cook, a little bit of grief about the smell that Carson had on his hand after taking snaps. It was essentially boys being boys, but Palmer played it well and had some fun at the expense of Cook.

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.

---

---

Bengals 45, Bears 10. It was 45-3 before the Bears finally got into the end zone, but the game had long been over at that point. It was one of those games that makes you wonder -- were the Bengals that good or the Bears that bad? As is usually the case when you ask that question, it was a combination of both. You have to give the Bengals credit, especially Carson Palmer for his precision passing. Well, really, the entire team deserves loads of credit.

Still, this game was more about how pathetic the Bears played. For a team with Super Bowl aspirations, that was a simply despicable attempt at playing football on nearly every front. More games like that, and the playoffs won't even be a possibility come late November.

---

---

With attention spans dwindling, we forgo 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.

The Early Games

New England (4-2) at Tampa Bay (0-6): Tom Brady threw for six touchdown passes last week, five in one quarter alone. And to be honest, it gets easier for him this week in London against the Bucs. Expect fireworks from the Patriots offense, as Brady is beginning to click with Randy Moss, and he's extremely happy that Wes Welker is back in action.

On defense, the Buccaneers don't have the speed or skill at the cornerback position to defend against Brady and the Patriots' aerial attack. On offense, the Bucs are young and inexperienced -- especially at the quarterback position where Josh Johnson is already looking in the rear-view mirror at competition from Josh Freeman.

Pick: New England