|
Bye Weeks: Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Washington
Grab a Helmet
Reggie
Bush @ GB: The pool of consistent, completely bankable meal
tickets seems to dwindle with every passing season and this year’s
group may be the shallowest yet. We can count them on one hand,
actually, through four weeks: Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles,
LeSean McCoy, Matt Forte, and…Reggie makes five. It wasn’t hard
to see how Bush would fit into the already dynamic Detroit offense,
but he’s somehow surpassed even the most optimistic preseason
expectations thus far. Despite missing one game and close to half
of another, he ranks sixth overall for points at the position
and his two 60-minute efforts have been nothing short of sensational
(25.1 points in Week 1 and 23.3 in Week 4). This week, Bush draws
a middling Packer defense in a game that will almost certainly
feature points aplenty. I know I’m preaching to the choir here,
but even the choir can stand to be occasionally reminded: Reggie
is the truth in 2013.
Cowboys will need a succesful ground game
to beat the Broncos.
DeMarco
Murray v. DEN: Murray belongs to that next tier of running backs
containing guys you’ll certainly start every week but who can’t
necessarily be trusted to produce big numbers. He sandwiched one
of the season’s better efforts – a scintillating 26.5-point outing
against the Rams in Week 3 – between two fairly lackluster ones
(7.4 and 9.0 in Weeks 2 and 4, respectively). Frustrating, yes,
but you’ve gotta roll with him because…well, I just told you there
aren’t enough top-notch guys to go around. On the bright side, Murray
could deliver big in Week 5 since A) Dallas would be wise to keep
the ball away from Denver’s insanely prolific offense, and B) the
Broncos haven’t been terribly successful against opposing ball carriers
(yielding 21.3 points/game) despite their wild early success as
a team. Plug Murray in per the usual and hope the Cowboys can keep
it interesting longer than Denver’s other opponents have.
Danny
Woodhead @ OAK: Need more proof the running back position has
become a week-to-week crapshoot? Behold Exhibit A. If you factor
out his Week 1 numbers (still rounding into form after missing most
of the preseason), Woody’s averaging a robust 11.9 points per game.
That’s a better mark than all of the following RB1s/RB2s: Alfred
Morris, Doug Martin, Trent Richardson, Chris Johnson, and…Ryan Mathews.
That’s my not-so-subtle reminder to all you Mathews owners, by the
way, that you may be employing only the second-best Chargers running
back this year. I doubt Woodhead is going to give us two scores
very often and he likely won’t do it again this season. Nevertheless,
his touches/targets are fairly consistent and he averages over 6
yards a pop. That’s pretty groovy for a guy who doesn’t even officially
start. Give Diminutive Dan some run against the Raiders in Sunday
night’s late, late show.
Grab a Gatorade
C.J.
Spiller or Fred
Jackson @ CLE: The relentless, merciless rains have
come early to the Pacific NW this year, but they can’t dampen
my spirits any further than Spiller already has through the season’s
first four weeks. When you spend a quarter of your auction budget
on a single player, it’s not unreasonable to expect solid returns
on that investment. Save for a 100-yard effort in Week 2, however,
the returns have been anything but solid. Making matters worse,
Spiller’s been constantly banged up and may not be ready to go
by game time in Cleveland. It’s probably just as well since the
Browns sport, surprisingly, one of the league’s stingiest run-stopping
units (a league-best 2.9 yards yielded per attempt). Regardless
who plays and for how long, you’ll probably want to sit both Bills
backs down on Thursday night.
Chris
Johnson v. KC: Johnson provided the following “public service
announcement” to his Twitter followers this week: “I can care
less about fantasy football. Key word fantasy. As long as we win
I’m happy. I rush for 200 n lose y’all happy. U r the head coach
n the owner of ur fantasy team so u should be mad at urself. I
didn’t ask any of u to draft me so if I’m so sorry y start me.”
I can’t be too sure, but I think that may be the first case in
history of a player going direct to the fans with his own start/sit
recommendation. Let’s hope it doesn’t catch on or I’ll be out
of a job.
DeAngelo
Williams @ ARZ: Only LeSean McCoy and Adrian Peterson are
averaging more yards per game than DeAngelo Williams (97.0), a
pretty surprising fact when you consider how pointless the pint-sized
Panther had become the last couple seasons. And though there’s
no reason to suspect he won’t continue producing at a pretty
good clip the rest of the way, there are definitely reasons to
be concerned this weekend. For starters, even when he’s
the only running back on the field, he’s not Carolina’s
most explosive running option (Cam Newton is). Second, he hasn’t
scored through three games and often bleeds goal-line touches
to Mike Tolbert. Finally, he’s facing a Cardinals team that
just stoned one of the league’s best, Doug Martin (27 carries
for 45 yards), and is giving up only 75 yards per game on the
ground. You can do worse most weeks, but you can do much better
this week. Find someone else.
Wide Receivers 
|
