Darren McFadden is out for the RAHDERS today.
Other notes -
Coles is in for the Jets – no word on Cotchery.
Edited to add – Cotchery will play. If it wasn’t for the atrocious run D, the Jets pass offense would go off.
Archive for category Darren McFadden
MCFADDEN OUT
Oct 26
I may start putting rankings for RBs out Friday night – I mean seriously. How can you keep up?
According to ESPN and John Clayton, McFadden is only at 70% of full ability right now. If that’s the case, he’ll definitely see split carries and that thought I had during the News Stampede – about Michael Bush being the last man standing? Could be closer to happening that we thought.
McFadden looked good for a couple of games but we all know how a toe injury can linger all season. Rest is what is needed and even if he plays, they won’t overdo it. So look elsewhere for a more stable start – and if you are desperate? Check out M. Bush.
Afternoon News Blips
Sep 9
Some quick takes on some new stories…
Steelers
Ben Roethlisberger injured his shoulder on Sunday on a Mario Williams sack, though he stayed in the game and only had one incompletion out of 14 passes attempted. Given his overall stats, 137 yards and 2 TDs and the fact he didn’t have to throw much,you have to wonder if it would have affected him more if he had needed to toss the rock more. Expect him to play Sunday, expect him to put decent stats against a Browns team that got torched by Dallas and who was manhandled by the Dallas Oline. I think Big Ben and Fast Willie will be good plays this weekend.
Titans
The after affect of Vince Young’s injury is that Kerry Collins is in and the Titans are bringing in other guys as backup. Joey Harrington and Quinn Gray are both coming in today. Gray is intriguing in the event of Kerry Collins melting down but neither guy is worth rostering at this point.
Raiders
I reported earlier that Darren McFadden left the 4th quarter early with an undisclosed shoulder injury. According to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, McFadden had a shoulder stinger. He’ll be looked at again today but it shouldn’t affect his play on Sunday.
What will? That awful offensive play calling. That might do it.
Buccaneers
One thing overlooked in the Brady-Vince Young-Oakland Meltdown-Aaron Rodgers-Favre news blasts was the pretty nice game Ernes Graham had in the Bucs loss to the Saints on Sunday. 91 yards on the ground plus 1 catches for another 27. Not bad for a guy Fantasy owners only had on their lists as a #3 back in many cases. What could be better? Let’s ask HC Gruden (or ask the St. Petersburg Times to ask him):
“We have to give it to him more,” he said, adding that Graham ran “extremely well.”
Warrick Dunn had 9 carries overall, many in the second half so an increase in work for Graham could mean anything from garbage touches to burning the clock out. Whatever it means, if Gruden does follow through, Graham could start to becoem a nice little value going forward.
That’s all for now – I’ll be back with more news, notes and strategy later.
Tuesday Morning Stampede
Sep 9
Morning folks. Hope this Tuesday finds you with more W’s than L’s – was a wacky first weekend and the best advice I can give you is not to panic or overreact. Of course, you need to make moves, but make sure they are the right ones and try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater on many of the players who struggled. Of course, conversely, some players may have peaked in week 1 as well. Today and tomorrow, in preparation of waivers, I will try to help you sort out who is who.
With the Daily News show, these morning news posts will probably morph into something more in the way of analysis and strategy so I am not just repeating myself and you’ll get full value. There will still be plenty of news-centric posts throughout the days – especially on days were the injury reports come out. But you need more analysis going forward and that’s what I’ll be doing.
In direct contrast to what I have just written, here’s the morning news stampede -
Darren McFadden
McFadden left last night’s disaster against the Broncos in the 4th quarter with an apparent shoulder injury. His constitution was a concern for some analysts but what should be more of a concern was the majority of the carries going to Justin Fargas. Fargas had a solid day, no doubt (18 carries for 97 yards), but McFadden was supposed to provide a huge offensive spark and he averaged around 5 ypc. What was going on? Along with the terrible play by the rest of the offense, that’s a huge concern for me.
Well that and Mike Ditka sounding hammered in the booth. TE Zach Miller also played well, both blocking and catching the ball. A lot of his touches came in garbage time, but that’s about when the offense started clicking. Very worried about the Raiders offense though not surprised that it remains a mess.
Aaron Rodgers
Aside from Tony Kornheiser’s inability to talk about anything but how Rodgers looked like ’someone the Green Bay Fans should know’, this game should ease concerns about Rodgers taking over for Favre. While not a huge game by any means (18-22, 178 yds and a TD) Rodgers played with poise behind an offensive line that was shaky at best and with run game that never really got going (Ryan Grant’s 57 yard TD notwithstanding). He also ran for 35 yards and a game clinching TD. He did what he needed to and made plays when he needed to. As far as what he holds for your Fantasy team, he remains a solid part of a QBBC. He probably won’t kill you but he won’t put up too many 300 yd, 3 TD games either. At least not until that Oline gets fixed. That group nearly got him killed and had way too many penalties. I wasn’t happy with Ryan Grant’s performance for most of the game. Half his yards came on one – admitedly spectacular – run. He didn’t look good for most of the game and if you played him, you dodged a bullet. I want to hear about that oline getting healthy and Grant getting full carries before I start doing cartwheels about a weak 92 yard performance which lacked a TD.
Tarvaris Jackson
Why pay Bernard Berrian big money if you aren’t going to throw deep? Berrian might have had a huge day but got tripped up on with nobody in front of him and couldn’t get both feet in bounds on a catch in the end zone. But Tarvaris Jackson continues to look like he can’t get an accurate ball thrown beyond 10 yards. When you have the run game they do and the oline is giving you time (which it mostly was) there is almost no excuse. I am not calling Jackson a bust – this is just another example of a guy who missed too much preseason and looked out of synch. Here’s hoping he gets a little better next week. One to watch, by the way – and this is notthe first time you have read this – Sidney Rice looked good gathering 5 targets which resulted in 2 catches for 31 yards and a TD. Again, I think you will see Berrian start to get his (if Jackson can get it straight) but Rice will put up decent numbers and may be the better value play for a great deal of the year.
Denver RBBC
Finally, you can once again see why Fantasy owners hate Mike Shannahan. I know he doesn’t care, but what the hell is going on in that backfield? Pittman 2 TDs? Andre Hall got the majority of the carries? And Selvin Young just flat dissappeared for almost half a game? No clearer today than yesterday than preseason. It’s goign to be tough top start anyone with confidence in the backfield anytime soon.
So basically, same old, same old.
Ok – News Blurb at noon EST/9am PST – we’ll see you then and back here for some analysis of the studs and duds of Week 1.
Thursday Morning Stampede
Aug 14
You can tell we’re getting to the end of camp and towards proper football when the news deluge becomes a trickle as it has the last few days.
Answers we are still waiting on:
- Will Steven Jackson report? Owners in many drafts are banking on him not holding out but with conflicting reports about whether the sides are even talking, it makes me nervous. The longer this goes on without significant movement, the riskier a top 5 (maybe even 10) pick becomes.
- Will Jason Peters report? I will say it again – an offensive tackle is just as integral to a good running game as anyone else involved. Peters is the best o-lineman in Buffalo and it’s bad enough he was holding out, but now the team is racked by injury. The value of Marshawn Lynch and that whole offense could hinge on Peters coming back to the fold but like Jackson, no real progress has been made.
- How bad is the 49r QB situation? It looks pretty grim and what does that mean for Gore? Keep in mind that Gore has put up good numbers in awful offenses before. How much will Martz control the overall offense vs HC Mike Nolan? Does it matter who wins the job with that group?
- Can Tarvaris Jackson progress? It probably won’t matter to Peterson that much, but should to the rest of the team. The Vikes are very close to Super Bowl status. If Jackson can take a significant leap forward, utilize Berrian and Rice to their potential and give Peterson even more room than the O-line does on a play-by-play basis – I would tap them as heading to Tampa Bay.
- Will McFadden live up to the hype? People are still kicking themselves for undervaluing Peterson last year and so McFadden has occasionally gone way too early in drafts this year. Peterson was/is a freak and was in a much better situation O-line-wise than McFadden is. we;ve seen soem good play but what does it mean so early? It’d be nice to have been blown away but I am not yet. I still want to know what he can do, an answer I will only get during the season.
- What effect will Favre have on the Jets? Here’s an answer we’ll get a glimpse at this weekend when he makes his preseason debut, but from a fantasy perspective there are some questions that will take a few regular season games to answer. Will he open up the offense give Thomas Jones room to run? Will Cotchery and Coles see their numbers go up? Will he be Favre from 2007 or 20006? A lot of owners – myself included – are betting heavy that he has increased the value of this team.
- Who is catching balls in Seattle/Jacksonville/Carolina? You could throw in a few other teams but these three will have more value than most of the others you could name. Steve Smith is suspended for two games – will it affect his season overall? Can DJ Hackett stay healthy or is it already too late? Who will fill in as the #2 across from Burleson in the injury decimated Seattle WR corp? Or Jacksonville? As we find these things out, some Hail Mary picks at the end of drafts could have huge value.
I’ll be back later with any news that shows up plus a few things that we definitely know coming to the end of Training Camp.
Tuesday Stampede
Aug 12
I will be posting my top 20 College Football rankings this afternoon either all at once or in halves – depends on how long the list is with commentary.
Onto the NFL -
Arizona Cardinals
Cards coach Ken Whisenhunt says that Matt Leinart has improved his audibling and red zone work and will not be coming out of games at that spot on the field. While I still think Leinart is a shaky choice for a Fantasy QB until he shows me he can be consistent, it’s good to hear he won’t get ‘middle relievered’ during an important Fantasy sequence on the field and it does lessen my concerns a bit.
Oakland Raiders
From ‘The Sky is Falling’ column – rookie RB Darren McFadden fumbled 3 times in Monday’s practice. While I don’t think think the sky really IS falling (first fumbles of the preseason) you will now recall that one of the issues some people (including me) had with him pre-draft was his 15 fumbles his last year at Arkansas. This was a concern and will continue to be until he proves otherwise, but as these are his first fumbles in camp, I won’t worry much, he shouldn’t be going so early in drafts that a fumble problem will leave you hanging too badly.
Cincinatti Bengals
Rookie Keith Rivers seems undaunted by missing a teeny bit of camp – he led the Bengals with 7 unassisted tackles Monday night and didn’t even start. He will probably be an intriguing late round/waiver pickup in IDP leagues, asssuming people chalked him up to ‘rookie’ and he went undrafted in the first place. He certainly seems to have stepped right up for the Bengals which they really needed to have happen. Tight End Ben Utecht seems to really be getting those promised looks in the offensive scheme. He had a good Monday night and the staff is putting ’special plays’ together for him. I might be starting to believe it…..
San Diego Chargers
Antonio Gates is running but also in a lot of pain, and apparently very frustrated with his lack of progress. He says he will not play early if it damages the season long term, which is good for your overall season, but bad if you want to draft him. If you get Gates, you may be in the position of being forced to take a back-up TE early to cover for him if he’s out a few weeks. If you go early on a tight end, my advice is to think of Jason Witten or even Tony Gonzalez. Better yet, get one of the later tier guys and keep an eye on the waiver for value. Amongst the TEs I like later are Jeremy Shockey, Vernon Davis on the earlier side, Owen Daniels, LJ Smith, Ben Utecht on the later side.
Baltimore Ravens
More great news for McGahee owners – the knee he just had scoped? It’s the one he has had multiple surgeries on, the one he wrecked in the Fiesta Bowl 5 years ago. He showed up to camp out of shape so rehab is an iffy proposition. Ray Rice continues up the boards as McGahee drops.
That’s all for now – questions and comments can go to thunderingblurb@gmail.com as well as the comment section below.
College rankings coming later this afternoon (my afternoon, not the East Coast’s).
