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Browns. Heh.

Giving new meaning to their teams moniker, the Cleveland Browns found their locker room flooded with sewage after a water pipe broke. The flood came through a 160,000 gallon holding tank designed to keep all those fans on Sunday from overloading the city's water system. Okay, can I speak for everyone when I say "ewww!?" While the story is both funny and a bit disgusting all at the same time, there is actually a health angle here. You may remember that the team had a major problem last year with infections, going so far as to have the locker room at their practice facility glazed with a special antibacterial substance. It's unclear if that was done at Browns Stadium, but let's face it, having what the team president called a "waterfall of sewage" isn't going to help. The team expects the facility to be ready for their pre-season games, something that can't be said for Kellen Winslow or LeCharles Bentley, coming back from knee problems. *** One other quick note - at the start of training camp each year, a number of players will be placed on the PUP List (physically unable to perform.) This list has the same name as the in-season PUP List, but has one big difference - players are not required to miss any games and can be activated at any time. The preseason PUP list requires only that a player report to camp and then be immediately placed on the list. Once a player practices, he would need to be placed on the more well-known in-season PUP List, where a player would miss the first six games. Posted by Will Carroll at 7/26/2007 7:38:00 AM

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In My Opinion (Fantasy Football Edition)

With fantasy football drafts happening in the next several weeks, I wanted to give my opinion on players that I believe will overproduce their draft position. The key to having a successful fantasy team is finding value in the middle to late rounds. All of these players should provide fantasy owners with great value this season. Here are my opinions about this season’s breakout players. 1)DeAngelo Williams will be this year’s Frank Gore. What? Please let me finish before I am officially committed to a state mental institution. I’m not saying that Williams will rush for 1,600 yards and catch 60 passes, so don’t draft him with the fifth overall pick. What I am saying is that Williams is the guy who will break out of a running back by committee system to become a star by the end of the year. In studying Carolina, this is what I know. a)DeShaun Foster is not a future star in the making, and he will get hurt. Foster has enough of a sample size to say he is an average NFL running back. b)The new zone-blocking scheme is more conducive to Williams’ style, as this is what he ran behind when he was a star at Memphis. c)New offensive coordinator Jeff Davidson will be more unpredictable than his predecessor Dan Henning. Ask any Panther fan about how predictable Henning’s offense became. d)Carolina only had seven rushing touchdowns last season. It seems to reason that this will certainly improve under the heavy ground attack of Davidson. e)Williams had 814 total yards in just 13 games as a backup last season. A solid season considering the amount of time he played. Look at the star running backs in fantasy football. Many of them did not light it up as rookies. In fact, one was still in diapers (Larry Johnson) according to his former coach. While Williams does have some injury concern of his own, I see him as a great value. He is a player that could be the 25th running back off the board, but could produce top 10-12 numbers. Don’t be surprised if Williams has 1,500 total yards and six to eight total touchdowns. By next season, we could be describing Williams with the same words that have been used about Vince Young’s last eight games. 2)Santonio Holmes will produce numbers this year that are similar to Hines Ward in his prime. From studying the Steelers, these are my beliefs about why Holmes will overproduce his draft position. a)Holmes had a very solid rookie season with 824 yards and an excellent 9.69 yards per attempt last season. I see him taking that total to 1,150 yards with six to eight touchdowns. b)Ben Roethlisberger will be healthier at the start of the season. This will mean more quality targets for Holmes. c)Hines Ward is not the player that he used to be, but he will provide Holmes with a great mentor. Ward has been a warrior for years but finally showed a little sign of slowing down, especially with his hamstring trouble. Look for Holmes to be the No.1 receiver. d)With new offensive coordinator Bruce Arinas, I see the ball in the air more. The Steelers offensive line will be hurt by the retirement of center Jeff Hartings. Holmes will have to get tougher in the red-zone, but that usually comes with experience and he has a great teacher in Ward. Holmes will be around the 20th receiver taken in most drafts, but I see him overproducing that position. 3)Vince Young will lead quarterbacks in total (fantasy) touchdowns this season. I define fantasy touchdowns from the quarterback position as the number of touchdown passes + 2 times (number of rushing touchdowns), as in most leagues rushing touchdowns as worth double. I didn’t believe in Young at first, but I have flip-flopped after reading Michael Salfino’s quarterback column in the Rotowire magazine and listening to the maestro of the microphone, Rotowire’s own Chris Liss. I’m all in! Here is what I know about the Titans. a)Young will be better in his second-year under offensive coordinator Norm Chow. Chow’s resume speaks for itself and Young appears to be a guy who wants to get better. b)Young will make his receivers better. While Young doesn’t have great receivers, he didn’t have great ones in his first year and still averaged almost a touchdown per start. I see that moving to about 1.2 touchdowns per start. That puts him at about 18-19 touchdown passes. c)Young is the best running back on the Titans. It is not a stretch to say that Young is better than Chris Brown, LenDale White or Chris Henry. When Young gets in trouble, he will effectively run. Plus, Young will probably be the goal-line back for the Titans, and this can produce the six-to-eight rushing touchdowns needed to put his total in the 30-34 range. I’m not saying that Young will be a great passer this season, but if he gets to the average level, which under Chow is certainly possible, Young will be near the top in fantasy touchdowns. Again, Young should overproduce where he is picked in most drafts. Next week, I will look at players you should avoid on your fantasy rosters. Posted by Kyle Fisher at 7/25/2007 9:24:00 AM

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Big Uglies

As a fantasy football writer, people often ask me why I insist on updating them about injuries to defensive players and linemen. Say what you want about "skills positions and debate IDP's until you're blue in the face. I'm about results (preferably scoring and winning) and if you're ignoring the effects of line and defensive play, you're missing out. The big kinda-on-field news this week in the NFL happened here in my home of Indianapolis as Tarik Glenn took his ball and went home. Whether Glenn was simply sick of taking the beating or is protesting the $10 million per sack that Dwight Freeney just signed for remains to be seen. My pal Ron Jaworski taught me a lot last year, but one of them was that Peyton Manning may just make his line look better than they actually are. It's been through a lot of changes and there's the interesting phenomenon of every player that leaves the system looking terrible. If Manning can make Tony Ugoh look good, we'll have to reverse the normal thinking and wonder how a QB can affect a line. Last year's Seahawks were a team beset by injuries, but I continue to insist that the biggest injury was Walter Jones. Not just by gross tonnage, but by effect. Jones' injury coincides with the injury to Shaun Alexander (why did he hurt his foot? More cutting because Jones wasn't bulldozing) and the biggest question coming into this season is the affect of Matt Hasselbeck's surgery on his non-throwing shoulder (the results of not just one hit, but the buildup of ones he took while Jones played through an injury.) One other big injury to look at with big fantasy repercussion is Orlando Pace. Stephen Jackson is shooting up draft boards but despite his size, he doesn't play much like a power back. That means that he'll need Pace to be healthy as much as Marc Bulger will. I can't find any good comps for an elite lineman who's come back after tearing his triceps tendon. If Pace is weakened, he'll be susceptible to power rushes, something he'll see in the first three weeks of the season. Posted by Will Carroll at 7/24/2007 3:01:00 PM

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NFL Notes

The discrepancy between Antonio Gates and the second best fantasy tight end this year (an aging Tony Gonzalez catching passes from a rookie?) makes Chase Utley look close to the pack of other second basemen. LaDainian Tomlinson is not going to get another 30 TDs, so expect San Diego to score more air strikes this season. Gates is probably the best red zone target in the NFL, so I think he’s worthy of an early third round pick. Peyton Manning is the best player in the NFL, period. That said, I’d give Carson Palmer about a 50/50 chance of finishing the season as the most valuable fantasy quarterback. The Bengals have an even worse defense than the Colts, and Palmer approached Manning’s numbers last season while clearly still hampered by the knee injury. He’ll finally be back to full strength this year and can typically be drafted 2-3 rounds after Manning, so he makes more sense as a target. That said, the best strategy is to wait even longer on the QB position and go after Vince Young, Ben Roethlisberger or Jay Cutler later on. With word of Larry Johnson’s hold out threat becoming very real, Joseph Addai has officially passed him on my draft board. Don’t let LJ slip much further past that, however. If a trade does indeed go down between Kansas City and Green Bay, look for intriguing rookie Brandon Jackson to come back the other way, giving him legit fantasy value either way. The most interesting backfield entering training camp has to be in Dallas, where the Julius Jones hype machine is again in full effect. Falling just short of his 2,000-yard prediction last season (by half), Jones is again being talked about as “the guy” in the Cowboys’ backfield. Marion Barber disappeared during stretches last year – and was typically only worth using in fantasy leagues in games the Cowboys won – but I don’t buy the talk that Jones is the one to own this year because of Barber being Bill Parcells’ guy. When on the field, Barber has time and again outplayed Jones by a large degree. Jones has superior long-speed and, um, does nothing else better. Barber is a better blocker, pass catcher, short-yardage runner and is much, much tougher than Jones. When deciding between these two at fantasy drafts this season, just ask any linebacker whom they’d rather tackle. Don’t worry about projected playing time and trust the better player will be on the field more. Steve Smith is the clear-cut No. 1 fantasy wideout entering the year (his numbers last year when both he and Jake Delhomme were healthy were essentially identical to his huge 2005 season), but after him, options 2-15 are quite debatable and will likely look different on every person’s draft board. Because of that, the smart strategy appears to be to let others reach for the WRs in the middle of the second round while waiting and nabbing similar talents in the third and fourth rounds. Posted by Dalton Del Don at 7/24/2007 9:54:00 AM

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