Friday Nuggets

Just some more nuggets of wisdom for your fantasy consideration, after a Thursday night game that saw the Falcons nip the Ravens...

• Don't sleep on the viability of Shaun Hill for the rest of the season. I realize that scoring systems can vary, but in one of my leagues, Hill averaged just over 23 PPG in the 4 games that he started and finished this season. Matthew Stafford, when he got a chance to play, averaged almost exactly the same. In the game that Hill missed the 2nd half (against the Giants), Drew Stanton--yes, Drew Stanton--came in and got 20 fantasy points. The Lions' QB position is averaging about 22 PPG this year. They throw the ball an average of 42 times a game. They have Calvin Johnson. It's just a system that's working, and I see no reason that Hill isn't a low-end QB1 for the rest of the year in 12-team leagues. I'd much rather own him than, say, Donovan McNabb.
  

• Sell high on LT and buy low on Shonn Greene if you can. Remember how Greene was a top-10 pick in many drafts and LT was an afterthought? Well, clearly Greene doesn't have that high of a ceiling, but Greene obviously has talent. He's outproduced LT in 3 straight games in terms of YPC. LT is 32. He's slowed down considerably after such a fast start. And Rex Ryan has come out and said that they want a "50/50" carry distribution going forward. On a team that is going to run the ball so much, and considering that LT will still catch the RB passes, he still has value, don't get me wrong. But he's trending in the wrong direction and Greene's arrow is pointing up. Instead of the 10 touches or so that Greene has been getting lately, perhaps now it's more like 15, and that has RB2 value in the right matchups and certainly it has flex value each week.
  

• Week 10 should be a good time to get the Blair White Project back in lineups, as the Colts face the Bengals. Austin Collie will be out, and White becomes the slot receiver this week. Of course, the Colts very often go 3-wide, so White will be out there most of the time. The Bengals have struggled to cover 2nd and 3rd WR's all year. Peyton Manning, as I've said in this blog before, exploits mismatches and doesn't just force-feed one guy targets because he needs the ball. I again expect Jacob Tamme to excel, but White should have a good shot at posting WR3 numbers this week.
  

• I've heard some say that this will be a bounce-back week for Chad Ochocinco, because he pouted last week and they will try to get him the ball to appease him this week. Look, that could happen, but I don't feel good about Ocho at all. He's just not playing well. Something bad seems to happen whenever they try to throw him the rock. He'll drop a pass, or Palmer will overthrow him, or he'll take a huge hit and the pass will fall incomplete. I just don't think he and Palmer are on the same page, for whatever reason, and with Owens playing as incredible as he is, I don't think Palmer will feel compelled to target Ocho a ton more. And even if he did get some more targets, who's to say what Ocho would do with them? Remember, Palmer isn't exactly guaranteed to be the Bengals' starting QB next year, so he is going to throw the ball to the guy he thinks will make him look the best. Right now, that's T.O., and it's not even close.
  

• You're starting all your Jaguars and Texans this week on offense. Schaub, Garrard, Foster, Jones-Drew, Andre Johnson, Sims-Walker, Mike Thomas, Marcedes Lewis, Joel Dreesen (yep), Scobee, and Rackers. Neither of these teams could stop a competent high school pass offense.
  

• I expect Vince Young to start this Sunday and based on the addition of Randy Moss and the fact that the Titans' schedule looks incredibly favorable for passing for the next month, some might say that Young warrants QB1 consideration going forward. He's also playing well in real life, with a QB rating of over 100. But look, I just don't see it. While it's true that Young could post some good games, the facts are that he also is prone to many single-digit fantasy efforts. Why? Well, because Jeff Fisher is the coach, that's why. In games where the Titans have a decent lead, Fisher plays ball control football and pounds away with Chris Johnson. This is not a team that will throw that much if they don't have to. So yes, it's nice that they have Randy Moss now and a good schedule, but don't get carried away with Vinsanity. Pick him up as a high-upside backup if your current backup is weak, but I can't recommend more than that.

• I don't see Chad Pennington's insertion into the starting lineup as a bad thing for Brandon Marshall. It's not like Henne Pasta was getting him the rock that well, and it's also not like Marshall had a high yards-per-catch average with Henne. If nothing else, Pennington is accurate, and might be more effective with the short and intermediate throws to the Marshall Plan. And Marshall is dangerous if he can catch a pass in stride and use that physical style to gain yards after the catch. So Marshall owners, don't fret.
  

• Have you really watched Jimmy Clausen play quarterback this year? If you haven't, I'm here to tell you that it's a downright ugly visual. I mean, Clausen Pickles really is not ready for the big show. As a result, since Clausen is going to be the starter Sunday (and if he happened to get yanked like he did in Week 9 after coming on for the now-on-IR Matt Moore, Tony Pike waits in the wings)...you can't play any of your Panthers on offense, if you happened to have the unluckiness of owning any. I can't even recommend Steve Smith as a WR3 in 12-team leagues this week. The only player I can even come close to saying is flex-worthy is Mike Goodson, just because they literally have nobody else that can play, and since it's likely Carolina is going to get blown out, Goodson has the chance to rack up some yardage on dump-off passes since he is also the passing-down back. ESPN, Yahoo, and Rotoworld's rankings all have Goodson ranked about 30th among RB's this week, and that's about how I see it as well, since he realistically should get at least 15 touches against what is a bad Tampa rush defense.
  

• Oh, and the above means that the Tampa Bay defense is a wonderful spot-play this week. Seriously, it's very difficult to imagine Carolina scoring more than 10 points this week, barring a defensive TD or a punt or kick return TD. If you're the type that's been rotating defenses all year, and you don't like your matchup this week, see if the Bucs are available.

• Josh McDaniels came out this week and said that they need to get Knowshon Moreno more involved going forward. That's nice and all, Josh, but I'm not exactly rushing out to trade for Moreno. The strength of this team is in its passing. The defense they have is awful, which means you just don't get as many rush attempts as you'd like, even if you were a good running team. And one other thing: Tim Tebow is the goal-line "back" on this team. Knowshon just isn't going to get easy 1 and 2-yard TD's. That's Tebow's role now, and you can't really argue with that, considering how good he is at it. Knowshon has a lot of talent, but he's at best a lower-end RB2 going forward.

• If Seattle's offense looks competent this week, after having looked so pathetic in the last couple of games, we'll know why...Russell Okung. If Okung can suit up, that is. When Okung was out early in the season, the Seahawk offense looked terrible. Okung came back, and all of a sudden it was a decent-enough unit. He got injured again, and it was right back to being bad. If he can play this week, and they do OK, that will be too much evidence to ignore. You probably aren't playing Hasselbeck in any fantasy leagues--I hope--but Mike Williams and especially Marshawn Lynch owners, watch this one closely. If Okung is in there and Lynch and/or Williams post decent stat-lines, I would say that it gives you a blueprint going forward as to when to use these 2.
  

• You should already know that you're starting all your Giants against Dallas this week, which includes the NY defense and any IDP's if you have those. But news came out Thursday that Steve Smith is probably out 1-2 weeks. If you're a Smith owner, and have the room to make an add, immediately add Mario Manningham. Manningham will be a WR2 this week. Trust me on this one. I'm bullish on him this week because not only is the matchup great, of course, but Manningham was a starter last year and has even had some good games this year. Eli and he have a decent-enough rapport and familiarity with each other that it shouldn't be a tough transition for him to go back to starting this week and pick up Smith's targets. And Manningham has big-play ability.

• As for Dallas, I'm going to advise for one more week of patience, Miles Austin owners. The guy has had some bad games lately, there's no doubt. But it's not like Austin has forgotten how to play WR. It's just been a tough period lately for the whole team. But let's break it down. Austin has had 4 bad games this year. The first came in Week 3, after big weeks in the first two weeks, so one bad week would've been nothing to be alarmed about. He had a bad stat line against the Vikings, but was jobbed out of a 76-yard TD in that one so he should have had a big game there. His next bad game was the game Romo was knocked out of, so clearly that's completely understandable. And after a 117-yard Week 8, he bombed last week in the blowout loss, a game that the team quit from virtually the second series on, but even so, Kitna missed a wide-open Austin on what would've been a long TD on one of his few targets. With a coaching change to Jason Garrett, I just believe that the team is going to make more of an effort to get Austin the ball going forward. It was insane that Austin wasn't getting targets at all last week in a blowout. So I have a hunch that Austin will rebound this week, even in a game where the Giants figure to dominate. If Austin posts another clunker this week, then it's officially time to sell low and just get what you can.

• If your starting QB is on a bye this week or if you are in a two-QB league, I'd try to steer clear of Sam Bradford this week. Bradford is playing very well overall this year for a rookie, but he's been much better at home this year than he has on the road. That said, if you're in a two-QB league and with the byes, it's possible you may not have a better option in the #2 role. But if Hill were available, I'd definitely try to get him.