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Week 9 Takeaways: Is Freeman really a surprise?
Fantasy Football
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Buccaneers 38, Packers 28
• Was I surprised Josh Freeman threw three touchdown passes today? Sure. Was I shocked? Only at how long the Bucs waited to put him into the lineup. When I watched him in preseason, he led the offense better than any other quarterback they had on the roster, and then boom ... he's buried on the depth chart to open the season. The Bucs struggled to run the ball today, and since the season has been shot for some time now, they may as well open up the playbook and see what Freeman can do. He may not be a bad pickup in some leagues, to be honest.
• Ryan Grant had 96 yards and a score, and he seems to do really well against lousy run defenses. I'd try to sell him high now if you get a chance since there are only two more cupcake run D's (Detroit and Seattle) remaining on the schedule.
• Greg Jennings continues to flounder his way through this season, and I can't understand it for the life of me. He had five grabs for 61 yards and no scores, which isn't dreadful, but you'd certainly expect much better against a defense as bad as Tampa Bay's.
Patriots 27, Dolphins 17
• Randy Moss had a massive 147-yard, one-TD fantasy day. Two of those catches accounted for a sizable portion of the yardage, but so what? Moss seems to be kind of boom or bust nowadays, and the potential to have afternoons like this is why he's always a must-start player. For the rest of this year, anyway.
• Laurence Maroney had 20 carries for 82 yards and a score. Two of New England's next three games come against poor run defenses, but I'm telling you, be careful about picking him up. He's just as likely to have a two-carry, 11-yard box score the following week. He's more of a fill-in as opposed to a guy you want to go to war with every week.
• After rushing for just 27 yards last week, Ronnie Brown had 15 carries for 48 yards and no score in this game. His highlight came on a one-yard touchdown pass, which pretty much saved his fantasy day from being an altogether sorry one. Did you know he's only topped 100 rushing yards twice this year?
Jaguars 24, Chiefs 21
• Let me guess — you're ready to rush out and claim Chris Chambers, aren't you? I wouldn't do that just yet. He scored two touchdowns despite catching just three passes all day long. This might hurt Dwayne Bowe owners a bit since he seemed to be Matt Cassel's first look in the red zone and would always manage to get a cheap late garbage score here or there.
• Speaking of Cassel, he seems to be delivering more games with both big yards (269) and a couple of scores. It had been one or there other with him a few times this year. He looks like he's getting more comfortable in the offense, but I wouldn't proclaim him to be a must-play everywhere just yet.
• Thinking about Mike Sims-Walker gives me a headache. Two catches for nine yards last week, then he turns around and hauls in six passes for 147 yards and a score today? In all fairness, his Week 8 performance was his worst by a mile in his last six games. He's someone who should be owned and started in all leagues, but he's going to have a few more of those puzzling disappearances.
Colts 20, Texans 17
• I can't tell you how much I envy those of you who own Peyton Manning. Seriously. I don't have him in any of my leagues this year, and he's basically become the equivalent of a 300-plus yard direct deposit into your fantasy account every week. He's on pace to match what Drew Brees did last year, and I think he can.
• How many guys like Ryan Moats have we seen this year? You know the type — he blows up one week, and just as everyone stampedes to the waiver wire to claim him, he leaves you disappointed. Ten? Twenty? More? Moats didn't do a heck of a lot in place of Steve Slaton as the starter (16 carries for 38 yards against what is hardly a dominant run defense), and he even fumbled the ball right at the Colts goal-line in the last few minutes of the first half, which proved to be very costly. Slaton even rushed for a touchdown. Might this be the shortest feature back promotion we've seen in some time?
• Even though Matt Schaub topped 300 passing yards again today, I think he's really going to miss Owen Daniels' playmaking ability, and it even took the offense more than a quarter to get used to his absence since Schaub was harassed over and over again to start the game, but found himself without any kind of outlet to dump the ball. Joel Dreessen didn't exactly fill Daniels' shoes all that well — two catches for 15 yards. Blah.
Bengals 17, Ravens 7
• Cedric Benson for fantasy MVP? Comeback player of the year? Surely some kind of major award is in the works here. He racked up 117 yards and a score against a Ravens defense which doesn't typically hand out 100-yard games to running backs as if they are Halloween candy. I guess we just add this to the growing list of incredible days he's had this year.
• Carson Palmer was efficient, but not explosive today. He didn't really have to be with the running game in the groove that it was.
• Ray Rice only had 48 yards on the ground, but he did rush for a score and also led the Ravens in receiving yardage (87). This was his first mildly disappointing performance in a while, but I think Baltimore will call on him more since Joe Flacco's crash back to earth has been so forceful that it could create its own fault line.
Cardinals 41 Bears 21
• Maybe the Cardinals should just petition the league and try to play all their games on the road. That hasn't been their specialty in years past, but Kurt Warner shredded the Bears secondary to the tune of five touchdown passes and 261 yards. Warner can do that to for your squad every once in a while if you own him.
• Tim Hightower and Beanie Wells split the workload today and rushed for 77 and 72 yards, respectively. When Arizona has the ground game working like that, it typically translates into massive fantasy production for Warner and company.
• All three of Jay Cutler's touchdown passes went to Greg Olsen. Don't bother picking him up, though. He's another guy you can classify in the same category we used to describe Moats above. We need to think of an official name for these guys. How about "strippers" since they basically live to tease?
Falcons 31, Redskins 17
• Michael Turner has really gotten his game going in the last couple weeks. He ran all over the Redskins today with 166 yards and two scores on 18 carries, which works out to a hell of a per-carry average. This is why you took him in the top three or four of your draft, and anyone who says you shouldn't have is clearly out of their minds.
• Finally ... some life for Ladell Betts. It took an early injury to Clinton Portis to make it happen, but Betts finished with 15 carries for 70 yards and a score. Not bad at all, right? Remember what he did a few years ago when he was Washington's featured back? He may not be a bad pickup, but I'm terrified of his stripper potential since his overall numbers this season have been horrific.
• Hey, do you know Shaun Suisham is a perfect 10-for-10 on field goal attempts this season? I wonder how well he'd do if he played for a highly potent offense. Maybe he will whenever his current contract with the Skins expires.
Seahawks 32, Lions 20
• Kevin Smith owners may as well cut bait right now. Yes, he's the featured back in an offense which has been putting up points, but Smith has been battling injuries all season long and just hasn't looked like the same running back he was a year ago. Yeah, the bitterness in the last few sentences probably led you to guess I grabbed him in the fourth round of my big money league this year. Ugh.
• The good news for Matt Stafford: 203 yards, two touchdowns. The bad news: five interceptions. Yikes. He's going to be really, really good at some point in his career, but he's still working his way up the slope of his learning curve.
• The 329 passing yards by Matt Hasselbeck were nice, but he should have had more than one touchdown pass, which was partially negated in certain scoring formats by the interception he threw. He may need to throw more often since the Seahawks had major problems getting their ground game going against the Lions, which basically means they would have trouble running the ball on a pack of Cub Scouts.
Saints 30, Panthers 20
• So, is this the pattern the Saints are going to follow? They struggled at times in the first half for their last two games, but then ended up blowing out the opposition in the second. How can you possibly beat this team? If you race out to a big lead, like Carolina did today, all that does is force them to go to their strength and throw the ball to catch up.
• Most Saints wideouts didn't catch many passes, but did turn them into long gains. Robert Meachem had five catchs for 98 yards and a score, Devery Henderson had three catches for 93 yards, and Marques Colston had only one catch for 45 yards and no scores. Colston arguably should have had a touchdown catch to his credit in the fourth quarter, then had another chance to add one a couple plays later. Chalk it up as a bad day. He's still an elite WR1.
• DeAngelo Williams ran wild in the first half and continued the torrid pace he started in recent weeks while Jake Delhomme played mistake-free ball all game long ... and it still wasn't enough to get the job done today. D.W. owners couldn't be happier though, and I hope you bought low on him while he was struggling earlier this year.
Titans 34, 49ers 27
• Vince Young looks a lot more comfortable as Tennessee's quarterback. He didn't throw a single pick for the second straight week, but didn't throw a touchdown in San Francisco and only had 172 passing yards. He'll add some rushing yards here and there, but since he's not a pocket passing type of QB, I suspect he'll always be a second-tier fantasy QB.
• Chris Johnson did it again. He ran all over the Niners defense, going for 135 yards and a pair of scores on the ground. The 25 receiving yards he added today were minimal, but he is clearly one of the elite running backs in the game today. If your league drafted again today, where do you think Johnson would get taken? Within the top five is my guess.
• Alex Smith threw a couple of touchdown passes to Jason Hill today, but none to Vernon Davis. Davis still had 10 catches for 102 yards, though. He's still Smith's go-to guy and may very well finish the season as the most productive fantasy tight end in the league, which was a serious longshot before the season began.
Chargers 21, Giants 20
• LaDainian Tomlinson owners, repeat after me: we've already seen his best days. We've already seen his best days. We've already seen ...
• Is there ever a week where Vincent Jackson doesn't explode? He only had five catches for 58 yards, but two of them went for scores in New York. In a weird way, he's taking over L.T.'s role as San Diego's stud producer. The Chargers are now a pass-first team. I don't know why it's taking some of you so long to realize this.
• Brandon Jacobs owners are probably in the same boat as L.T. owners in that one of their first two overall picks are having disappointing seasons. B.J. rushed for only 67 yards on 11 carries against a lousy run defense. Like L.T., his stock for 2010 is standing in quicksand.
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