NFL Advice For NFL Week 6 - written by Matt Leech

Please come here all season long for the best free fantasy football advice. We'll keep you posted as to the best free agents to pickup, trades to make, emerging trends we see, as well as any other fantasy football news or articles worth mentioning.

 

Key Fantasy Football News and Injury Reports

Chris Chambers (WR) San Diego - That's right Chambers finally got the life preserver thrown to him and he's free from fantasy wasteland. Miami traded Chambers away to San Diego for a 2nd round pick. This is huge news for both Chambers and San Diego. Chambers can step in and make a huge difference in San Diego's offense that badly needed another WR. In our opinion Chambers is one of the most under-rated and under used WR's in the NFL. With a good QB and a good offense, Chamber's numbers should take a significant upturn from this point onward and after a week or two to get adjusted he could become a true #1 fantasy WR....let's see.
Michael Bennett (RB) Tampa Bay - The Buccaneers traded for much needed help at the RB position and it's unclear how quickly Bennett will be able to make a contribution to the TB running game. This obviously hurts Ernest Graham's value as we'd expect Bennett to take over the #1 job fairly quickly. It's been a long time since we've seen Bennett get a significant amount of carries, but he is a guy who's capable of being a good fantasy starter. Our advice is to pick him up off the waiver wires as quickly as possible.
Kurt Warner (QB) ARZ - Tore a ligament in his non-throwing shoulder and couldn't make it past the 1st quarter this week. He's going to try to get a brace to stabilize it enough to let him play through it. Without Warner the Cards offense sucked with Tim Rattay in at QB. This is bad news for Fitzgerald and Boldin owners. Let's hope Kurt can play through it. And Rattay is likely not worth picking up.
Byron Leftwich (QB) ATL - Until further notice, the Joey Harrington era in Altanta is over for a while. Leftwich will take over as the starter. The only problem is that Altanta's offensive line can't hold back a pass rush for more than a second and it takes Byron about 3 seconds to wind up and throw the ball. We'd expect Byron to get hammered. Plus he's always been a disappointment as a starter in Jacksonville. Nonetheless, we remain (as suckers) somewhat intrigued by his potential. It will be interesting to see if he can get the ball to Roddy White and Alge Crumpler.
Cleo Lemon (QB) MIA - If you're looking for a bye week QB to fill in for you, or even a potential regular starter if your QB position isn't producing, then give Lemon a look. He accounted for 4 TD's this past week (vs. a week Cleveland defense). It's true, however, that the loss of Chris Chambers will hurt. It also doesn't help that the Dolphins play the Patriots this week, but he's available in almost every league and is better than some options out there.
Marty Booker (WR) MIA - The departure of Chris Chambers from Miami to San Diego now makes Marty Booker the undisputed #1 WR in Miami's offense While he's not exactly Randy Moss, Booker has always been a solid WR (when with a good team) and still has potential to get 100 yards per game and a TD. We like him as a free agent for fantasy owners seeking WR help.
Javan Walker (WR) DEN - Walker will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery this week and will miss a few weeks of game time This is a huge loss for fantasy owners that made an early round investment in Walker and were eagerly awaiting his return. Unfortunately the available WR options in most leagues are few, but we do like Marty Booker as an option.
Sammy Morris / Laurence Maroney (RB) NE - Sammy Morris will likely miss 4 weeks or more with a collarbone injury. Meanwhile, Laurence Maroney's groin is still an issue and might keep him out this week vs. Miami. As a result journeyman, Kevin Faulk is likely to start and get most of the snaps at RB.

This Week's Rantings

The big news so far this week is the last minute trades that occurred to send Chris Chambers to San Diego and Michael Bennett to Tampa Bay. Both players may be available in many leagues (especially Bennett) and should be highly sought after free agents this week. Bennett should quickly take over as the #1 back in Tampa, but since Bennett has always had durability issues, we'd expect Ernest Graham to continue to get some carries and keep the goal-line work.

Chambers on the other hand will quickly become a favorite of QB Phillip Rivers and this will only enhance the SD passing attack which will become excellent. The addition of another talented WR who can stretch the field and make incredible catches will give defenses fits.

Remember, it should take both these players a bit of time to fit in with their new teams but Bennett as a RB should start contributing decent fantasy stats quickly, and Chambers may take 3 or 4 weeks before we really see his impact.

In other news, it was fun to see that the Panthers went to the cemetary and dug up the bones of Vinny Testaverde to use as QB this past week vs. the Cardinals. It was even more surprising to see how well Vinny played. He'll never wow anyone at this point in his career with his fantasy stats, but as a game manager who can still make some throws, he was impressive. Way to go Vinny!

The Atlanta Falcons are looking for a change at QB. With their horrid offense, they had to make a switch, and now they're going with Byron Leftwich. We've always liked Leftwich, but never really had any desire to put him on our fantasy roster. He never turned the corner and developed like everyone hoped he would and obviously wasn't the answer in Jacksonville. It will be interesting to see how he does as a Falcon. But he's not really in a good situation. With his slow delivery, his tenuous grip on their playbook, and a terrible offensive line, we'd expect him to get sacked a lot and throw more INT's then TD's by nearly a 2-1 margin. But we will be pulling for him! Hopefully, he'll be able to get the ball deeper downfield than Harrington was able to, and god willing, he'll be able to work Alge Crumpler, Roddy White, and Michael Jenkins back into the fold.

Here are our tips to make sure you are keeping your roster as open as possible....

• Never have more than one kicker on your roster - Never draft more than one kicker. Just keep one kicker on your roster and when you need to cover for a bye week, either swap kickers from a scrub on the waiver wire, or just pick up a 2nd kicker for that one week. If you haven't figured it out yet, kickers are for the most part interchangeable.
• There is no need to carry more than one TE - Just like kickers, TE's are not worth keeping around on your roster. If by some chance you find that you have 2 very good TEs on your roster than shop one around for a trade. You can usually lump a decent WR and a good TE together in exchange for an upgraded WR or RB. In terms of covering bye weeks, then just pick up a guy off of the waiver wire, there are plenty of serviceable TE's that can get through a bye week.
• In terms of QB's the fewer the better - A best case scenario would be if you have a fantasy stud at QB....P. Manning, T. Romo, Tom Brady, Carson Palmer, or even a lesser guy like Derrick Anderson who is at least playing well. That way you can play one guy every week and just use your backup for a bye week or to cover a possible injury. Our recommendation is to even go down to 1 QB if you are desperate for RB help and need to take chances by picking up multiple FA RB's.
• If your're rich at one position, trade! - Chances are if you did your homework, prepared for the draft, took our advice, picked up free agents or just got plain lucky, then you'll find yourself fortunate to have a couple of sleepers on your roster at this point. If that's the case, then congratulations! Now it's time to trade them off. If you have 3 good WR's but only start 2 every week then see what you can get in exchange for one of your WR's. Same thing for any other position that you're rich at. To use an example, one guy in my league drafted both Carson Palmer and Brett Favre as his QB's. He only needs to use one of them each week so now, he's been shrewdly shopping one of them around the league in trade offers and will likely be able to upgrade his RB or WR position through the trade.

 

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