Isn’t Trent Edwards the new #2 QB for the Jags?
Oops, yes it’s Edwards not Fitzgerald.
No. They claimed him off waivers like 10 minutes ago. There’s no way he’ll be ready to play this week, or even next.
Anyway, the Jaguars play the Bills in two weeks, so there’s a 50/50 chance they only claimed him off waivers to pick his brain about the Bills’ playbook.
ETA: that “10 minutes ago” thing was hyperbole.
I beg to differ. It took me about 30 minutes to pick up the Jags offense:
1: Handoff to MJD
2: Handoff to MJD
3. Handoff to MJD
4. Throw a pass into three defenders
Yep, I should have checked the tape. Sims-walker gets way more targets than Meachem. In week 3, even though he had only 2 catches, he was targeted like 8 times. Meachem had his one catch on 2 looks. In the week 1 game where Sims-walker got no stats vs the week 2 game where meachem got no stats, S-W got twice as many looks as meachem…although that’s not saying much when Meachem only had 1 pass thrown his way. Of course, S-W did have 1 big game while meacham has not.
2nd half Jags offense when the game is a blowout:
- Sit MJD, run around until sacked.
- run around until sacked.
- run around until sacked.
- Punt.
Terrible week upcoming for me. I need to get creative.
My quarterbacks are Joe Flacco and Vince Young, and the one is playing the Steelers, who may in fact be genetically modified superhumans, and the other sucks.
Of my receivers, Austin Collie and Malcolm Floyd are available to play this week, but I need to pick up an alternative.
And of course my kicker, Garrett Hartley… well, you know.
So I have to make three waiver pickups. Right now I’m leaning toward Bruce Gradkowski, Darrius Heyward-Bey, and Robbie Gould. Any brilliant suggestions for very deep sleeper-types who might be in the free agent pool, especially at quarterback?
You are correct. They are genetically modified superhumans.
Sleepers are generally sleepers for a reason: 90% of the time they’re asleep. 
I would be ok with playing Vince. Possible choices: Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford, or Matt Hasselbeck. Gradkowski will probably do better than anybody else below these guys.
There’s a ton of WR’s available every Sunday. Try this: using the search function, check the top 3-5 WR’s by total score and week 3 score, and list them here. In one of my leagues (3 wr), Dwayne Bowe is available. In another league (playing 2 wr’s), I can get lance moore. Devin Hester could be a good play depending on how much (or even if) you get return yards.
For kickers, I have one of two theories: find a very very good team or a very very bad offense with a good defense. A very, very good team (like the old Patriots) would be blowing out teams by 20-30 points by the 3rd quarter, and thus would kick fg’s for the rest of the game. A very, very bad offense with a good defense (like the current Steelers) can’t score, and thus all their drives peter out in field goal range. The worst case scenario is to be on the wrong end of a blowout (like the current Jags.) They are forced to not even try FG’s and have to go for it on 4th down, even if they are in the red zone. What you want to watch out for are good offenses paired with bad defenses (like the Chargers) where they have to score TD’s all the time, or bad offenses paired with bad defenses (who can’t even get into field goal range to begin with.)
Last I checked, Nugent with Cincy and Jeff Reed with Pittsburgh fit the criteria nicely (both FA’s I picked up last week.) Gould with Chicago wouldn’t be a bad choice either.
However, if nobody is available, then just pick the kicker on the best team and settle for 5 PA’s and 1 FG.
I went into my season feeling half-way decent about my RBs: Shonn Greene at the Jets (never dreamed LT had another good year in him…), Harrison looked sure to be the workhorse in Cleveland (who the hell is Peyton Hillis?), Jamaal Charles (he’s been fine) and backups J. Stewart and Chester Taylor. Charles is on bye this week. Who the hell do I start? Gotta be Greene vs Buffalo right?
Harrison looks like he’ll play this Sunday, but too bad Hillis had such a big game. I’m thinking 10-15 carries at most. Stewart looks to be 8-10 touches, which is also Greene’s projection. Usually when I’m looking at a 10 carry production, I want to see a per carry average of 4.0+, and none of these guys have it.
My advice is to wait until the Thursday practices. Harrison practiced on Tuesday but Thursday practice is the one to watch. If he goes through a full practice on Thursday, I would aim for him.
If he’s still limited Thursday, check if Greene practiced Thursday. After that, I would be checking the waiver wire for a return man or 3rd down back. Snelling was decent for me last week in Norwood’s role in Atl. Darren Sproles never has big games, but at least he rarely puts up goose eggs.
This is a tool I like to use too. You can plug in your league scoring. According to my league scoring, Stewart is #30, Greene is 32, Harrison is 34, Chester Taylor is 40.
Stewart! Interesting. Will probably go with Greene tho. Maybe NJ will get a big lead and rest LT…
Harrison is despised by all of his coaches, so now that Hillis has given them an excuse to bench him, he’ll probably be reduced to 5-10 carries a game. If he’s very successful with those carries, expect them to be reduced further. Hillis will probably be the starter from here on out, although probably no one will be hitting 20 carries a game.
What did Harrison do? I mean, did he sleep with Mangini’s sister? Burn down the practice facility?
I have never seen a player with obvious talent so consistently and deliberately marginalized and set up to fail as Harrison has been with the Browns. A guy who runs for 500+ yards in four games while saving his coach’s job in process should start the season as the undisputed starter; instead they yanked him back and forth, gave him minimal opportunities while pretending that his “failure” to produce numbers was somehow statistically meaningful, and now they’ll almost certainly bury him for a guy who, let’s face it, probably will never do anything like what he did against Baltimore again in his career.
Weird.
I’ve been ranting about the subject quite a bit. It’s not just Mangini - Crennel had him for years and did the exact same thing. He’d get 4 carries, turn them into 37 yards, and then he’d be inactive for the next 2 games while Jamal Lewis ran for 2.7 ypc or something. The crowning moment of stupidity was late in 2008 when the Browns were on a streak of 30 or 40 games without a TD, and Harrison rips off an 80 yard TD run. The TV feed cuts to Crennel on the sidelines after the only life in the offense for games had showed himself and he was… furious. Not happy, furious. He seemed to be angry that Harrison was successful.
And then last year, out of sheer desperation since no one else was healthy, they gave him carries and he ran for like 160 yards per game. So - did they realize their mistake and decide to plan the future around him? No, they traded up into the 2nd round to draft Montario Hardesty to be the starter, and then again even when Hardesty got hurt decided to split the carries 50/50 between him and Hillis. Now it’ll probably be more like 75/25.
Even when he was carrying the ball 30-35 times a game for a few games, and racking up yards like crazy, they had him out there blocking for the fucking kick return unit. Has any team in the history of the fucking NFL given a guy like 130 carries over 4 or 5 games and made him play lead blocker on kick returns? Fucking nuts. I actually think it was spite - like Crennel, Mangini was kind of pissed to see Harrison succeed and was intentionally trying to break him down and get him hurt so that he could say “see, he can’t carry the load, that’s why we haven’t started him”.
This all sounds crazy, but I mean - you saw the results and how he’s been treated. It’s inexplicable.
Peyton Hillis is pretty good actually, but he was one of the casualties when McDaniels took over in Denver.
Hands down he’s probably the best white running back in the NFL atm.
You need only look at this year for another one - Jamaal Charles. That Thomas Jones has almost 20 more carries than Charles thus far is quite frankly outrageous.
I am totally stealing this line. 
It really isn’t, though. Charles is on pace for about 200 touches, which is about the same as last year. He’s a weedy little guy - 5’11" and 199 pounds. That means he weighs less than Leon Washington, who is four inches shorter, and pretty much a prototypical scatback. Hell, he barely outweighs Devin Hester.
People see the gaudy 7.0 yards per carry average and think he’d be just as productive with 20 carries a game, but it doesn’t work that way.
Charles will simply never be a 300 carry guy. Jones is averaging 4.2 yards per carry, which is fine. That production is what allows Charles to do so much with his touches.
ETA: That isn’t to say Charles isn’t being somewhat underutilized - I’d be throwing him the ball far more often, for one thing - but it’s not as bad as it looks.
What about James Brooks or Barry Sanders? He produces and that’s the bottom line.
I agree you can’t assume he’d have the same YPC, but he averaged 5.9 last year which is no small feat.
Yes, it’s fine, but my point is, why don’t you put your best player on the field? I don’t buy that Thomas Jones is responsible for what Charles does - we’re talking about a guy who rushed for 658 yards in his FOUR 20+ carry games last year while Jones was in a different zip code and nobody was taking the pressure off him. That Jones is responsible for his production is barely true, if at all. I’m not even advocating 300 carries. What’s wrong with having 250, and not…181?
I want to add that just for fun, I calculated his YPC on all his 20 carry games last year and it was…7.0 yards per carry. It’s just a humorous note though; I still agree with the point.