Empty the Bench

We’re into the fantasy playoffs, and your roster is likely set for the remaining weeks. Sure, there are a few teams who need to find injury replacements or spot starters. Owners of Anquan Boldin, Roy Williams or, in my case both, are likely scrambling to find fill-ins. But most teams made it this far by having good depth and it’s just a matter of setting the lineup each week and hoping for the best. However, it’s never too early to start thinking about next season. It’s extremely important to watch trends down the stretch, especially with young players. With an eye toward next season and those troublesome spot starters, ETB’s Weekly Stock Report breaks down the biggest movers, shakers and money makers from Week 14 of the NFL season.

Brandon Marshall Photo Credit: Rich Gabrielson/Icon SMI

Big Gainers:

Brandon Marshall, WR, Denver Broncos: We were fairly confident that Marshall would have a nice game on Sunday against the Chiefs, but he exceeded even our expectations despite not finishing the game. The 10 receptions were a career best, the 115 yards receiving put him over 1,000 for the season, and the two touchdowns gave him six in 13 games. There’s no telling if Javon Walker will ever regain his Pro Bowl form, and for our money Marshall is the clear-cut WR1 for Denver on our draft board next season no matter what Walker’s status is. Paired with the maturation at quarterback of fellow second-year player Jay Cutler, Marshall should take his fantasy production up another notch in ‘08.

Fred Taylor, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars: Three weeks straight with a YPC north of 7, and Taylor has elevated his fantasy role from a so-so flex-play to a fairly solid RB2 for the remainder of the season (except for this week). Signed to a somewhat surprising contract extension in the offseason given the presence of Maurice Jones-Drew, the 31-year-old is flat out getting it done this season on the ground, lifting his overall ‘07 YPC to 4.9 by going over 100 yards in each of the last three games despite less than 20 carries in all of them. The touchdowns have been sporadic–just three on the year–but he has a good chance to add at least two more of ‘em with excellent matchups against the poor rushing defenses of Oakland and Houston in Weeks 16 and 17. You should probably turn elsewhere if you have better options, though, when the Jags travel to Pittsburgh this Sunday.

Trent Edwards, QB, Buffalo Bills: The surprising Bills were not about to forever be known as “the only team who lost to the 1-15 Dolphins.” While the defense and coaching staff deserve a lot of the credit for getting this team to 7-6 after pounding the ‘Fins, we’re intrigued by the performance of this rookie third-round pick out of Stanford. He threw two first-quarter touchdown passes, and by the time this 38-17 drubbing had ended, almost half of Edwards’ completions were touchdowns (11-23, 165 yards, 4 TDs). This was the first multi-TD pass game of his young career, and we expect the conservative game plan to open up considerably next season. If you’re really, really (really) strapped for help at QB this week, you might even consider him in a favorable matchup against the Cleveland Browns and their 30th-ranked pass defense. More likely, however, you keep him on your radar as a possible late-round flier in next season’s fantasy draft.

Anthony Gonzalez, WR, Indianapolis Colts: Gonzalez is going gonzo? We’re ga-ga for Gonzalez? No? Ok. Well, he put up a huge game for fantasy owners on Sunday with 6 receptions for 134 yards and 2 TDs filling in for Marvin Harrison again. The first-round pick was a deep sleeper on a lot of people’s radar coming into the season and has started producing at the best possible time. We’re really starting to think the Marvin Harrison injury is more serious than the Colts are letting on, but in any event Indianapolis has no reason to rush the veteran back with Oakland on the docket– a team that struggles versus opponents’ WR2s. Gonzo makes a strong WR3/4 this weekend, and could be a viable WR3 next season if the 35-year-old Harrison’s body continues to fail him. Also, he kinda looks like Bald Bull in his Yahoo! profile, so he’s got that going for him too.

Bobby Engram, WR, Seattle Seahawks: When you have a solid roster heading into the playoffs, consistency is king with your WR3. Engram has provided that in spades this season. The vet is past his prime and no longer an explosive playmaker, but he’s been good for 4-14 catches and 55-139 yards in each of the last eight weeks, with 3 TDs in that span. The Seahawks passing game is on a roll right now, and Engram should have another productive day against the lowly Panthers this Sunday. Seattle then draws the Ravens in Week 16, another soft matchup for a strong possession receiver like Engram.

Plaxico Burress, WR, New York Giants: The balky ankle is likely to keep him limited for the remainder of the season, but it’s getting better. Plax started the season with at least 1 TD in each of the first six games, but then the ankle caught up with him and he had an ugly month-long drought. He’s back on track though, with 17 receptions, 2 TDs and 265 yards over the last three weeks– and 7 receptions, 1 TD and 139 of those yards coming last weekend. He’s clearly Eli Manning’s favorite target, and with Jeremy Shockey slowly falling off the face of the planet (5, 4, 2 and 1 receptions the last four weeks) Burress should get plenty of looks deep and in the red zone against Washington this weekend and Buffalo in Week 16.

Jamal Lewis, RB, Cleveland Browns: Ugh, do we have to say good things about him? Yes? Alright, here goes. Jamal Lewis is having a fantastic season, easily his best since that 2,000-yard, 14-TD campaign of 2003. He’ll likely go over 1,000 yards rushing this weekend and already has 11 total TDs. Even better, he draws a Buffalo defense that’s significantly worse on the road this weekend and a horrendous, linebacker-depleted Cincinnati Bungles defense in the fantasy championships.

Jabar Gaffney, WR, New England Patriots: Jabar Gaffney has overtaken Donte’ Stallworth as the Patriot’s WR3, playing in more snaps this week and garnering far more looks. The fumble-flea-flicker touchdown was nice, but he managed to have a very productive day overall with 7 receptions for 122 yards and the score. That marks the third consecutive week that Gaffney has found the endzone, and the vet should continue to see looks as long as Moss and Welker are attracting so much attention. The scuttlebutt in training camp was that Gaffney and Brady had developed excellent chemistry in the offseason, and perhaps that’s finally paying off.

Big Losers:

Carson Palmer, QB, Cincinnati Bengals: The photo stays for another week because it was the most tasteful one we could find while searching for “Palmer eats it.” That’s what he did on Sunday, finishing with fewer fantasy points than Todd Collins, both of the McCowns, and Shaun Hill. It should have been a coming-out party for this struggling passing game at home against the Rams, but instead the string of poor performances continued and Palmer now has just 5 TDs and 7 INTs over the last five weeks. If you managed to survive the latest disaster, Palmer does get San Francisco and Cleveland in the final two weeks of the fantasy season, but do you still have the confidence to start him?

Seattle Seahawks RBs: With the passing game clicking so well, there’s just not much reason to go bonkers by establishing the run with a pair of backs who just aren’t that good. Shaun Alexander… you know how we feel about him. He’s depressing to watch and has sunk many a-fantasy team this season with one abyssmal performance after another. Maurice Morris is better in just about every aspect of the game at the moment, but he’s a very unexciting option having not rushed for over 87 yards in any given week all season. Against the Cardinals last Sunday, these two combined for 74 yards on the ground and no TDs. It’ll be interesting to see how Seattle addresses this position in the offseason; if I’m the GM, I do whatever possible to cut bait and start over by spending a high draft pick on a promising young back.

Vince Young, QB, Tennessee Titans: Call it the Madden Curse, blame it on a lack of playmakers at wideout and tight end, whatever—the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year has had a poor sophomore season and has pretty much been a disposable fantasy commodity for some time now. Touchdowns, both through the air and on the ground, are down, rushing yardage is down, and he’s already thrown three more interceptions than last season with a few more games to go. The Titans’ number-one offseason goal has to be finding a few quality WRs for Young to utilize, whether through the draft or free agency. Ideally, they do a little of both because Brandon Jones, Roydell Williams, etc should be no higher than fourth on the team’s WR depth chart next season.

Baltimore Ravens Team DEF: As we mentioned in the Hangover, this defense appears to have packed it in. The once-proud unit hit a new low on Sunday night, giving up 23 points in the first quarter and 37 in the first half. What’s worse, Baltimore failed to record a single sack, fumble recovery or interception in the game. Over the last three weeks the Ravens DEF is 31st in the NFL in terms of fantasy points according to ETB’s scoring format. This is not the return any fantasy owner wanted or needed with that fifth-round pick. They’re an aging unit with a porous secondary that no longer tackles well, and heading into next year you don’t want to touch these guys unless they really slip.

Anthony Smith, DB, Pittsburgh Steelers: Not only did the guy give Tom Brady and Co. all the motivation they needed with his guarantee of victory last week, he also played like shit on Sunday afternoon. He was late on the Randy Moss touchdown in the first quarter. Then he got fooled by a play-action that freed Moss up for the long touchdown. After that, he missed a tackle on Jabar Gaffney in the open field in the second quarter. And to add an extra insult, he was the DB that Gaffney barely beat on that fumble-flea-flicker touchdown in the second half. It looked like Brady was specifically picking on him, and the normally calm quarterback even got into his face at one point. Hopefully the young man learned his lesson.

Donovan McNabb, QB, Philadelphia Eagles: It just wouldn’t be an ETB Stock Report without an appearance from an Iggles quarterback. McNabb started off strong (4/4, 45 yards, 1 TD) but was thoroughly unspectacular for the remainder of his team’s 16-13 loss at home to the Giants, failing to throw another touchdown pass or get his offense into any kind of rhythm. This team’s season is done, and while it probably won’t happen we see no reason not to throw rookie second-round pick Kevin Kolb into the fire to get a headstart on next season. It just doesn’t seem prudent to bring McNabb back. By the way, it looks like the nine-year vet will “achieve” a career low in rushing yards this season, save for ‘05 when he only appeared in nine games.

Kansas City Chiefs Team DEF: Hopefully you didn’t start the KC defense this week; after yielding 41 points to the Broncos and recording just one sack, the Chiefs DEF scored -3.50 points in ETB’s fantasy format. Over the past three weeks, they’ve recorded just 9 total fantasy points, and folks, that just kind of sucks. We had this sqaud listed in the “Big Gainers” section of a Stock Report a few weeks back after they held Peyton & Co. in check, but they’ve been pretty bad ever since.

More Phunky Fantasy Coverage for Week 15:

- ETB’s Week 15 Matchups

- ETB’s Week 15 Cheat Sheet

- ETB’s Week 15 Position Ranks