Empty the Bench

Well, this is it–the last ETB Stock Report for the 2007 NFL fantasy season. Most of you reading this are probably still sheeding tears of sadness into a glass of sour milk after your team was eliminated from championship contention. A select few of you can’t sit still as you sit on the precipice of triumph, a title and rights to months and months of relentless trash talk so close you can almost taste it.

Whichever group you fall into, it’s imperative to keep track of performance trends down the stretch, especially as it relates to young players, guys returning from injury, or aging veterans out to prove they still have “it.” With that in mind, your old friends at ETB cast an eye towards next season (and those troublesome spot starts for this week) with our Week 16 Stock Report, which breaks down the biggest movers, shakers and money makers from Week 15 of the NFL season. There weren’t many.

Fred Taylor Photo Credit: Icon SMI

Big Gainers:

Fred Taylor, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars: The player formerly known as Fragile Fred has come up huge for fantasy owners at the most critical time and proved there’s plenty left in the tank. Clearly, Taylor is not ready to cede his starting role to Maurice Jones-Drew just yet. He’s rattled off four consecutive 100-yard games, each more impressive than the last. Even given his recent strong play, who could have guessed he’d hang 147 rushing yards and a TD at Pittsburgh? With 487 yards on 6.86 YPC over this stretch and 4 TDs in his last six games, Taylor is once again on 2008 cheat sheets and a must-start vs. Oakland in the championship week.

Marques Colston, WR, New Orleans Saints: After an 8-reception, 114-yard game with a touchdown on Sunday, Marques is now over 1,000 yards on the season and on pace for 100 receptions. After a slow start, he’s blown away last season’s breakout rookie campaign across the board and erased any lingering doubt we had about him being a fluke. The New Orleans passing game is real, the connection with Drew Brees is real and the considerable skills are real. Playing in the toothless NFC South, Colston is easily a top-10 WR heading into next season.

Tony Scheffler, TE, Denver Broncos: We thought Scheffler was a good breakout candidate heading into this season, but we may have been just a tad early on the guy. After starting the season on the bench, he’s come on fairly strong and will mature along with Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall in the Denver passing game. He’s a big, athletic target with good hands that has a nice rapport with Cutler from their days on the practice squad last season. The 7 receptions, 100 yards and TD he put up on Houston this week is just the beginning.

Steven Jackson, RB, St. Louis Rams: Despite missing nearly five games this season, Jackson is still among the top-15 RBs in ETB’s scoring format. He’s a supreme athlete who’s just as dangerous on screen passes as he is on handoffs (take note, Reggie Bush), and Jackson has managed to produce despite the chaos around him. He’s gone over 100 total yards in each of the last six games, with 4 TDs and 24 receptions in that span. Jackson looked like one of the biggest busts of the season early on with the knee injury, but should once again be considered a top-5 RB heading into next year.

DeAngelo Williams, RB, Carolina Panthers: We hate to beat a fat horse, but DeAngelo should have been the Panthers featured back this year. We both expected him to take over sometime around mid-season at the latest, but it might have finally happened this week. Williams sports an impressive 4.7 YPC number on the season despite limited work, compared to incumbent DeShaun Foster’s putrid 3.5 YPC. What’s more, Williams is twice the athlete Foster is at this point and far more likely to make the big plays this struggling offense needs. Consider Williams a strong RB3 on your draft boards next year. Again.

David Garrard, QB, Jacksonville Jaguars: I wouldn’t want to draw the Jags come playoffs time–any team with a strong running game, solid rush defense, and a quarterback who can make big plays while limiting turnovers is a dangerous one indeed. Jacksonville looks like an upset special waiting to happen, and Garrard is a big reason why. He torched the NFL’s best pass defense for 3 TDs this week in poor weather conditions and has 10 TDs in his last five games– with just 2 INTs on the season. Consider Garrard a slightly below average QB1 heading into next season. Now if they could just get some guys for him to throw the ball to…

Cleo Lemon, QB, Miami Dolphins: He’s not very good and he’ll probably always have little to no fantasy value, but we’d be pretty damn curmudgeonly if we didn’t give Mr. Lemon a pat on the back for his effort against the Ravens on Sunday. Leon went 23-for-39 for 315 yards and no INTs and threw a game-winning 64-yard TD in OT. The ‘Fins are committed to their second-reound pick this season, John Beck, but perhaps they shouldn’t be. Beck is only two years younger than Lemon, and Cleo has looked far more mobile, strong and NFL-ready.

Kolby Smith, RB, Kansas City Chiefs: The undersized rookie was good, not great, against a pretty good Titans rush defense on Sunday (18 carries, 82 yards), but lands in the Big Gainers column because of his Week 16 matchup against the Detroit Lions. After getting zero carries until Week 10, Smith has shown he’s at least capable of carrying the load (if need be) and playing through some pain. Against a woeful Lions defense that’s in a complete tailspin next week, consider Kolby one of the stronger RB3/Flex Plays available.

Big Losers:

Terrell Owens/Tony Romo, WR/QB, Dallas Cowboys: TO has been surprisingly hit-or-miss this season, with six games of three or fewer receptions– and two of those coming in the last two weeks. That’s right, Owens has just 5 receptions for 58 yards since most fantasy playoffs began. As much hype as Romo gets, he’s still emminently capable of bad games and good defensive coordinators can make him look lost– Jim Johnson did nearly the same thing to him in Week 16 last season. Add in that disconcerting thumb injury on Romo’s throwing hand, and these guys could really let you down in the championship game–that is, if their performance Sunday didn’t already sink your ship.

Tony Romo Photo Credit: Richard A. Brightly/Icon SMI

Detroit Lions DEF: Kudos if you were able to ride this unit during a four-week stretch or so when they were causing turnovers and recording sacks on par with some of the better defenses in the NFL. That time has passed, however, and they probably should have been dropped a few weeks ago. Dropped like a morning, post-cup-of-black-coffee missive. After (un)gracefully stepping aside and allowing the Chargers to rack up 51 points on Sunday–with LT maxing and relaxing on the bench for the entire second half after rushing for 116 yards and 2 TDs in the first–a morning deuce is really about all this defense amounts to right now. Even if you’re the world’s biggest Lions homer and refuse to drop them because of your inexplicable fandom, please don’t start them this week. Or next week. Or probably next season.

Eli Manning, QB, New York Giants: You haven’t started Baby Eli for your fantasy team in a long time, right? Well, if you did your team was probably eliminated from fantasy playoffs contention a long time ago. The weather outside was frightening (okay, I deserve to be punched for that), and his receivers apparently lubed up their hands in a bonding ceremony before the game–they dropped something like 10 or 11 passes–but that’s still no excuse for throwing the most incompletions by a NFL quarterback (34) since 1967. These aren’t the kinds of records Giants fans envisioned their embattled QB establishing at this point in his career. Manning hasn’t thrown more than 1 TD in any single game since Week 7, and is not a good play in Championship Week at Buffalo. We won’t be at all comfortable drafting him as our QB1 in ‘08.

Laurence Maroney, RB, New England Patriots: It came much, much too late to even come close to justifying his lofty draft status, but at least we know Maroney is still a capable running back that given a chance can actually rush for decent yardage. Unfortunately, the Patriots are expected to take a long look at hotshot RB prospect Darren McFadden in the upcoming NFL draft, which would relegate Maroney as a timeshare back in the best-case scenario. Maroney has to be considered one of the biggest busts of the season and you can’t consider him one of your top two RBs heading into next season.

Kevin Jones, RB, Detroit Lions: He’s just too risky this week with his production so closely tied to the whims of OC Mike Martz, though there’s a strong chance Mr. Toad won’t be back next year in Detroit. This offense has a lot of potential–though the quarterback position is certain to be re-evaluated–and Jones will retain his RB1 status next season regardless of who’s running the show. He should also return to training camp healthier after giving his foot (Lisfranc fracture) more time to heal in the offseason. Gamble on KJ as your RB2 and dance an Irish jig if he’s your RB3. But again, you can’t take any chances with him right now.

Fred Jackson, RB, Buffalo Bills: Marshawn Lynch is back and seems to be close to full strength, dominating the carries out of the Buffalo backfield on a snowy Sunday afternoon in Cleveland. Jackson filled in admirably while his more prominent rookie peer was out, but will be back to riding the pine and getting less than five carries this week against the Giants. See him to your bench, accompanied with a sincere thank-you note for any spot production he provided.

The Baltimore Ravens: There’s a real good chance this team could be next year’s version of the Atlanta Falcons, with major holes dotting their roster from top to bottom, character issues, aging and less-than-effective veterans, and a coaching staff in over their head. What are they going to do about that quarterback position? It’s been well over a decade now since they had someone capable back there (we know they won a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer, but c’mon now). HC Brian Billick will surely lose his job in a few weeks, as he failed to ever field a competent offense and squandered away one of the best defenses in recent NFL history. And, well, his team lost to the 2007 Miami Dolphins. Their best wide receiver, Derrick Mason, is on his last legs, Ray Lewis’ days as a top-tier linebacker are fading, the offensive line ain’t what it used to be… we’ll spare the five Ravens still out there and stop. Outside of Willis McGahee, there isn’t much fantasy relevance on this team in ‘08 as it stands right now. That includes the once-mighty Ravens Team DEF.

More Absolutely Free Fantasy Football Advice for Week 16:

- ETB’s Week 16 Matchups