Week 1 - Studs, Duds and Pick ups

Let’s start on the positive side because it was just Week 1 after all right?
The big headline grabber was Arian Foster, of course. He of the 231 yards rushing and 3 TD’s. He single handedly made the rest of the Houston Offense DUDS in fact! If you were with us in the offseason and preseason prep you would remember us talking about Foster even before the Ben Tate injury. I’ll stick by my quote of him reminding me of another former University of Tennessee Running Back --- Jamal Lewis. Certainly Chris Johnson didn’t disappoint and thanks to a great OT run Rashard Mendenhall came out in the top of the RB pack. A couple of RB’s surprised a few Owners. If you were like me and stuck with Matt Forte (my Week 1 RB pick on the radio show this week) you were handsomely rewarded with a 2 TD’s, 200+ total yards and 7 big catches! Or how about Darren McFadden? Oakland is paying the guy and I think he will continue to get the ball. WR Studs were dominated by ‘2nd tier’ guys that really maybe shouldn’t be --- while Austin Collie (11 catches, 163 yards and a TD) might have seen his best day, guys like Hakeem Nicks (4/75/3), Wes Welker (8/64/2) and Ochocinco (12/159/1) should continue to thrive and were for the most part late early to middle round picks.
The Dud list this week is littered with first and second round picks up and down the line! Who would have thought this group of RB’s could have been so bad? Shonn Greene, Frank Gore, Turner, Ray Rice and that’s not mentioning Ryan Grant’s season ending injury! Not to be outdone were eggs laid by some of the NFL’s best hands guys – Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson, Malcom Floyd, Deshaun Jackson and to a lesser extent Marques Colston, Brandon Marshall and Randy Moss. In fact, if you had a Viking, a Jet, a Raven or a 49er you probably are scratching your head quite a bit today.
So, who is out there to go and get? Maybe the most important part of Fantasy Football is working the ‘waiver wire’. Big caveat here though, week #1 is just that, one week. No Denny Green “they are who we thought they were” speech here. Guys you took in the first 3 rounds are not being sat and should not be dropped. You might think about trades, especially unloading a guy whose value will never be higher (see Brandon Jackson if you don’t own Ryan Grant).
• The aforementioned Brandon Jackson in Green Bay. Until they trade for someone else and they get up to speed he is the guy. He automatically becomes a RB2
• Michael Vick – yep, #7. Don’t like his ethics, morals, etc? It’s Fantasy Football – who cares? If Kolb is out this guy becomes a Top 10 QB instantly
• Fragile Freddy Taylor – I may be a Gator ‘homer’ and I love Freddy but haven’t from a Fantasy perspective for a long time, BUT, he is getting the carries in New England and he looks fresh. On top of that the Patriots JUST unloaded Laurence Maroney to the Broncos. Ride him while he’s healthy
• Any number of WR’s on bad teams that will be playing catch up 
o Mark Clayton (STL)
o Mike Williams (TB)
o Mike Thomas (Jax)
o Danny Amendola (STL)
o M. Massaqui (CLE)

Good luck in Week 2 --- may your stars rebound and your ‘reaches’ keep on plugging away.