Obviously, things change in fantasy football. There’s no Tom Brady, and therefore, no Randy Moss. Offenses in Seattle, Cincinnati and Cleveland are in shambles. Jacksonville keeps turning it over, and the Denver Broncos might have the most explosive offense of 2008.

Shanny, we knew you had it in you. I won’t even say that I called it. (I CALLED IT), but it was right there in front of our noses. This year might be a competition between T.O. and Baby T.O. for the top wide receiver spot.

Who else is hot this week? (Well, besides the obvious.)

Hot Hands

J.T. O’Sullivan, Bryant Johnson, Isaac Bruce vs. Lions: We are starting bold. The 49ers face off against Mike Martz’s former home.

Don’t get all reactionary when you are setting your lineups this week. If your stud disappointed in his first showing — and there is no evidence supporting his failure, i.e. horrible line in Jacksonville and St. Louis — just forget Week 1 happened.

This week, we’ll move into more of a Q&A mode with the start-or-sit recommendations. No matter how many people I name, you will always have a call between two players that I don’t address. Here’s your chance.

If I don’t mention one of your tough calls, or you have a follow-up question, post it in the comments (or you can send me direct messages through twitter.)

Hot Hands

Chris Johnson vs. Bengals: If you thought he looked good against Jacksonville…

Another leaving us speechless “Dude” award has to go out to Matt Forte this week.

The rookie RB laid down a breakout performance in his first NFL start and had a long run against the Colts defense. Highlights in the video.

Something tells me that the smart jackasses people who grabbed Matt Forte late in their drafts may have more than just a bye week fill on their hands. Full disclosure: I own Matt Forte in one league.

Frankly, I am completely and utterly satisfied with sitting Ryan Grant this week for Matt Forte. Good work, buddy. Good work.

This game wasn’t quite the spectacular opening to the new stadium that the Colts had envisioned, but of course, I’m just guessing.

Oh, and the “Dude” award is for the 50-yard TD run — as if you didn’t know.

Now that we have the explanation out of the way, let’s talk Week 1 picks.

Jacob’s Ed. Note: Note that due to some compulsive gambling this weekend, we didn’t get the Week 1 picks up before the games. If you didn’t notice, congratulations — you rock. Starting Week 2, picks should be up prior to the weekend’s festivities. Now, on with the show…

Enter the Chadam

Hi. My name is Chadam, and I’ll be half of the two-headed team that will be leading you through the crazy world of picking NFL spreads.

Make no mistake; I am hardly what you would call an “expert.” My resume consists of a gambling addiction formed in my high school years, the borderline drinking problem that graces plagues most males in their twenties and the unlawful possession of irrational reasons for loving or hating certain teams and players.

Thank New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs for our “Loss for Words Other Than…Dude” moment of the week. LaRon Landry was a brave man.

And if you are a fan of up close and personal…

Ouch. Just ouch.

Animated .GIFs via BigBlueInteractive.com The Corner Forum

UPDATE: Video now available:

This football season, our highly-respected Best Bets feature (Hint: Don’t ever start betting in Week 16) will be replaced by a column we are going to call A fool and his money… where two compulsive online gamblers will go head-to-head picking the NFL spreads for the entire regular season.

These two moderately delusional individuals will include analysis on each game to help you understand the thought process behind their decisions — including live transcripts of the voices in their head — and trash talk each other’s weekly picks and overall record.

As a teaser for the upcoming column on Week 1 and an introduction to Nick and Chadam, here are their picks for tonight’s game.

Oh, and don’t worry. They’ve already turned in their win totals to me.

Fantasy football season is upon us!

*The people rejoice*  *Crowds cheer and applause*  *Small baby thrown in air*

Someone catch that baby! *Baby caught inside beer* YES!

The defending Super Bowl Champions, the New York Giants, face off against the Washington Redskins tonight. What will the lesser Manning of the mighty Mannings do?

More than likely, he’ll look a little rough around the edges since the Super Bowl win — especially if Jason Taylor gets in there for the Redskins. Eli Manning didn’t have a good showing last time he played the Redskins — and by not good, I mean worst completion percentage of the season bad. Starting off a new season and playing at home (where the Giants were iffy last year), you might find a better option to start rather than Manning.

I know it’s a little late to be posting a mock draft. Believe me. I know you all drafted already — well, hopefully, you drafted already.

I wish I could have gotten this one edited sooner, but the rush of preseason football and real drafts took hold of me and delayed the posting. Next time, I’ll have to conduct the mock draft on a better system, NOT through tons and tons of ‘Reply All’ emails.

Regardless, I did put together a mock draft that, if nothing else, makes for a nice discussion piece here at the beginning of the season to compare to your real draft. The draft took place several weeks ago, and it really influenced my drafting over the weekend because many of the mock drafters were my league mates (with a couple of newbies sprinkled in there).

When we talk about players as being RB1 or RB2 caliber, we are not trying to confuse you.

Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we are just a tiny bit, but that’s a small satisfaction of mine. I have to compensate for all the spammy emails I get from Russia that make me feel “small,” okay?

There exists in the fantasy football lexicon a set of definitions that helps in classifying your expectation for players. These definitions break down the projected performance of a player over the course of a season. “RB2″ is just one of many.

Associating these tags with players on your cheat sheet — maybe by tiering them off into RB1 and RB2 categories — you can better prepare for the kind of team you want to build and better evaluate potential trades.

If breaking down the details for this year’s fantasy running backs doesn’t make you want to take LaDainian Tomlinson first overall in your re-draft league, I don’t know what will. Seriously, people.

When you’re talking fantasy running backs, what separates the vets from the noobs is consideration of a few minor factors beyond how high-powered a RB’s offense was last year and where the RB ranks on cheat sheets this season. Looking at the slight details like what defenses they face, contract lengths and ages can help you make the call between two closely-ranked RBs in your draft.

Let’s jump into how these factors will affect some top fantasy RBs this season with some good ol’ plus/minus analysis — and we go with negative first around these parts.