A disastrous and tragic Week 1 has left plenty of teams hurting for new talent. Was there a group shot on the cover of Madden this year?

Since Week 1 is always the best time to grab the waiver wire studs AND since this week was full of injuries and failures, this week’s waiver wire gems is pretty comprehensive. Next week, we’ll bring it down a notch. We’ll start things off at QB since I hear we lost one this week.

If these guys went undrafted in your league, make sure you correct that. Now.

Matt Cassel, QB New England Patriots

Jesus. If you don’t know why Cassel is going to be a top grab this week, GO BACK UNDER YOUR ROCK AND STAY THERE.

It’s possible if you are a Tom Brady owner — or former Brady owner, as the case may be — that you have other, better options than Cassel.

My first draft of this article was just “AVOID THE HOUSTON RUNNING BACKS AT ALL COSTS. The end.”

While contemplating whether to put that in bold or change the text to some nice shade of red, I realized my very intelligent warning doesn’t help you much. Many people, through bad luck, absentmindedness or sadistic desires, will be in need of a running back and have to choose between drafting a member of the Houston backfield at some point in their fantasy drafts or skipping over them.

While they’re not ideal roster grabs, the Houston running backs make a decent bye week fill for your fantasy team in a pinch and might even become a low-end starter. The only drawback is that they come as a pack.

Even though the most senior members of the backfield in Houston all have some kind of injury concern, there’s still some upside to be seen.

Well, it’s probably round 2 of the playoffs for most of you. Some of you may already be drowning your sorrows in a bottle of fine liquor–or a jar of Papa’s moonshine.

For the sober ones, it’s beyond time to start plotting next week. What studs does your opponent have? Who will have a big week to save you? If you have studs in a big match up, you are set–and we all hate you. If you are lacking in a few key areas, you may need to take some risks to put down the Tom Brady or Randy Moss owner in your future.

First, some pretty obvious things. Several studs are lined up to have big games and should stay on your starting roster.

STUDS THIS WEEK

• Joseph Addai  against OAK
  He’s my pick of the week to have a big game against the worst run defense in the NFL.

Don’t run out the door like Petrino when your team takes an injury late here in the playoffs–or just stinks. There’s a few sneaky plays this week that could still save you and win your championship.

RB Help

Darius Walker, RB HOU
Word is that Ron Dayne will be out week 15. If that happens, there will probably we a running back committee setup, but Darius Walker is likely to be the head of any committee. He got close to 100 yards in his relief role after Dayne went down this week, and the match up for week 15 is the ever-tricky Denver run defense.

Samkon Gado, RB MIA
With Jesse Chatman hurting, Samkon Gado will take the hand offs from Cleo Lemon. Unfortunately, even if Chatman doesn’t start, he is up against Baltimore, who could shut down the running game of Miami even if it is the only offensive weapon they have.