After Week 2’s performances, you should have a pretty good idea what your players are worth. Starting jobs are getting shuffled, and guys we thought might pay off are doing just that. If you didn’t capture one of the big performers of Week 2 on your fantasy team, let’s see what we can do for you.

Apologies for running a little late this week. I was trying out at wide receiver for Seattle.

QUARTERBACKS

J.T. O’Sullivan, QB San Francisco 49ers

I told you to watch him last week, and look what he did. Against the Seahawks, O’Sullivan passed for 321 yards and a TD. He even rushed for 32 more yards. While he’s no every week starter, O’Sullivan has some great matchups this season — including this week against Detroit — and he’ll continue to develop in the Mike Martz offense.

He’s going to get sacked a lot and have a few bust games where you won’t want to be starting him, but he’s also going to throw up 300+ yards every now and then.

It’s almost football season. Training camp battles are starting, Favre is reinstated and back as an active player (which means he is thinking about retiring) and coins are flipping in Chicago to decide who will throw the rock for 2008. Smell that fresh air? Behind that freshness, the little taint of grass and sweat is the smell of football season, baby!

I had to change my shirt last night after watching the Hall of Fame game because my drool of anticipation for fantasy football had completely soaked it. It wasn’t pretty, but now that I’ve stocked up on paper towels, let’s talk fantasy football.

It’s this time of year that I like to sit down and write out some nice text messages to the NFL studs and duds for the upcoming season.

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.

My apartment management decided that I was so excited about the NFL draft this weekend that they needed to shut off the hot water this morning to calm me down. That’s okay though. I’m not bitter. I’ll just take those lemons and…

…and who am I kidding? I’m going to throw them at the door of the office in protest tomorrow.

In retrospect, there’s nothing like a cold shower to make you think about who really got the shaft in this year’s draft. For these players, the 2008 draft cooled off their fantasy value:

Willie Parker. Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers didn’t desperately need a running back, but when Rashard Mendenhall fell to them, they had to take him. Parker immediately enters into the twilight of his career.