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.

If the Patriots proved one thing this season, they proved it is absolutely required for top fantasy managers to track free agent movement. Don’t be distracted by rookies taken in the NFL draft. Besides a few impact first-rounders, you probably won’t see a lot of impact to your fantasy season by anyone in the draft until 2009 or even 2010 year.

This off-season, many critical fantasy players are up for new contracts. Football Jabber provides some analysis of some of the top offensive free agents–although I suspect many of the players he discusses will stay where they are besides Michael Turner–and Draft Daddy went in-depth to rank and track all the offensive free agents. Note that Draft Daddy pulls out the Key Restricted Free Agents from their rankings and lists them below each position.

Offensive free agents that I suggest you pay attention to in the off-season:

Rex Grossman, QB Chicago Bears
If someone else gives Grossman a chance, i.e.

Oh, you weren’t starting to settle into a nice little butt groove going into the last week before playoffs were you? I’m sorry. If you didn’t notice, several starters just fell apart this week leaving you in the position to grab up the next starter before you playoff opponents or in great need of grabbing your back ups if you didn’t handcuff.

This week we’ll combine the injury report and waiver wire.

Philip Rivers, QB SD
Keep your eye on Rivers. Even though he has been inconsistent, he could emerge as a promising starter for your playoff run if another owner has already given up on him.

Kolby Smith, RB KC
If no one picked him up last week, does 150+ yards and 2 TDs convince you? Of course, that was against Oakland, but Smith should get his yards as the focus of the Kansas City offense as long as Larry Johnson stays out.

I know it’s a holiday, but it’s also the best time to get a jump on the other teams by grabbing the best players off the waiver wire. If you don’t have any injuries–you must have signed that contract with Satan, but regardless, there is fresh blood and starters running around the NFL.

Here are the people worth taking.

Kolby Smith, RB Kansas City Chiefs
With no LJ and no Priest, Smith will have to carry this team for them to have a prayer.

Heath Evans and Kyle Eckel, RB New England Patriots
The Patriot running backs rotate weekly. With Maroney and Faulk going down with injuries last week, we could see the hand-offs going to Evans or Eckel this week. Keep an eye on the injury rep–wait, it’s the Patriots. Just guess…or play Eckel if you have to pick one to take a chance since he gets most of the garbage carries for TDs. General rule of thumb is not to trust Patriot RBs.

I’ll make this week brief because, frankly, there aren’t too many players worth grabbing in leagues that aren’t probably already grabbed.  Here are a few notes gathered from suggestions around the Web.  If they are available, go after them, but don’t be too hopeful that they will be there in the free agent pool.

Kellen Clemens, QB New York Jets

I have talked about him before, but if he is still available, grab him now.  He is coming off a bye week of practice as the starting QB and should have a nice core of healthy receivers to throw to in Week 11.

JaMarcus Russell, QB Oakland Raiders
John Beck, QB Miami Dolphins

I’ll lump these two together because they are purely speculative.  If you are mopping it up in a dynasty league, you should definitely have one of these two on your roster as a QB of the future.  If you are hurting so bad at QB that you don’t have tears anymore, use a roster spot for Russell he could–emphasis on “could”–have a big impact with the Raiders when they finally decide to stop bruising McCown week after week.