These sudden, mysterious and largely unreported injuries have got to stop. Last week, Carson Palmer was a late scratch. This week, the victim was Matt Schaub, who was hit by a virus the night before the game.

I normally set lineups Saturday night and then let them run, but this sudden injury plague makes me want to start checking again five minutes before game time on Sunday…and then at four minutes, two minutes and one minute until kickoff.

Thanks to the virus, Matt Schaub turned over the reigns to Sage Rosenfels. He looked like he was the hero of the Texan-kind…until he decided to go airborne. When, as a quarterback (and a big one at that), do you EVER think to go airborne to make a play?

Well, that just sucks. Thanks, Week 1. Today being Patriot Day just seems to be an even more depressing reminder of the losses in real life and our slightly much less important fantasy football losses.

If you were one of the lucky fantasy footballers who lost Tom Brady this past weekend, I assume I just caught you wallowing in your own self-pity, eating a cheeseburger off the floor between fits of crying, alcoholism and throwing Cheetos…

Don’t get up. I’ll squat down to your level.

You probably don’t even feel like waking up anymore.

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.

Peyton Manning has now returned to practice, but there’s still too much bad juju around old buckethead for me to consider touching him for my fantasy team.

I can’t believe that I’m actually going to say it, but this season, it’s better to pass on the definition of a stud fantasy quarterback. I have my reasons…

1)  The knee - I know he’s “on schedule” to return to start in Week 1, and truthfully, I believe he will start Week 1 against Chicago whether he is fully healthy or not. The Colts are opening a new stadium, after all, and Manning IS the franchise with a consecutive start record to uphold.

However, say the Colts get ahead early with some runs by Addai and maybe just one touchdown grab.

Q&A QB is a new head-smacking, hard-hitting, name-taking question and answer series where Jacob assists readers and his Twitter followers in perfecting their draft strategy and winning their league. This post is the first run at it. Let Jacob know what you think in the comments, and if you’d like to be featured in a future Q&A QB post, send Jacob an email or tweet him, whatever that means.

This week in Q&A QB, we’ll take a look at several questions and a walkthrough for how to draft with the first overall pick in a nine-team division.

QUESTION: I have the first pick in the draft, and there are nine teams in a point-only division.

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.

After the long, over-hyped saga of rumors and speculation, Brett Favre should turn in his request for reinstatement and show up to the Green Bay Packers training camp this weekend.

Even though Favre and the Packers administration are talking, the Packers haven’t changed their stance on backing Aaron Rodgers as the starter, so it looks like Brett Favre could now be traded to one of several suitors.

The New York Jets have received permission to talk to Favre — unlike Minnesota – while Tampa Bay also remains in the mix as a possible destination for the legend who can’t decide when to quit.

While Favre is likely to drastically improve the wide receiver (WR) production for any team hurting at QB, trade talks are having an effect on quarterbacks in fantasy football drafts and mock drafts.

To continue the fantasy definition series, we’ll take a look at the divisions between fantasy quarterbacks.

After nailing down the difference between running backs, understanding the definition of a QB1 versus a QB2 could make or break your fantasy team.

Every winning fantasy team has at least one QB1 on the roster — sometimes two. That’s pretty much a given. We’ll break down the quarterback position into QB1s and QB2s, but sadly, QB3s don’t really exist except maybe in Canada or the arena league.

QUARTERBACK 1 (QB1)

Tom Brady. Period. That’s what you’re thinking, right?

Tom Brady put up some freakish stats in 2007, far beyond what to expect from a QB1 — call it QB0 with a little Gilbert Arenas influence.

Prompted by many an unruly quarterback (QB) ranker online these days, I’ve compiled my current top 12 list of fantasy QBs.

For the most part, I base these rankings off of projected stats for 2008, but considering these top 12 are also going to be the first QBs you want to draft, reliability and consistency has to count for something.

1. Tom Brady - Patriots
Brady tops the list because he was a stat monster last year, but I have doubts he will repeat. Still, he stays on top because that’s where you will have to pick him if you want him on your fantasy team this year.

2. Tony Romo - Cowboys
Romo led the second-ranked, high-powered offense of the Cowboys in 2007 and is poised to repeat. All his weapons return plus a few more.

3.

Rain or shine, feast or famine, storm or impending doom, fantasy football diehards love to mock draft. I’m definitely guilty of already plotting for one, but I dare not complete one before the NFL draft and a few more free agent moves have passed.

Rather than do one for myself, I gathered together several that have taken place since the end of the 2007 season and analyzed a few interesting moves that are occurring in the projected 2008 drafts.

Quarterbacks are taking a big jump in this draft since Tom Brady inflated his value like he inflated his ego in 2008. Is he the first quarterback to take? And when should you take him? The alternative could be the old, reliable other Manning, or is it?