I usually try to stray from the obvious guys, but Jackson’s performance yesterday is too hard to ignore. Even rated as a top-five running back going into the season, Jackson had a lot of hate from fantasy analysts this preseason (including the Fools). He finally had his breakout day against…my Cowboys. *sigh*

While he may not have many more three-touchdown games this season, Jackson easily put the hurt on the Cowboys in Week 7 to earn the Rams more respect.

The running back we all doubted in Carolina stepped up big against the Chiefs. No, it’s not the biggest accomplishment in life to run over the Chiefs defense, but Williams did it in style AND takes home the Dude… award this week because of it — mostly because we doubted him. Unfortunately for all the Stewart owners out there (including me), Williams didn’t share the TD wealth and got several carries close to the goal line.

Williams ended the day with 123 yards rushing, 25 yards receiving and three touchdowns.

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.

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:

Q&A QB is a 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. If you’d like to be featured in a future Q&A QB post, send Jacob an email or tweet him (whatever that means).

QUESTION: What are your thoughts on some of the rookie running backs in the later rounds?

I have a feeling someone in my league will jump on the McFadden bandwagon and take him second or third round.

If you were concerned about Ronnie Brown after reading my article about how much you love him this season, maybe a little video about how he is rehabbing will help you calm down about that pesky knee. Yes? No?

I don’t particularly like to hear that his knee isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Last weekend, I asked all my Twitter followers what players ranked in the top 50 they didn’t want to touch in their fantasy football drafts.

I’m sure each one of you is hoarding some dark feelings towards one of the top 10 players in fantasy, but even knowing the hatred you hold in your hearts for some of the NFL’s best, I received a few curveballs in the responses.

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.

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.

If you followed along with my recent expert draft, you saw me pass on taking a lot of depth at running back (RB) in the early rounds. Only in the later rounds did I really flesh out the RB position on my team.

Taking Tom Brady in the first round certainly didn’t help me snag several elite RBs, but he fell to me at the 10 spot. Come on, I had to do it.