First a note about Tony Romo, snce he doesn’t fit into any of the categories below.  Latest word is he’s active for the game but not starting, but he might start anyway.  Regardless, don’t start him.  Between the Patriots-style secrecy about his status and the analysts’ consensus that a broken pinky ruins your ability to control passes just bench him and move on.

As always, subject to change until 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

Playing

Clinton Portis
Bernard Berrian
Kellen Winslow
Calvin Johnson
Sidney Rice
Jonathan Stewart
TJ Houshmandzadeh
Jeremy Shockey
Trent Edwards

Not Playing

Tony Scheffler
Justin Gage
Justin McCareins
Joseph Addai
Larry Johnson
Brandon Stokeley

Too Close to Call

Selvin Young
Joey Galloway

Last week was a heartbreaker for the All-Start Team.  Going into the Monday night game they were up by a significant margin, with the Giants defense left to go and only Braylon Edwards on the All-Bench team.

Then it all went wrong.

Team: Game (Season)
All-Start: 79 (421)
All-Bench: 85 (418)

So this week I’m changing it up.  I’m altering my methods.  And I’m not only going to give you the usual but also predict how many points they’re going to get.

This should be interesting…

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Nine of ten teams are repeat performances, with Tampa being the only one we’ve yet to see.  My apologies to the Bengals, Panthers, Texans and Titans for not being able to get to you yet, but for reasons I’ve yet to figure out none of your games have been broadcast here.

Which brings up a good point: Why have those four teams been left out while we’ve seen the Chargers five times and the Eagles and Giants four each?  It doesn’t seem to be regional, two of the most shown non-local teams are on the opposite coast, and it’s not a bias toward better records, the Titans are the NFL’s last undefeated team and the Chargers and Eagles are both only at 3-3.

In fact record doesn’t seem to be a factor at all.  Of the four teams we haven’t seen the Titans and Panthers are a combined 9-2 while the Bengals and Texans are a combined 1-10.

But I seem to have gone off on a long tangent.  This week’s schedule is below, current list of how many times we’ve seen each team is down at the bottom of the post.

10 a.m. Oct. 19: 49ers at Giants, Fox
10 a.m. Oct. 19: Chargers at Bills, CBS
1 p.m. Oct. 19: Jets at Raiders, CBS
5:15 p.m. Oct. 19: Seahawks at Bucs, NBC
5:30 p.m. Oct. 20: Broncos at Patriots, ESPN

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NOW NOW NOW GO GO GO

(Post not valid after 1 p.m. Oct. 16.)

Let’s start with the prediction that was most likely to come true…

You saw that right.  Peyton Manning.  All-Bench Team.  I am predicting the worst game of Peyton’s career.  Which means, considering what happened last week, he’s going to throw for eight touchdowns and rush for another three.

I wasn’t completely right of course, he only passed for three touchdowns, but putting him on the All-Bench Team pretty much guaranteed he was going to have the best game of his season against what was previously the best defense in the NFL.

Even taking that into account I was on pace to have a pretty good week until last night’s game.  All-Start’s New York defense turned in a -1 while All-Bench’s Braylon Edwards got an amazing 23, giving All-Start its second loss of the season and putting All-Bench within three of an overall point lead.  It’s not looking good for our heroes.

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You know the drill by now.  Post your Week 7 questions in the comments to this post and we’ll answer them as soon as we see them.  Potential trades, who to start and who to bench, free agent pickups, bye week replacements, it’s all fair game.

Playing

Roddy White, WR, ATL
Bernard Berrian, WR, MIN
Roy Williams, WR, DET
Calvin Johnson, WR, DET
Shayne Graham, K, CIN
Darren McFadden, RB, OAK
Anthony Gonzalez, WR, IND

Not Playing

Brian Westbrook, RB, PHI
Matt Hasslebeck, QB, SEA
Brian Griese, QB, TB
Deion Branch, WR, SEA
Eddie Royal, WR, DEN
Kellen Winslow, TE, CLE
Marques Colston, WR, NO
Jon Kitna, QB, DET
LaMont Jordan, RB, NE
Sidney Rice, WR, MIN

Too Close to Call

Laurence Maroney, RB, NE
Kevin Curtis, WR, PHI
Seneca Wallace, QB, SEA

Well, the All-Start Team beat the All-Bench Team last week.

Barely.

But I’ve gone over all this in the Rating My Advice post so let’s get right to the good stuff.

Team: Week (Season)
All-Start: 98 (342)
All-Bench: 97 (333)

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We see the Falcons for the first time this year.  Other than that…more of the same.  After six weeks we’ve seen the Chargers and Eagles four times each, while there are five teams we haven’t seen at all.  (Full stats at the bottom of the post.)

All is not lost, however.  Things have changed.  The Eagles are injured, the Raiders have a new coach and the Chargers are getting desperate.  Let’s see how it breaks down.

10 a.m. Oct. 12: Bears at Falcons, Fox
10 a.m. Oct. 12: Saints at Raiders, CBS
1 p.m. Oct. 12: Eagles at 49ers, Fox
5:15 p.m. Oct. 12: Patriots at Chargers, NBC
5:30 p.m. Oct. 13: Giants at Browns, ESPN

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Yes, you read that correctly, I’m listing an entire team as a “curious case.”

To be fair, it’s not literally the ENTIRE team. More specifically, it’s about an offense that had high expectations and has, mostly, been an utter disappointment. Even more specifically, we’re talking about Carson Palmer, Ocho Cinco Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh and Chris Perry. All four of these players were surely drafted in your league, and at least three of them probably went in the first five rounds. And if your draft was held after the Bengals cut Rudi Johnson, there’s a good chance all four of them did.

And what have they done, exactly? Aside from Houshmandzadeh who’s averaging about 70 yards and has scored three TDs — hardly impressive, by the way — this group has done almost nothing to help their fantasy owners. Mr. Ocho Cinco has a grand total of 159 yards and one TD; Perry has a very pedestrian 284 combined yards and two TDs; and Palmer is one pace to have the worst season of his career, which includes a very pedestrian first year as a starter.

None of these guys, including Houshmandzadeh, are worthy of automatic starts. Unless you’re in a particularily deep league, their not even must-own players. That’s a pretty sharp decline for four players that were considered among the best offensive units going into the start of the season, and not surprsingly their team is 0-4.

Of course, you probably know all of that. The question, as usual, is how do you use this information to your advantage?

Let’s take them one at a time.
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