Fantasy Football

A few news items relevant to fantasy football.

-The running back corps. for the 2009 draft class is disappointing at the combines. Most notably Knowshon Moreno (as opposed to the other Knowshon) and Chris Wells. This means that instead of being drafted in the top fifteen, they could potentially be looking at a late first or early second placing. In terms of what that would mean for the team that takes them, they might be a tad hesitant to put them in the regular rotation at the start of the season. But if 2008 is any indication that’s not necessarily true. Tim Hightower was drafted in the 7th round and was among the league leaders in touchdowns. In other words, there’s a good chance that their fallen draft status has absolutely no bearing on their rookie season.

-In today’s disgruntled NFL wide receiver news, Marvin Harrison wants out of Indy. Or rather, he wants more money than they’re willing to pay him (or anybody is willing to pay him, I imagine). I like Harrison despite my seething disdain for the team he plays for, but his agent might want to clue him in here, and bring him up to speed about his current market value. What does one think an aging, under-sized and now injury prone wide receiver generally go for on the open market? He might want to rely on the loyalty that Indy has towards him for as big of a contract as he can garner.

That said, I would love for the Eagles to sign him.

-And finally, Kurt Warner wants to go back to the Cardinals and the Cardinals want Kurt Warner back, but there’s a staunch disagreement as to how many years he should get out of the deal (one or two, I’ll let you figure who wants which). I can understand both sides here, Arizona doesn’t want to commit too much to a 38 year-old and the 38 year-old wants as much security as possible. But what I can’t understand is why Arizona doesn’t just agree to Warner’s terms, and then cut his ass when they no longer want to honor it? I imagine they owe him a percentage of that money he was going to make in that second year, but it’s called a compromise. Warner, unlike Harrison, could probably start a bidding war if he was unrestricted.

Arizona has a lot of options here, they still have Matt Leinart who hasn’t taken enough snaps to be considered a bust or a prodigy. They’re coming off a Super Bowl appearance and since they are the Arizona Cardinals, they’re probably fairly concerned about falling back to the NFL basement. But at some point they’re going to have to give Leinart a shot at the QB1 position, so if they really do not want to sign him just start the Matt Leinart era two years later than expected instead of three or four years later.

That’s about all that’s circulating that isn’t overly-analytical op-eds coming out of the combines, and we’re not about to delve into that. Back tomorrow with something.