Week 6: Surprise Performers
The pickin’s were slim this week, at least relative to past weeks in which the pickin’s for star players actually producing were slim. No, in week 6, we saw a bevy of players who were supposed to have good seasons at least had one good week, even if many of their teams failed to come through. In lieu of an abundance of candidates, we found these diamonds in the ruff.
1)Patrick Cobbs
We already drew attention to his game yesterday, but it warrants mentioning twice. Although it was kind of a fluke and we certainly do not expect to hear from Mr. Cobbs anytime soon after this, he caught 3 passes for 128 yards and two of them were touchdowns. This is with two healthy and serviceable running backs higher than him on the depth chart. For doing the most with the least, Cobby here gets the top spot.
2) Thomas Jones
He played the Bengals, and we were hesitant to put him on hear because is it ever really all that shocking when any running back, regardless of what level he is operating at, breaks off a huge fantasy game against the Bengals? But when the going is rough, the tough get to taking liberties with half-assed top five lists. And since Thomas Jones has reached the end zone a grand total of three times since he arrived in New York (that’s a total of 20 games, to be sure), it is a spot well earned on this list when he gets in twice in one game.
3) Correll Buckhalter
It’s not that he performed well, even though we’ve expressed our dismay when he did. But since he produced in Westbrook’s absence that isn’t the reason behind his inclusion here. No, the reason Buckhalter is making this list for the second time around is due to the enormity of his production. Over 175 yards of total office plus a rushing touchdown to boot earned him the eighth spot in overall scoring and the third spot here. Remember, this is Correll Fucking Buckhalter. Even with this performance, if Westbrook ends up sidelined for an extended period of time, I’m still going to be pushing for Lorenzo Booker to be getting more carries.
4) Steve Breaston
He was bound to get some touches with the way they move the ball on the Cardinals. But 8 snags for 102 yards and a touchdown probably exceeded everyone’s expectations against Dallas, who is currently sporting the slowest, most overrated secondary, possibly ever. But as long as Boldin is recovering from a fractured sinus cavity, which we had no idea was a part of the human anatomy that was vulnerable to being fractured, Breaston should be a solid acquisition in any league after the Cards bye week. We credit most of Braylon Edwards’ coming out party last night to Breaston, who set the bar high for former UM receivers.
5) Vincent Jackson
We also mentioned Jackson yesterday and the expectations for the much ballyhooed receiver when coming into the league were probably unrealistic, but the guy obviously has talent and it was on full display Sunday night against the AFC’s version of the Cowboys secondary: the Patriots. Five receptions for 134 yards and a touchdown will earn you a lot of meals, none of which will compare to making the five spot on Talking Fantasy Football’s weekly surprise performers.
Five letdowns tomorrow.
February 12th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[...] As I have mentioned before, Thomas Jones was a severe disappointment in 2007, when they had Kellen Clemens and Chad Pennington splitting time. As bad as Favre was the second half of the season, you still had to take him into consideration when designing a defensive game plan against them, which opened up the offense Thomas Jones and to a lesser extent, Leon Washington. Not to mention all the receivers saw an increase in productivity from 2007 to 2008. Really, the only persons statistics that were adversely effected by the acquisition was Brett Favre himself. [...]