There’s nothing like the early list of quarterback leaders to make fantasy football players think they’re standing on their heads.
It’s still early, but Chicago’s Rex Grossman, Houston’s David Carr and San Francisco’s Alex Smith rank among the top 10 fantasy quarterbacks after two weeks. We talked about Chad Pennington last week, and whoever jumped on him is in a pretty good position.
Meanwhile proven veterans such as Tom Brady, Carson Palmer, and Marc Bulger have been good and bad.
Never mind the likes of Jake Plummer and Ben Roethlisberger, who were dependable fantasy starters last season. In three combined starts, neither of these guys have passed for more than 173 yards, neither has thrown a touchdown pass and they’ve tossed a total of six interceptions.
Numbers like those are difficult to swallow for fantasy owners when they watch when they turn on “SportsCenter” and see Grossman tossing four touchdown passes in a game, or watch Carr post four scoring passes while not throwing a pick through two games.
Smith, meanwhile, has turned into the picture of consistency by throwing for a touchdown and no interceptions in his first two starts.
So, what does this all mean?
It certainly isn’t time to bench Brady for Smith. But could it be time to bench Plummer for Carr? Maybe.
It’s certainly too soon to hit the panic button on anyone, including Plummer. But it would be a good idea to snap one of these up-and-comers and use them for the next three weeks while Plummer visits the Patriots, takes a bye week and then faces the Baltimore Ravens.
In Week 6 he’ll get the perfect remedy: a date with the Oakland Raiders.
Until then, look elsewhere.
At the same time, Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck and Carolina’s Jake Delhomme – who are also generally solid fantasy starters – are struggling. One has to think these two will turn things around once their wide receiver situations settle down. Delhomme is finding that life without Steve Smith is pretty rough and Hasselbeck is still meeting most of the receivers on his team.
Palmer threw for big yards last week, but still matched his touchdown count with interceptions at two each.
Brady might be running out of receivers and the two-headed running back situation there will take some throwing chances away from him. It could be time to look for a better option while, of course, keeping Brady on your roster.
Bulger should also move to a backup spot on your roster until we get a better idea of where his place is in the new offense. In the first two games, he hasn’t thrown for more than 217 yards and has just one TD pass.
Fantasy football is all about points. Right now, some guys are scoring them and some are not. Names such as Carr, Grossman and Smith (Alex, anyway) haven’t been relied upon for points in the past, but it could be their time.
These guys should definitely be owned in your league and if someone is going to benefit from their production, it should be you.
Columnist Victor Balta: balta@heraldnet.com.
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