1. Andre Johnson
2. Austin Miles
3. Reggie Wayne
4. Randy Moss
5. Larry Fitzgerald
6. Roddy White
7. Sidney Rice
8. Greg Jennings

I’m more up in the air with my rankings at the WR position than probably any other position. I’m not confident in Leinart throwing the ball to Fitzgerald. Who throws to Rice if Favre doesn’t come back. Can Kevin Kolb make DeSean Jackson a top 8 WR? How big of a jump in production does Matthew Stafford make in his second season? I really think WR is a position that has a lot of sorting out to do before now and the kick-off of the season. For now the top three I have are those with the least number of questions surrounding them. The rest have so many questions surrounding them that I could probably move them around on a daily basis.

1. Vernon Davis
2. Antonio Gates
3. Dallas Clark
4. Visanthe Shiancoe
5. Heath Miller
6. Brent Celek
7. Tony Gonzalez
8. Jason Witten

For the last several years I have been a pretty big advocate of taking a TE early in the draft. I have some more numbering crunching that I want to do, but I don’t see myself being as big an advocate of that this season. One guy that I really want to keep an eye on in draft is Jermichael Finley. I think he pushes for a top 8 spot and if he goes late enough present some pretty solid value. Heath Miller should probably be someplace in the top 8. I think he gets more looks with no Holmes, but I worry about the whole suspension thing with Big Ben.

Very Preliminary Top 8 QBs
1. D. Brees
2. A. Rodgers
3. P. Manning
4. M. Schaub
5. T. Brady
6. T. Romo
7. P. Rivers
8. B. Favre

My two cents….
I rarely target top 8 quarterbacks in my leagues. If one happens to fall to me I will take him, but I typically like to take the value you get selecting a quarterback in the mid rounds. For example, last year in one of my leagues I was the last team to draft a quarterback and ended up with Ben Roethlisberger. Value is there in drafting a QB in the later rounds and I think it will be again this season. Guys like Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan and Jay Cutler are all guys that I think could have good seasons for where they might be drafted.

Very Preliminary Top 6 RBs
1. C. Johnson
2. R. Rice
3. ADP
4. MJD
5. S. Greene
6. R. Grant
7. S. Jackson
8. J. Charles

My two cents…
I am sure that a couple of people will think that I am a bit nuts with Greene at No. 5. Part of me thinks I am as well. However, the moves they have made this offseason along with the continued development of Sanchez should make it pretty hard for teams to key on the run. One thing I did notice in doing this list is that there were a lot of guys that I really wanted to include. I really like the depth at running back this year and the value I think you can get in later rounds.

Random Thought

At some point somebody really should tell Josh McDaniels that having All-Pro level
players on offense isn’t a bad thing. This might be why Eddie Royal had such a horrible season last year, he didn’t want to get traded.

Thoughts? Comments? Jokes?

I haven’t checked with the big-shots on what their plans moving ahead are, but several weeks ago I got the green light to blog away on the front page. I won’t spend much time on the NFL draft as I’m a big believer that you can’t really pass out grades for the draft until at least two years after the fact and I would be doing little more than guessing on how goes where. What I will be doing is looking at some of the winners and losers from the free agency period and looking at some early season sleepers and busts I’m targeting.

A Couple of Random Bits

I was pretty high on Shonn Greene over the last quarter of the season and am even higher on him since the Jets dumped Thomas Jones. It is as clear a sign you need that Greene is the team’s primary back. I’m a bit confused though why so many people think the Jets made a mistake in dumping Jones and signing LaDainian Tomlinson. The main argument people have been making is that Jones has more in the tank and is thus the better running back. You would get no argument on that from me. Although, I would point out Jones’s 2.6 ypc average during the play-offs that he may be hitting the wall just as hard as LT. What people are missing is that Jones and Greene have two very similar skill sets. What the team needs is a back that can spell Greene and serve as a receiver out of the backfield. I think the Jets could have done better than LT, Chester Taylor comes to mind, but for what they need LT is the better choice.

I’ve seen more than a couple of people giving Jimmy Clausen props for how professional he was in talking with Todd McShay. What exactly were people expecting? Are expectations that low for professional athletes? I will admit that a re-run of this would have been highly entertaining.

That will do it for now. I will be back later this week with a first look at my preliminary top eight at each position so check back so you can be the first to tell me how stupid I am.

QB

1. B. Favre

2. E. Manning

3. B. Roethlisberger

4. M. Schaub

5. “MVP Candidate” V. Young

RB

1. C. Johnson

2. F. Gore

3. J. Stewart

4. MJD

5. R. Rice

WR

1. A. Johnson

2. S. Smith (nyg)

3. R. White

4. S. Rice

5. S. Holmes

TE

1. J. Witten

2. V. Davis

3. V. Shiancoe

4. H. Miller

5. J. Carlson

D/ST

1. 49ers

2. Titans

3. Bears

4. Broncos

5. Redskins

K

1. R. Longwell

2. D. Ackers

3. K. Brown

4. B. Cundiff

5. R. Bironas

Questions

1. B. Roethlisberger

2. J. Stewart

3. S. Holmes

4. Titans

5. R. Rice

Mock away.

1. A. Rodgers – Only the Falcons have been worse defending against the QB position over the last five.

2. M. Schuab

3. T. Brady – The injuries worry me, but the Jags are awful on the road.

4. P. Rivers – The Titans ruined this pick for me.

5. K. Warner

RB

1. C. Benson – Last week proved that the Chiefs are allergic to tackling.

2. F. Gore

3. C. Johnson – Everybody is jumping on the Chargers bandwagon, but they really need to fix their run D if they are planning on making a run at the SB.

4. A. Peterson

5. S. Jackson – They really should shut him down for the season.

WR

1. A. Johnson – Best WR in football going against a green Miami secondary.

2. R. Moss

3. G. Jennings – I could easily see Driver doing more, but Jennings won my coin flip.

4. W. Welker – Hedging my bets a bit with picking two Pats.

5. M. Austin – I wanted to pick him last week, but didn’t have the guts. I’ll pick him this week and he will fall flat…bet on it.

TE

1. J. Finley – Top three TE next season, top five this week.

2. A. Gates – Wish Gates was playing like this at the start of the season.

3. D. Clark

4. V. Shiancoe

5. J. Carlson – Not too comfortable with this pick as it really looks like Seattle has thrown in the towel, but I really like the match-up.

K

1. S. Graham

2. R. Longwell

3. G. Hartley

4. N. Kaeding

5. S. Suisham

Def/ST

1. Packers

2. 49ers

3. Cardinals

4. Bengals

5. Vikings

Questions

1. Flacco

2. Wells

3. Holmes

4. Cleveland

5. Grant

Mock away in the comments

However, that player happened to be Brett Favre and *Rules 1-17 when covering the NFL is ‘Thou shall not question Brett Favre’. People can argue as much as they want about if taking Favre out was the right move, I don’t think it was, but the bottom line is that Brad Childress is the head coach. If the head coach tells you to sit, you sit. I think an even bigger issue is how at ease Favre was with admitting that Childress wanted to take him out and Favre basically told him to bugger off. That doesn’t show a whole lot of respect for the coach and when your quarterback doesn’t show much respect for the coach other players are likely to follow. If Randy Moss or Terrell Owens pulled such a move, they would be crucified.

After the Colts Week 15 win against the Jaguars, Peyton Manning was asked about the pull between an undefeated season Vs. resting for the play-offs. Manning simply said that he wanted to go for it, but that Caldwell was the coach and you do what the coach said. Favre probably would have responded with a laugh and reminded the interviewer that it was Favre who really ran things not some silly coach (yes, Favre would speak about himself in the third person).

For those not up to date on the story, click here.

*Rule No. 18 when discussing Brett Favre is that you have to use the term ‘gunslinger’ some place.

In other news…..

The Cowboys are are looking really sharp to start off tonight’s game. I’m really regretting not having the guts to put Miles Austin in my top 5.

Quarterbacks

1. K. Warner – The Lions are so bad I would consider Brady Quinn top five worthy against them.

2. A. Rodgers

3. D. Brees

4. P. Manning

5. M. Schaub

Running Backs

1. A. Peterson

2. C. Johnson – I’m not sold on the match-up, but it is just too tough not to put him in here considering the numbers he has put up this season.

3. T. Jones

4. K. Moreno – A, likely, full workload for Moreno against a woeful Raiders run defense….[sarah palin]You betcha![/sarah palin]

5. R. Rice – I have been going back and forth between R. Ray and J. Charles here. Going with Rice simple means J. Charles is set to break records on Sunday.

WR

1. A. Johnson

2. L. Fitzgerald – The injuries concern me, but he practiced Friday and I think he will play.

3. C. Ochocinco – I’ve never pulled harder for a player to score. Scroll down for why.

4. A. Bryant – The Seahawks are giving up a ton to wide receivers, 206 yards receiving and 2 TDs per game over the last five weeks to be exact.

5. R. Wayne – His 19 points from Thursday would have put him fourth last week, feeling pretty confident he doesn’t get bumped from the top 5.

TE

1. V. Davis

2. A. Gates

3. D. Clark

4. F. Davis

5. J. Witten – Was going to go with Winslow here, but with him not practicing Friday I’m not sold on him playing.

K

1. R. Longwell

2. D. Akers

3. L. Tynes

4. K. Brown

5. M. Nugent

Def

1. Jets

2. Cardinals

3. Texans

4. Broncos

5. Vikings

Questions

1. J. Freeman

2. A. Foster

3. D. Bowe

4. Buffalo

5. C. Wells

Mock away in the comments.

Some people hate Ochocinco’s antics. I am not one of them. I love them, even though I think most of them are stupid. I love them because we get to catch a brief glimpse of a player that just absolutely loves what he gets to do for a living. I also think he pulls the antics that he does because he likes having people talk about him, but I don’t think that is the only reason. I’m pulling for Ochocinco to score this week because I want to see what he does in honor/memory of Chris Henry. I’m pulling for Ochocinco to score this week because I want to see if Goodell fines him for it or the refs flag him for it.  If you haven’t seen the Youtube clip of Ochocinco talking about the loss of Henry, do so. Like him or hate him I think you would have a hard time convincing yourself that his emotions in the clip are for show.

The league has asked all team’s to observe a moment of silence in memory of Chris Henry this week. Good for them. I imagine that the Bengals will be wearing some sort of patch on their jerseys or decal on their helmets. Good for them. And if Chad Ochocinco finds the end zone this weekend I would be willing to bet that he has something special planned in memory of his teammate and friend. Goodell and the refs, just this once, should stay the hell out of it.

FYI, Peyton Manning is actually the most greatestest quarterback evah.