The nature of fantasy football is such that the focus of owners is mostly on the games that happen on Sunday and Monday. Therefore, fantasy owners often neglect to analyze players the weeks immediately before and after their byes.
Dan Massey's Fantasy Sports appears each Sunday. E-mail him at dmassey@lnpnews.com.
The Week 4 bye has helped the Seahawks get healthy, most noticeably at wide receiver. Both Deion Branch and Bobby Engram will return to action today, which will make the Seattle offense more formidable. Branch is available in roughly half of all leagues, and, despite not playing so far in 2008 after reconstructive knee surgery, is a good option at wide receiver.
Branch has averaged 60 catches and 795 yards receiving in his last three seasons. He has had some injury troubles historically, so he has only appeared in 13 games a year since 2005. Assuming his knee has fully healed, Branch will play 13 games again this fall. He will quietly rack up a respectable number of yards and score an occasional touchdown. Owners that need some depth at wide receiver or a player to fill in when others are on bye should acquire Branch now while his value is still low.
Rudi Johnson deserves consideration from fantasy owners regardless of not having played in two weeks. The Detroit Lions have been dreadful this year, and they have gotten behind by at least 18 points in each of their first three games. Those deficits are not recipes for success on the ground, but Johnson got 14 carries against the 49ers in Week 3. Kevin Smith, expected to get most of the carries for the Lions entering his rookie season, rushed only thrice in that same game.
Johnson tallied 83 yards against San Francisco in his first real action of the season. Although he only came to the Lions at the end of training camp, he reported to Bengals camp in great physical condition before being cut.
He will continue to do well on the touches that he gets and is a good acquisition in the one-sixth of leagues where he is a free agent. If he puts up good numbers in Week 5 against the steady Bears defense, he will be a worthwhile starter going forward.
Smith, on the other hand, is somehow still on a roster in 75 percent of fantasy leagues. All he did during his bye week was lose his job. He received diminishing carries in each of his first trio of games, and he did not perform well when he touched the ball. Averaging only 3.5 yards per carry, Smith will not see much of the field if Johnson has any modicum of success. Smith is merely taking a roster spot for more valuable players on fantasy rosters.
A player whose reputation has improved without playing this week is Michael Bush of Oakland. The Raiders, whose management has been more newsworthy than the players recently, are on a bye in Week 5. Bush has 278 yards of total offense in his last three games, but those numbers are hollow.
Bush caught seven passes for 80 yards in Week 4. An uninformed perusal of his stat line might lead an owner to confuse Michael Bush with namesake Reggie, a legitimate receiving weapon out of the backfield for the Saints. In reality, Michael Bush caught four of those passes for 47 yards in the very last drive of the game, when Oakland was down 10 points and the Chargers were in a prevent defense that allowed short passes.
In Weeks 3 and 4, Darren McFadden and Justin Fargas, both of whom are ahead of Bush on the depth chart when they are healthy, had injuries reduce their roles. Therefore, Bush was able to get more carries than normal in those games. The bye week will help McFadden and Fargas get healthy, and Bush will see as much action during his bye week as he will when the Raiders return to the field. Owners need to stop holding a roster spot for a player that will be of little effect in the future.
Donte' Stallworth is also on bye in Week 5, and he has not played at all in 2008 because of a quadriceps injury. The Browns are Stallworth's fourth team in the last four seasons. Despite the fact that he cannot seem to hang on at any one place, he has been moderately successful at every stop.
He has averaged 789 yards per season since 2005, even though he missed four games in 2006. His number of receptions is not tremendously high; he only averaged 51 catches a year in the last three years, with five touchdowns per season in that span.
Many fantasy owners have given up on Stallworth. He had ownership numbers in the nineties at the beginning of the season, yet now he is available in over half of all leagues. His return may be what the Browns and struggling quarterback Derek Anderson need to help them produce. Take a chance on Stallworth this week while he is on bye. Perhaps he will become a key midseason acquisition.
Dan Massey's Fantasy Sports appears each Sunday. E-mail him at dmassey@lnpnews.com.
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