Week 5 Observations

That time of the week again, let's get down to it.

Russell Wilson - This guy is an elite quarterback plain and simple. If Pete Carroll were ever to open the playbook up for Wilson, his already impressive passing numbers would stack him up with the likes of the Andrew Lucks and Aaron Rodgers of the league. Add his uncanny ability to run the football in key spots and you can easily see the fantasy value presented by this guy. And is it just me, or does everytime he runs the football come at an opportune time where he is virtually untouched after defenses bite on a fake?

Bishop Sankey - I made the mistake of falling onto the "Bishop Sankey Coming Out Party" this past week. Shonn Greene has just been god awful. The Titans enjoyed a 25 point lead at one point in the game. If not then, then when? With no real answers right now in Tennessee after a string of embarrassing losses, what does Whisenhunt have to lose?

Eddie Lacy - About damn time. I am still skeptical if this will be sustained, but some of those carries on Thursday night were man's carries. I am praying Lacy is not this year's Trent Richardson. The offensive line is still suspect, but Rodgers is playing some great ball right now and should open up the run game for Lacy.

Cam Newton - Decent passing game this weekend, but still not running the football like we have come to expect. Is this a result of the injury, or some desire by the Panthers organization to preserve their franchise QB?

Demarco Murray and Arian Foster - Two franchise RB's with injury histories. Two franchise RB's with huge workloads thus far this season. Do they remain healthy for the rest of the year? I actually think neither misses much time at all.

Sammy Watkins, Julio Jones, Fabian Guerra (youtube the name) - Ridiculous one handed catches this weekend, my god. If only one of us could translate that to the High noon gridiron?

Matthew Stafford - Still cannot shake the career knock of being Calvin Johnson dependent. While Golden Tate put up some numbers (which I unfortunately know all too well), the vaunted Detroit offense managed a mere 14 points.

Pittsburgh Steelers - After being pretty high on the talent in Pittsburgh this year, they manage 17 points against an awful Jacksonville defense? Antonio Brown, Big Ben, Leveon Bell, Markus Wheaton, Heath Miller do not equate to 17 points. And it's not like they didn't move the football.

Andre Williams - I think the rookie will fill in very well for the injured Rashad Jennings (similar injury to Ryan Matthews, may miss some time). He has scored in two straight games and runs the football with authority. On a team that loves to pound the rock in the red, I expect good production. Does have questionable hands though, will not present the PPR upside that Jennings has shown.

Doug Martin - Will we ever see the day when the right people (I'm looking at you Lovie Smith) realize Doug Martin just isn't good?

Larry Donnell - The big goose egg this week after a historic performance last week. Double covered for most of the game, just saw one target all game. If you want to be considered alongside Graham and Gronk in this league, you still need to produce under all sorts of coverage. In other news, Odell Beckham Jr. looks really good. Speed to spread the field and the mitts to catch balls thrown in his general direction, I think we'll see some nice numbers out of the rookie going forward.

Antone Smith - A TD machine, I am curious to see if he has earned himself more touches going forward yet. Steven Jackson just lacks explosiveness and is not the same back he was 3-4 years ago. Devonta Freeman has shown flashes in his limited touches as well. So far the Falcons have seemed content with the plodding running of Jackson so far, but could add an additional element to a very good offense. May not be a bad idea considering the state of that offensive line right now.

Philadelphia Eagles - Got the run game established against the Rams, but still only two offensive touchdowns for this vaunted offense. This is the second straight week of poor production from this offense, with their defense and special teams keeping them in football games. I would expect a bounceback this week against the G-men with both teams putting up points.

Austin Davis - Made some mistakes, but this kid has come out of nowhere to post some significant numbers so far this year. In two starts he has posted two games over 20 fantasy points on a team with limited weapons on the outside. Would make a decent bye week start for any team.

Montee Ball - Goes down with what looked like a very painful groin injury. Begs the question, who is up next for the Broncos? Conventional wisdom would indicate it is Ronnie Hillman, but I don't think this is the between the tackles answer they are looking for. Rumors from Denver are that Peyton Manning is a fan of rookie Juwan Thompson and let's be honest, what Manning says goes in Denver.

Tom Brady - And just when people started to write the Pats off, Brady shows us why he is one of the best to ever do it. I am not sure why I was surprised though. Time and again through his career, Brady and Belichick have rebounded from a tough loss with a statement to the rest of the league. Brady was effective through the air against a very good defense, and Ridley was effective on the ground. We may be seeing a rekindling of the two TE action we saw in NE before Aaron Hernandez started a body count with Tim Wright having a nice game here. On the other side of the coin, Cincy once again struggles in a prime time game. Dalton missed Bernard for a walk in touchdown at one point, and they were just plain beat from the opening whistle.

In Equalizer League news, we no longer have any winless teams. Congratulations to the SGF Dirtdogs and Dark Force for joining the fray with their first victories of the season this week (the Force doing so in convincing fashion). I said in this week's rankings I wasn't looking forward to playing a winless team, looks like I built some bad fantasy karma. We also no longer have any undefeated teams, with the early championship favorite Fat Cats falling to the Las Vegas Outlaws in what was a pretty ugly matchup and the Roc City Super Dudes getting steamrolled by the aforementioned Force (interesting side note - first time an opponent has scored over 100 points against the Dudes all season). Might we be seeing a little parity in the league playing out this year? Remains to be seen. Until next week boys, Pandemonium out.