NFL Week 2: Finding Trends

The highly anticipated first week of NFL action came and went Thursday-Monday. There was a great disturbance in the fantasy football force, as if thousands of Tom Brady owners cried out at once and were then silenced. Eddie Royal and Michael Turner were both traded for vastly superior talent. Aaron Rodgers made some of the Green Bay faithful into believers (the MLTS crew were already believers).

Quite a few expectations in Week 1 were fulfilled, and, naturally, there were some surprising developments. Here are some things that could turn into trends this season, in no particular order.

1. Carson Palmer may not be a top 10 fantasy quarterback. He looked abysmal against an excellent Ravens defense, one that he'll have to play again. Expect Houshmandzadeh and Chad Ocho Cinco (Housh and COC for the rest of this article) to suffer accordingly. Cincinnatti's run game is lousy, their line is lousy and Palmer/COC haven't had the cleanest injury histories. The flip side of this is that the Ravens are an excellent defense and Palmer/COC/Housh didn't really take many preseason snaps. CIN's game vs. TEN this week is going to be a big one. Palmer should get better protection than Gerrard did because his O-Line is technically on the field, unlike Gerrards.

2. The Rams might not have any viable fantasy players. Or at least they won't get you the return you were expecting. They were, without a doubt, the worst looking team in the NFL last week. Holt didn't get separation, Jackson couldn't find any holes, Bulger held on to the ball forever and got knocked around. The Giants are a good defense, but not on the same level as the Eagles in my estimation. If the Rams don't put up 14-17 points in this game I'm going to be very worried about owning all of the aforementioned players. The silver lining here is that the Rams will have 6 of their last 14 games against the terrible NFC West, so anything can happen from a fantasy perspective.

3. Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall may be the only sure things on Denver from a fantasy perspective. I'm really high on Tony Scheffler (1 reception, 72 yards. 1 drop in the end zone (THAT HIT HIM RIGHT ON THE NUMBERS! CHRIST, YOU HAVE TO CATCH THAT!)) but Mike Shanahan didn't look at Scheffler after he dropped the TD pass, he wasn't even on the field much. Their RB situation is still a mess from a fantasy perspective, it's really too bad they don't have just one back -- 142 yards and 3 TDs would be a monster day. Eddie Royal looked incredible on Monday, but Shanahan might decide he's better than every other coach out there and go with a 7 WR, 3 TE, 3 RB committee everywhere. Really loving Cutler, though.

4. Matt Forte is not as good as he was on Sunday. The Colts have a terrible run defense and have had a terrible run defense for the last... well, always. I really liked what Forte did in that game but as he gets into the tougher defenses in the NFL, starting with Carolina this week, look for him to fade. The good thing is that he gets 2 games against the Lions.

5. Anthony Fasano is going to lead the Dolphins in receptions and receiving yards. This one is sort of a microcosm of a larger trend this year in fantasy -- incredible TE depth. If you missed out on Witten and Winslow, you may be able to match their production playing matchups off of waivers (in shallow leagues). Not kidding.

6. Steelers wideouts are going to be tremendous this year. I know that might not be the expected angle to take after such a superlative day from Willie Parker, but if teams are going to have to stack the box to prevent future outbreaks like that, watch out for Big Ben, Holmes and Ward. 25 yard post patterns for TDs galore.