Check out the first edition of this year’s risers and fallers.
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August 4th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Haha, I think Walker must have read your column and conceded the point. And to think I was actually a little upset when he left GB.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:49 am
what do you think of trading brandon jacobs for matt forte for this year and for the future in my keeper league, i still have bad feeling on jacobs will never be what you think he should be, forte i have really not much feeling on, and will probably be less than jacobs this year, but should be better than jacobs from there on out——–thanks
August 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Poor Javon. What a head case. He’s got issues, and he needs to deal with them head on.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Randy - That’s a close one. On one hand, Jacobs plays for the far better team, is always productive when on the field and has huge TD potential. On the other, he’s extremely injury-prone and has to compete for touches with two other backs, and one of them (Bradshaw) is very talented.
Forte is risky himself, since he’s an unproven rookie, but he has a much clearer path to touches, and he should be more involved in the passing game than Jacobs. Especially if you are playing for the future and have a bad feeling about Jacobs, this is a fine deal to make.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Re: Forte. I have only a few words of analysis on this one: Rashaan Salaam, Curtis Enis, Cedric Benson.
The Bears have not developed a decent running back since, and I kid you not, Neal Anderson. He retired 15 years ago. In the years since, the only time they got any reasonable production from the position was from Thomas Jones, and they couldn’t wait to ship his ass out of town. As much flak at the Bears rightfully take about their total inability to secure a halfways decent signal-caller since Sid Luckman (who retired before the Korean War, for a frame of reference), the sad truth is that their running backs have scarcely been any better since the elder Bush was in office.
Besides, I swear to god, this is a 3-13 team waiting to happen. Because of freak institutional luck, they might somehow scrap their way to 5-11 or even 6-10, but no better. Let’s just say there aren’t going to be a lot of second-half leads to protect. Injury bug or no, I would opt for Jacobs 11 times out of 10.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Interesting. Forte may or may not be a bust, but Salaam, Enis and Benson will have nothing to do with it either way. Those guys all had serious attitude/work problems. But I can def. hear your argument for Jacobs over Forte, especially this season.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
No, no, their failure hardly says anything about him personally, but at the same time, I do think it says something about the team’s evident inability to properly gauge and develop talent at the position. I guess I don’t see what has changed between the Benson pick and now, unless Jerry Angelo has had some kind of Damascene revelation we haven’t heard about. They have a new first round o-lineman nobody is much impressed with, I guess that’s something. On the other hand, the rest of the line is still pedestrian at best, they will almost certainly have one of the two or three worst QB situations in the league, and their “lead” WR has averaged 10 receptions for 149.5 yds and a TD per year for his pro career so far, and even Chicago radio homers have expressed reservations as to whether he (Hester) is “smart enough” to master an offensive playbook. In other words, 8 in the box, all season long. I have serious doubts as to whether Tomlinson or Peterson could prosper in that offense. If Forte gets 1200 combined yards, I will eat my hat. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something on the order of 850.
The one wildcard is their D. If Mike Brown somehow stays healthy (about the same odds as Mark Prior starting 34 games next season in my mind), and Tommie Harris as well, they could conceivably give the offense a lot of time on the field and some solid field position. It’s a real long shot, though.
That said, I did draft Benson a couple of years ago and am still pretty hacked off about the ordeal, so take all this with a grain of salt.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
All great points. No doubt, I see Chicago’s offense as one of the 10, if not 5, worst in the league. I’d personally draft Jacobs over Forte in a yearly league right now without thinking twice. But if Randy has a bad feeling and wants to rid such an injury-prone player, Forte wouldn’t be a bad return. Assuming he can’t get McFadden, Stewart or even Mendenhall instead, of course.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
And you’re right, Chris Williams isn’t off to a great start. Those back problems date back to college too.