Andy Richardson

Three days into free agency, everyone has to do a winners and losers list. More often than not the winners are considered to be the teams that spent the most and the losers the ones that spent the least, even though things don't always turn out that way when the season plays out. Regardless, here is an early quick take on my winners and losers, in fantasy terms....

Winners

Bernard Berrian/Sidney Rice: Sage Rosenfels might be mistake-prone, but that doesn't necessarily hurt wideouts; it just means the team might have to score a few more points to make up for those his errors results in for the opposition. Rosenfels can sling the rock around better than Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte, which should benefit Minnesota's top two wideouts. Granted, if T.J. Houshmandzadeh signs with the Vikings, Rice's value drops off the table and Berrian's probably suffers too, but for now things are looking up.

Clinton Portis: Washington's defense will be better with Albert Haynesworth in the middle, and since Washington doesn't appear to be in the mix for any of the top offensive players, any changes in their offense figure to be of a conservative lean. Portis has another year of mileage, but lots of low-scoring defensive games should work in his favor. Getting guard Derrick Dockery back from Buffalo should also work in his favor.

Dwayne Bowe, Tony Gonzalez, Mark Bradley: I'm not totally sold on Matt Cassel, but I think he's a better bet than Tyler Thigpen. The passing offense should be OK next year, and adding aging Mike Vrabel isn't a major step toward respectability for Kansas City's defense. As for Larry Johnson, assuming he's back as the team's starter next year, he should also benefit from a superior passing offense.

Thomas Jones: The Jets have made a major push to upgrade their defense, adding Bart Scott, Lito Sheppard, and perhaps another former Raven in the next day or two. They also retained guard Brandon Moore. The passing game? Well, Laveranues Coles is gone and they're fairly certain to be going with a youngster or game-manager type of quarterback. Should be a year when the team leans on the running game, and Jones.

Losers:

Jay Cutler. Duh. His team tried to replace him, his best wideout was arrested yesterday, and the team thinks its running game will benefit from adding players like Correll Buckhalter and J.J. Arrington. He's ticked about his new head coach wanting to add Matt Cassel, and it's hard to blame him. On the flipside, Denver's signings on the defensive side of the ball have been aging veterans; tough to imagine the Broncos won't continue to be in a whole bunch of shootouts this season. Still, I'm not seeing a lot of positives out of the situation around Cutler right now. The Marshall development, in particular, is worrisome.

Sammy Morris, Laurence Maroney: Fred Taylor is going to have a role in the New England offense, and that's bad news for at least one of these players. Not that either was particularly attractive anyway, but another busy committee at running back is in store for the Patriots. Don't go near any of these players. To a lesser extent, Ben Watson is hurt by the signing of Chris Baker from the Jets, but Watson's fantasy relevance was pretty minimal anyway.

Earnest Graham: The Bucs have shown interest in adding a running back; perhaps they'll sign Derrick Ward. That's bad news for Graham, who might end up the second back in a crowded committee with a better, younger player than the other component of last year's tandem, Warrick Dunn. Needless to say, Luke McCown's chances of starting don't seem good in light of the Bucs apparently being willing to give up their first-round pick for Jay Cutler. At least the Bucs are assured of bringing back top wideout Antonio Bryant, which helps the running game, although committing big money to Michael Clayton as the No. 2 is a rather dubious move.

To be determined: Houshmandzadeh and Laveranues Coles are the top wideouts available, and they're going to sign somewhere as starters. When that happens, it will have a ripple effect on the team's other receivers, and probably a negative. As noted above Houshmandzadeh ending up in Minnesota would definitely hurt Rice and maybe Berrian. Coles could end up in Buffalo, which might benefit Lee Evans -- open things up for him downfield with him working underneath routes -- but Coles has always been a guy who wants the ball. How will that work out with what figures to be a fairly conservative passing offense anyway? These things could go either way, but right now if I've got wideouts on a team that's looking at one of these players, I'm hoping they end up somewhere else.

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