Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

Not much to say this week. We all own Jermichael Finley, so we all have to replace him, and I recommend doing so with Antonio Gates or (if you were playing Gates and Finley together) with your choice of cheapo rookies. In Fanball’s Football Challenge I lean toward Aaron Hernandez and his 13.3 yards per catch. In points games I lean toward Tony Moeaki, who has already scored twice and should see his role expand in coming weeks.

Otherwise our circumstances remain unchanged. Quarterbacks continue to confound me from week to week, as even the ones I believe in most are occasionally concussed (Aaron Rodgers, at WAS) or confused (Peyton Manning, vs. KC). There are still too few viable cheapos at running back to offer real relief at the other positions. And wide receivers might soon be our very trickiest players; most of us own several who share the dreaded Week 8 bye.

Without much of a personnel fix for you -- see last week’s column; there are few if any savior players out there -- I figured I’d try something different this time. We all know what we’d like: a few extra cheapos who’d make challenge life easier for us. But we also know we’re not getting that anytime soon. Instead, let’s focus on what we have now. We all own similar mixes of players, but do we own the right ones? If we built our rosters from scratch today, what would be different about them?

Really, how many moves would it take for any of us to transform our rosters -- the ones we happen to have right now -- into what appear to be the ideal rosters, given the failure of any saviors to emerge? This is how I’d build a team if I were starting over; I can make my own rosters look like this with just a couple of moves each:

FOOTBALL CHALLENGE

QB: Start Aaron Rodgers when healthy. Start Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers or Tony Romo in one of the other two slots, possibly mixing in Tom Brady (in favorable matchups at home) as an alternative to these three or to Rodgers. Start Jay Cutler, Eli Manning or Kyle Orton in the other slot. Good luck making use of other cheap options like Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer and the players Tecmo Bowl would have called QB Eagles.

RB: Start Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson together if you can, shuffling them according to matchups if not. Start Michael Turner. Start Ahmad Bradshaw and Arian Foster. Those are four or five of your starters; fill in with some combination of Cedric Benson, Jahvid Best, Jamaal Charles, Peyton Hillis, Ryan Mathews, LeSean McCoy and Rashard Mendenhall. The biggest hole in my roster at present is that I own only one of those players: Mathews. I remain hopeful that another terribly fast, not terribly expensive player will emerge soon -- Felix Jones is coming on; C.J. Spiller should come on eventually -- but I may have to buy one of the fill-ins in the meantime.

WR: Start Hakeem Nicks and Mal.com Floyd. Start Jeremy Maclin in weeks when QB Eagles should play decently. Start Johnny Knox in weeks when Jay Cutler should. Fill in with more expensive players to the extent you can afford them -- particularly Miles Austin, DeSean Jackson and Andre and Calvin Johnson (once their health issues are resolved), protecting your receiving average from the likes of, for instance, Roddy White. With Ben Roethlisberger back, Mike Wallace could be a must-start soon. Otherwise, remember that this is the best position at which to save salary. Legedu Naanee hasn’t been great, but he’s so cheap ($400) he doesn’t have to be. Brandon Lloyd has been incredible for $1000, as has Austin Collie for $770 -- but I really don’t trust either of them. If possible I’d prefer to add Wallace, call him an every-week player, and skip the most expensive WRs until we can cut salary at other positions.

TE: Start Antonio Gates, and do not mess around here. As suggested above, offset his salary with the cheapo of your choice.

K: Any four reasonably cheap options, all with different bye weeks, will do. This is not a season in which any one guy has distinguished himself. But hold a purchase or two back, as this is also not a season in which all of the viable kickers appear fully secure in their jobs.

POINTS GAMES

QB: The top QBs outscore the top players at other positions by a lot. Six of the top seven points players in 2010 so far are QBs -- so spend what it takes to start three good ones together, and work around having done so. If you think Kyle Orton can maintain his Matt-Schaub-in-2009 pace, he’s a must-start at $3420. Otherwise I’m still comfortable using Matt-Schaub-in-2010 ($4150) and matching him with two more expensive options. Peyton Manning will wind up starting a lot more weeks for me than I would have thought possible in the preseason.

RB: Start Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson together if you can, shuffling them according to matchups if not. Start Arian Foster. Those are two or three of your starters; fill in for now with some combination of Jahvid Best, Matt Forte, Frank Gore, Peyton Hillis, LeSean McCoy -- all of whom have done real damage through the air, not just on the ground -- but be ready for Ray Rice and Michael Turner to reestablish themselves as top options in the weeks ahead.

WR: Go as cheap as you need to in order to start your preferred QBs. All of Austin Collie, Mal.com Floyd, Brandon Lloyd, Jeremy Maclin and Hakeem Nicks rank among the top eleven scorers at the position so far, and the highest salary among them is Nicks’ $1780. I trust Collie more in this format (where receiving average does not count) than in the Football Challenge; Lloyd still makes me nervous, as nothing yet has convinced me that the Broncos are done spreading their catches around. One cheapo I expect to come on over the remainder of the season: Johnny Knox. I’d add Miles Austin, the cheapest of the really good, really expensive WRs at $3080, to four of the cheapos named above, then fill in with anyone I could afford to make the salaries work at the other positions. Again: especially at QB.

TE: Start Antonio Gates, and, again, do not mess around here. I know he’s expensive, but he’s been almost 40 percent better than the second-best TE. As suggested above, offset his salary with the cheapo of your choice.

K: Same comment as in the Football Challenge; any four reasonably cheap options, all with different bye weeks, will do -- but hold a purchase or two back just in case.

DEF: I hate repeating myself, but if you disagreed with me in the preseason that defensive and special teams scoring is essentially random in these games, check out the highest points totals through Week 5:

1. CHI ($1950) and ATL ($1680), 48 pts.

3. PIT ($2840) and KC ($1120), 46 pts.

5. NE ($3220) and SEA ($1610), 44 pts.

Our biggest preseason debate was over my insistence on owning MIA ($1210, 37 pts.) instead of either NYJ ($2330, 43 pts.) or SF ($2100, 11 pts.). Please, let’s not spend time talking about this ever again.

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