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Challenge Contests -by Justin Eleff

I like this, writing shorter columns. You’re getting fewer words this way but they’re coming out of me more ... measured, or something ... more carefully considered. There’s less explanation of my thought process but I feel like that process is sharper (and thus better) this year than last.

Which is to say, do exactly what I’m telling you and you’ll make money playing these games this year.

So last week we talked quarterbacks quickly. This week? Quarterbacks. Quickly. Just in a different context.

Last week’s focus was on games that count passing average (yards per pass attempt) as a category. This week we’re moving to points games, games that mimic your standard office league in giving quarterbacks (like all other skill positioners) the chance to score in sheer bulk. Most typically, at least in the national games, QBs score 1 point per 20 passing yards, 1 per 10 rushing yards, 3 per passing TD and 6 per rushing TD. Or, you know, per receiving TD, but I’m guessing that comes up once a season or so -- across the whole NFL. I’d ask Ian to confirm the rate at which QBs catch TDs -- and, make no mistake, he could -- but I just don’t care that much.

Last week’s rule that you can’t take many chances at this position still holds, but with the focus here less on skill (higher completion percentage = better passing average, generally) and more on bulk (more passing attempts = better points totals), the line between taking a chance and not shifts considerably. All nine of last week’s guys make the cut here, naturally enough, and then the list gets longer. Just not by much.

First, though, general guidelines for picking QBs in Pts. games:

1. You want your guys to throw. A lot. You want 50 pass attempts per game whenever you can get them, even if the passer is hitting 54% of those attempts. You want overtime looming and even more attempts to come. You want teams that throw, throw, throw and then throw instead of punting on 4th down.

You get this kind of mad bombing from two sources, primarily:

One, Mike Martz. Or, rather, Martz and his ilk. Detroit was only second-highest in total attempts last year, well behind Green Bay (630) at 596. The rest of the league’s upper quarter: St. Louis (592), Miami (591), New Orleans (580), Indianapolis (557), Arizona (545), Philadelphia (544). Three other teams -- Minnesota, Carolina, Tampa Bay -- were within spitting distance of the leaders. That’s enough for our purposes.

Among those teams I see St. Louis, New Orleans, Minnesota and maybe Carolina as likely to run much more in 2007, for various reasons. The rest are live to repeat at (or near) the top of the standings.

Two, desperation. Because it ain’t the team that’s winning that keeps throwing till the bitter end.

Ideally, of course, you want a team that’s both inclined to throw in the first place and trailing by 10 in the waning minutes. Mix desperation into inclination and you have ...

Dare I say it?

Your defending champion Indianapolis Colts.

2. You want your guys to win. Because most points games award small bonuses to the players on the winning side of each game (typically 3 points per win per player you own), and also because the really wretched teams -- the truly desperate -- may keep throwing but they don’t keep completing their throws.

The ideal points quarterback is the high-end skills guy on the good team with the bad defense. Which is to say, the ideal points quarterback is Peyton Manning.

Gee. Thanks, Justin.

Other helpful bits in the same direction: This week Carson Palmer is again the clear second choice to Manning (and, again, maybe the top choice given the salary difference) and Matt Leinart is probably the best of the relative cheapos, supplanting even the slightly cheaper Jay Cutler. Arizona’s the throwing-er of their respective teams until The Whisenator says otherwise. We’ll use CDM’s Fantasy Football as our standard for points games; last week’s players rank as follows with this week’s salaries:

Peyton Manning, IND ($6440)
Drew Brees, NO ($5840)
Tom Brady, NE ($5620)
Carson Palmer, CIN ($5510)
Philip Rivers, SD ($3790)
Jon Kitna, DET ($3740)
Vince Young, TEN ($3720)
Matt Leinart, ARZ ($3670)
Jay Cutler, DEN ($3460)

The additions to our returning nine:

Brett Favre, GB ($5440) Because if the team tries another 630 passes -- and with no horse in the RB stable there’s no reason to expect that they won’t -- he’ll try another 613, minimum. For a few dollars less (and by a few I mean a million, give or take) or if injuries decimated the ranks of the top QBs, sure, I’d ride Brett into his sunset.

Marc Bulger, STL ($5310) With Kevin Curtis now in Philadelphia and Isaac Bruce just a year younger than Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, money says these Rams are about to resemble John Robinson’s teams more than Martz’. To me that means you don’t pay Carson Palmer money for Marc Bulger. On the other hand, there’s at least a shade of the good-team-with-bad-defense thing here. It could work, but the odds are something like 8:1 against.

Donovan McNabb, PHI ($5150) Lost in so much bitching (by so many of his family members) is the fact that Donovan McNabb was a brilliant quarterback last season. Brilliant. And Andy Reid has always been a throw-first guy to boot. Besides, it’s sometimes hard to know which player to drop when you make new player purchases early in the season, and McNabb will make for an easy decision when he sprains his high ankle in October. Faint praise, that.

Ben Roethlisberger, PIT ($4820) Except that I want to see Mike Tomlin’s attack take shape for a couple of weeks first. If ever a guy seemed from this distance like he believed in the run ...

Matt Hasselbeck, SEA ($4750) At 31 as of Kickoff Weekend, and coming off of a disastrous season, this is his year in these games. The salary has bottomed out (at least within the range of top-salaried QBs) and the team is wriggling through a fast-shutting window. I have the impression that Mike Holmgren, Shaun Alexander and Hasselbeck himself know this is it for this team: They’re back in the Super Bowl in early 2008 or never again.

Tony Romo, DAL / Eli Manning, NYG ($4620 / $4600) Listed only because I can see either one eclipsing Hasselbeck as the best buy in the general salary range. I wanna see that Romo is not Rick Ankiel first, however, what with the jar-to-confidence that was the end of his season, and I wanna see that Eli is not -- how to put this? -- a bad quarterback.

After that the pickings get slim, er, fast. It’s certifiably nuts, e.g., that Matt Schaub’s salary ($3290) is within downwind sniffing distance of Hasselbeck’s. The only real cheapos who catch my attention for now are Jason Campbell, WAS ($2030) -- and that’s based entirely on having seen him play well for Auburn when I was in law school at another SEC university -- hate to brag, but it is indeed great to be a Florida Gator lately -- and Brian Griese, CHI ($1560) . I said a year ago that Griese would be starting games before the end of the season; the Super Bowl only proved that I should have been right, as my fellow ex-Gator, Rex Grossman, stinks.

Putting it together, then, my likely mix of QBs come Week 1 is P.Manning / Palmer / Hasselbeck / Kitna / Leinart. I can see deciding that $6440 is too much for any one player and thus carrying Rivers or Cutler or even Young instead of Manning. Otherwise I feel good about this one.

Running backs next.

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