Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

The NFL has been kicking its season off with a single Thursday night game since 2002. In the challenges, this is our annual cheat game; it takes place before the roster submission deadlines, so we always hope for some inexpensive player to score a long touchdown and provide us with a bit of salary relief.

Thursday night we got what we hoped for and then some. This year's cheat game, it is probably more accurate to say, was the one we have dreamed of.

Understand: I will usually own any player who posts the right cheat game statistics. I'm not picky; this isn't really about the cheat game as much as it's about the higher-salaried players I couldn't fit into my lineups without a few cheap surprises.

The greatest cheat game player of all time, therefore, was Brandon Stokley, who had 4 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown for the Colts on September 9, 2004. Stokley had looked like an iffy (albeit quite cheap) WR3 coming in -- a fantasy afterthought. What made him especially great was that, unlike so many fast-start-and-flameout players, there were good reasons to keep him around after Week 1. The Colts had a decent quarterback back then, and their offense was dynamic enough to keep three receivers fed with 1,000-plus yards and 10-plus touchdowns each. Stokley just happened to be the third guy; he finished with 1,077 yards and 10 touchdowns on the nose -- all of them, essentially, free.

But the cheat game has disappointed as often as not. Another of the league's most dynamic offenses, that of Sean Payton's Saints, had played in two cheat games before this week -- and scored a total of just 24 points.

If one thing separates my approach to the cheat game from the approaches I've seen advocated elsewhere (even in the comments sections of my own columns), it's this: even when the game is mostly useless, I make use of it. I always start the season with at least one player on my rosters who made it there solely on the strength of what he did on Thursday -- even if I have little interest in owning him thereafter. Last year's player: Vikings TE Visanthe Shiancoe. He'd been no part of my plans before the cheat game, but he was active for me everywhere in Week 1.

The objection to owning a little-interest-thereafter player is that new player purchases are precious in these games; I have often lamented not having enough of them remaining come Week 17, with several of my regulars being rested by playoff-bound teams and crucial points in the challenge standings at stake. But I've always viewed those little-interest-thereafter players differently than other challenge owners seem to. It's not like those other owners won't be making purchases early in the season anyway. Useful cheapos will emerge; some quarterback or other will suffer a concussion; stuff happens. Everyone will be buying new players, and it will not always be easy to know which players to drop to make room for them.

Except, that is, for me.

Because I will always have an obvious drop candidate, in the person of a player who never would have made my roster but for the cheat game.

This year, however, my strategy gets its sternest test. Because the Saints finally scored some points in a cheat game, and the Packers scored more. I count eleven different players whose Thursday performances make them candidates for challenge roster slots -- and of the eleven, only Saints TE Jimmy Graham had previously been a lock to make my teams.

So the question is, in this perfect storm of a moment -- with few sleepers having emerged in the preseason, and many cheat gamers having posted useful or better numbers -- how many little-interest-hereafter players should wind up on any one roster?

And the answer, of course, is that I do not know.

I keep looking at the box score from Thursday and having to stop to put my eyeballs back in my head. I want to own a lot of these guys. (Admitted: my risk tolerance in this context is higher than most challenge owners'. With several top 25 overall finishes (in several different games) under my belt, I enter each new season believing that a decent place in the standings is my worst possible endpoint, and that any educated chance I take could be the one that finally puts me over the top.) But let's run through the eleven candidates first, then double back to the question of how many is too many.

QB
Drew Brees (1)
Aaron Rodgers (2)

There may be no more perfect crystallization of the difference between fantasy football and the real thing than this: Brees had a better fantasy night than Rodgers did on Thursday. Matched him in TDs, nearly matched him in yards per attempt, ran three fewer times for two more yards, threw for 107 more yards. Don't get me wrong; Brees is a great player, and he made at least one superhuman throw on that last, ultimately failed, drive. But in his first game after finally gaining universal recognition as a superstar, Rodgers was exactly that.

Nor are Rodgers' numbers anything to sneeze at; 312 yards on just 35 pass attempts make for a beautiful start in a rotisserie format (where passing average is its own scoring category), and the bulk yards and touchdowns help everywhere. But even in the format that awards Packers players 3 points each for their win, Rodgers lost to Brees by a final tally of 30.25 to 27.7. Rodgers was better in the game. Brees is better in our games.

Q: Could we possibly afford to start both of them?

A: I don't know that it's necessary in the points version of the Football Challenge, where even 30.25 is a great score from a quarterback but not a can't-live-without-it score, and I don't know that it's possible in the rotisserie version. I know it isn't possible without owning a bunch of other players named below, anyway, and then come the questions about tolerating risk and budgeting our new player purchases.

But I'll say this: two 300-yard, 3-touchdown quarterbacks are two gift horses. I am very reluctant to look them both in the mouth, whatever that expression means.

RB
James Starks (3)

I think Starks is the most interesting name on this list. But I may be significantly biased in saying so.

Full disclosure: because I got a late start this preseason, and because I write mostly about games that allow my readers to pick their lineups at the last minute, I held back on Starks before Thursday. I LOVE the guy, in capital letters and everything, but I have never indicated as much in this space.

The reason is not complicated.

Last year I founded a draft league, and I designed it to be very tough. Among other difficulties I face there, a bunch of my leaguemates read these columns, so in writing them I have to balance between giving my readers all I can and giving away my secrets. This league of mine, the JFNFL, was drafting Wednesday of this week -- a week later than we did a year ago.

Last year, as Arian Foster emerged in the preseason (remember: it wasn't even clear he'd be the Texans' lead back before Ben Tate went down), I documented his rise openly. I got higher and higher on him as the weeks went by, finally recommending him here (and even more aggressively at Twitter) without any qualifications or attempts at stealth. My JFNFL co-owner and I weren't losing anything by my doing so, because we'd already planned to draft Foster higher than we believed any of our leaguemates would consider doing so. We took him in the second round. Good pick.

But this preseason, there was no Foster. No one stood far out to me the way he had, combining obvious talent with an obvious increase in opportunity. There was, however, one guy who had the talent by itself, and in no small quantity: Starks.

You must have seen on Thursday what I was telling my co-owner by the end of last year's regular season, even before Starks started to break out at Philadelphia in the playoffs: this is a very good football player. He runs with a nice bit of nasty. He makes cuts Ryan Grant cannot, and he fights off would-have-been tacklers. He also catches the ball fluidly, which he did not get to show in the cheat game, so he's just getting started. He was our Foster this year. Wednesday night we took him in Round 6.

Now, am I telling you Starks will do what Foster did? Of course not. I didn't expect Foster to do what Foster did; a year ago I was certain he'd be a top 10 running back, not top 1. And I have Starks farther down, what with Grant still in the picture (and not looking bad in his own right on Thursday; just not looking as good as Starks). As I tweeted a few minutes before the game started, with no job I have Starks around 20th among all running backs. When I submitted my Experts Poll rankings to Ian a few weeks ago, after Ian requested that the "experts" rank our top 21 players at each position, in case we inadvertently listed a player twice in one of our top 20s, I had Starks at 21. He's good. He's not Foster. Yet.

And I know you could've used to hear all of this from me before the cheat game, and -- more to the point -- before you drafted your own teams this year. And I know that as an "expert" I should never hold back on you, dear readers. But (a) the JFNFL, and my Mississippi Queens specifically, mean a hell of a lot to me; (b) holding back means less in context of my challenge columns, since I can always catch my readers up at the last minute; and (c) you really should be following me on Twitter. A few weeks ago one of my followers asked for my best sleeper pick; I used Twitter's direct messaging feature to give him Starks. I'm not really holding back on anyone except my leaguemates. You people just aren't doing it right.

So, here, yet again, this is me: @FantasyIndexJE. Fire away with any questions you have. I may, however, occasionally give new followers misinformation, so that when JFNFL owner Moishe Steigmann creates a dummy account, he'll never quite know if he's getting this year's Foster or the garbage I fed to another leaguemate a couple of weeks ago about Bernard Scott (who I do like, but not like that).

Back to the cheat game.

Starks' numbers are right on the border between start and do not own at all. Before Thursday, I kept writing about looking for cheat game cheapos to make it to 15 points; he made it to 14.7. Same story with his rotisserie numbers; as silly as this sounds, his game projects to 912 rushing yards (at a healthy 4.8 per carry) with 16 touchdowns over a full season -- and with no receiving yards, but also none of the dreaded detrimental effect on a team's receiving average.

But after all of the words I just spent on building him up, I say we leave him off of our rosters for now. For one thing, while it is absolutely clear to me that Starks is a better player than even the healthy Grant, he hasn't played his way out of a committee situation yet. (Although he may be headed that way. Mike McCarthy told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel after the game that Starks "did well" and "probably didn't have the attempts that he deserved." Music to the Queens' ears.)

For another thing, he probably has an eight-catch game coming to offset his receiving goose egg -- coming into Week 1, I was most certain he'd take third downs away from Grant -- and I'd just as soon avoid that game in the rotisserie version of the Football Challenge. As much time as we spent discussing the relative values of receiving yards and receiving average last month (here and here), an 8-for-37 game is still best unowned.

But the moment Starks finishes dusting off Grant -- and it sure looks like that could happen any week -- we buy him.

It was never quite true that this was a year with no sleepers.

WR
Randall Cobb (4)
Devery Henderson (5)
Greg Jennings (6)
Robert Meachem (7)
Jordy Nelson (8)

Before Thursday, I would've ranked these five as follows according to the statistics I expected over the full course of the season (ignoring their salaries in any challenge game):

1. Jennings
2. Meachem
3. Nelson
4. Henderson
5. Cobb

So in one sense the big winner of the cheat game was Henderson. Ian was hardly alone during the early part of the preseason in believing that Henderson was in his last days with the Saints ... but then they kept playing him, and on Thursday Brees kept looking for him and looking for him. As I'm confident Henderson himself would tell us, he's 29. He isn't dead.

And he really isn't dead now, after the news on Marques Colston's collarbone. In fact, if Lance Moore misses more games (and the long layoff between this week's Thursday game and next week's Sunday game is partly offset by Sean Payton's having suggested yesterday that Moore was not especially close to playing this week), Henderson and Meachem should both play close to full-time -- which would make either or both of them viable challenge starters going forward.

Bottom line: I'm not afraid to roster either New Orleans guy in either version of the Football Challenge, and Henderson's 6-for-100 with a touchdown is automatic to me in the rotisserie game. Ask yourself what you're hoping to get from Dez Bryant at $1,150 on Sunday night before you go against Henderson at $1,190.

On the Green Bay side of things, the call on Nelson is even easier. For years we've expected Donald Driver to fade away, and the question has been whether Nelson or James Jones would be the Packers' next No. 2. It sure looked like we were getting our answer on Thursday, as Nelson got more targets (and more of everything else) than Driver, and Jones barely played. But even if that proves to have been an illusion, whether because Driver is as dead as Henderson or because it just happened to be Nelson's turn (and Jones gets the next one), there's no reason not to own Nelson as this year's answer to Stokley.

Credit to reader Rick Weber, who drew that exact comparison a few minutes before Thursday's kickoff. I'll be treating Nelson the way I treated Stokley back then: might or might not have him active in Week 2, but I certainly won't drop him until we know more about the Packers' rotation.

Which leaves Jennings and Cobb. Who could not be more different.

Jennings did what he's supposed to do on Thursday. If you happen to be a fan of his, there's little reason not to own his 7-for-89 and a touchdown. But you're paying full price for those numbers, and there are several receivers I like better in the same (i.e., top) salary range. I had Jennings bouncing between sixth and eighth among all receivers this preseason; he and Vincent Jackson and Mike Wallace are firmly behind Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson, Hakeem Nicks and Roddy White in my mind. (The top guys were bouncing too; I just listed them alphabetically.) So Jennings will not make my teams, which isn't to say that he shouldn't make yours.

Cobb should not, clearly, make your team in the rotisserie game. He scored twice, yes, and looked positively electric doing so, but he was compelled to admit afterward that he'd screwed up on both of his scoring plays, running the wrong route on his TD reception and running when he should have taken a knee on his TD return.* The guy is a lot of things, but he's no finished product -- especially as a receiver. I just don't see using a roster slot to buy a couple of touchdowns in a rotisserie game, where they merely contribute to one of eight scoring categories.

* Things turned out OK, according to Cobb, because God willed him into the end zone both times. You know, God. Who roots against the Saints.

But in a points game?

I see there's been some debate among my readers over whether Cobb is worth rostering at $1,800 (in a game with a $60,000 salary cap) for his 18.5 points on Thursday. Reader Richard Loppnow sums up the opposition to rostering him as follows ...

If he was $1,000, signing Cobb would probably be nuts. He's their sixth receiver. Maybe. And absolutely no higher than that. You're buying one week. No way you play him next one.

... to which I can only respond that I am, indeed, buying one week, and Richard should too. Again: we will all be buying new players eventually anyway, and there is hidden value in knowing exactly which player to drop first. This is that player. A receiver who scores almost like a quarterback in the cheat game, for less than half of the elite receivers' salaries, will make my points roster every year for the rest of time. I don't care where Cobb stands on the Packers' depth chart; I have zero intention of ever starting him again, and he's still worth it.

Richard, there must be some player you're planning on rostering but aren't 100 percent on. Don't make the mistake Joe Cabot made when he wasn't 100 percent. You don't need proof when you have instinct. Eighty-six that player for Cobb, or you will start behind me in the standings. I'm good at these games. You don't want to spot me a lead.

TE
Jermichael Finley (9)
Jimmy Graham (10)

Not much to say here. Graham was on your roster anyway, and should have been, and should have been starting, and now will be for everyone.

Finley is the one guy of these eleven whose numbers were least valuable -- 53 yards on 3 catches, and he and Donald Driver were about the only guys in green not to score -- and I certainly wouldn't start him in a points game. But there are many worse lines you can get from a rotisserie tight end than 53 yards at a clip of 17.7 per catch. Just a reminder that the fully healthy Finley was fully automatic in the challenges a year ago. Now he looks ready to finish breaking out.

K
John Kasay (11)

It's weird that Kasay is the 18th name down the list of kickers in the points version of the Football Challenge, but 25th in the rotisserie version. It's not like the two games are tracking different statistics at the position, and it's not like the difference can be explained by the extra credit players get for team wins in the points game, as Kasay played last season for 2-14 Carolina and didn't sign with the Saints until August 30.

Whatever, those points for wins mean something to us now. Without them, Kasay's 10 kicking points in the cheat game are good but not great. Combined with his higher relative salary, I feel little impetus to sub him in for any of the kickers I was previously considering in the points game.

But in the rotisserie game, 10 points from a kicker with a $1,310 salary are nothing to ignore. Especially not when he kicks for one of the best offenses in the league -- assuming, that is, that he will ever kick for that offense again. Do we roster Kasay despite the likelihood that he'll be dumped as soon as Garrett Hartley is healthy?

I say yes. But I also say that means carrying five kickers at the start of the season. Which brings us back to the question that matters most:

Of our eleven candidates, how many do we own?

I would prefer to start both quarterbacks in the rotisserie game and Brees only in points. But both of those preferences are problematic. Starting any two players with salaries over $3,000 makes for a tight squeeze in roto, and I wasn't planning on owning Brees at all in points. Still, figure the right number at quarterback, in both games, is at least one.

No to Starks, so the number at running back is zero.

The number at receiver, I think, is either two or three, depending on your personal risk tolerance. Nelson goes on both teams. In the rotisserie game, Henderson and perhaps Meachem go along with him; in points, Cobb does and Meachem could. Just don't pair Cobb with Henderson, as both could end up being one-and-done players. Even with Colston (definitely) and Moore (possibly) out in Week 2, and even after Brees looked for Henderson so often on Thursday, I'd rather start Meachem.

The number at tight end is one and one-half, more or less; you want Graham for sure, and I see nothing to discourage you from rostering (but not starting) Finley.

And the number at kicker is one-half, in a different manner of speaking; you want Kasay in roto but not in points. Except that, again, rostering him anywhere means having to roster an extra kicker. Which probably puts a hard cap on the number of cheat gamers who could be rostered together.

Last night I played around with a rotisserie roster that included Rodgers and Brees and Kasay. The first two pretty much required me to start Henderson and Meachem along with Nelson (and in place of higher-priced receivers I'd planned to start), and Kasay required the extra kicker. Which, no matter how many times I tried it, always left me without room for one player I really want to own. And I don't just mean that I couldn't start the player; I couldn't own him at all.

Putting everything together, then, owning as many as eight of the eleven (with seven of them starting and Finley on the taxi squad) is probably going too far. But I will own between five and seven of them in the rotisserie game, and I can't see starting with fewer than three of them (Cobb, Nelson, Graham) active in points.

I wrote at the top of this column that this year's cheat game was the one we've dreamed of.

We may never see another one like it.

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