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Glad to hear you had a successful season. That was a fun night. It was good to get out and meet some real-life people (as opposed to just firing e-mails around). For 2010, I would guess that Jamaal Charles would be part of a one-two punch in Kansas City. He’s a good back; he can catch the ball and he’s fast. But he’s a small guy – they’ve got him listed at 199 pounds – so he’s not much of a banger between the tackles or at the goal line, and you worry about him wearing down. My guess is that Kansas City will obtain another, bigger back, to spell Charles more heavily. For next season, running backs who come to mind as possibly being worthy of a top-10 choice (in leagues going 6 points for touchdowns and 1 point for every 10 yards) include: Ray Rice, Cedric Benson, Rashard Mendenhall, Maurice Jones-Drew, Chris Johnson, Knowshon Moreno, Jamaal Charles, Matt Forte, Ryan Grant, Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, DeAngelo Williams, Steven Jackson, Beanie Wells and Frank Gore. And if we’re putting rookies in there, I suppose we should stick C.J. Spiller and Toby Gerhart in there as well. I haven’t thought about this at all prior to right now. Without looking at things too closely, if I were sitting down for a draft right now, my top 10 running backs (in order) would be: Jones-Drew, Rice, Peterson, Johnson, Jackson, Turner, Mendenhall, Benson, Moreno and Forte.

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On the NFC side, the six playoff teams are known. The Saints, Vikings, Eagles and Cowboys all will play their first-string offenses. (New Orleans has the No. 1 seed, but after losing two straight, they need to get things back on track.) The Packers will be in exhibition mode; I’ll be surprised if you see any of their key guys after halftime – if at all. The Cardinals, I think, also will look to rest players; if the Vikings win their game (which I think is a safe assumption), than Arizona will take the field knowing that it will host a playoff game in week 18 – meaning they’d take the foot off the gas. On the AFC side, the Colts and Chargers will mail it in – you can’t use their guys in a fantasy league. I think Cincinnati will also wind up in that boat, putting out their backups against the Jets for at least the second half. The Patriots, however, approach things differently. Bill Belichick is more of a believer in playing guys, keeping the team sharp and building momentum, rather than trying to protect players from injuries. Numerous times in the decade, the Patriots have been in position to rest players and have chosen not to do so. In 2006, for example, New England entered week 17 in the identical position it’s in right now – knowing it would play a first-round playoff game. And it was on the road against an 8-7 Tennessee team. Belichick went ahead and played his regular guys, and the Patriots smoked the Titans 40-23. So I say you go ahead and use your Patriots this week as if it’s a regular game.

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I think Shonn Greene is your best bet. He’s a tough, power runner, and he’ll fit into New York’s running game next year. I imagine they’ll use a mix (like they did this year), and he’ll be part of them. Thomas Jones will be 32 on opening day and Leon Washington is coming off a broken leg, so I think Greene is as likely as any running back to lead that team in rushing yards and touchdowns next year (and the Jets should rank in the top 5-10 in both). I don’t think any of those other backs have much value. Jerome Harrison and Arian Foster, I suppose, would be next in line. They’ll get plenty of work this weekend, trying to show that they’re worthy of being starters next year. But I don’t think either will. Of the wide receivers you mention, I think it’s possible that Early Doucet will become a starter at some point; he could be their No. 3 guy next year. But I don’t think Jerheme Urban has any fantasy value – he wouldn’t be among my top 120 wide receivers in any scoring format.

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Glad to hear you had a successful season. I don’t yet have a feel for how our followers did in 2009 – I haven’t heard from enough of them. I think many of them will have selected Rice and Benson, which will help. But I was also was very high on Anthony Gonzalez, so all of our guys will have also wasted a pick on him. I still think that Gonzalez, had he stayed healthy, would have gone for 1,000-plus yards and 8-10 TDs, but he injured his knee before halftime of the first game.

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It’s really a wide-open year. The top seeds in the NFC look like they’ve peaked already. And I don’t think the Colts or Chargers are invincible either. Both are in the bottom 5 in rushing. The Colts have had to come from behind in so many games. The Texans, Patriots, Ravens and Dolphins really had them beat. I think New England looks like a good possibility to sneak in there. On the NFC side, Philadelphia has been playing well, but I believe the Cowboys will beat them on Sunday. Put me down, therefore for the Patriots playing against the Saints, who will somehow get everyone back on the same page.

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That was odd. The kind of pass is thrown all the time, but almost never do you see the league go back and reclassify them. They tend to just give the benefit of the doubt to the quarterback – if it looks like a throw, they tend to just call it a throw. I don’t know why this one changed. Maybe somebody in a public relations office somewhere would win their fantasy league if it got changed to a run – his opponent had Warner. If you watch the replay, though, it’s definitely a run by the technical rules. The ball leaves Warner’s hand on the 7-yard line, and Boldin catches it closer to the 8. Now that this precedent has been set, I’ll be keeping my eyes open for these in the future; I’ll bet we can find some other plays that are technically runs that are simply left as passes.

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