A:

Here's what happened: Patrick Crayton caught the ball and fumbled at the Minnesota 43. Ben Leber picked it up at the 40 and ran to midfield. Lateraled to Cedric Griffin. Griffin ran 9 yards to the Dallas 41 and fumbled. The ball bounced/rolled down to the Dallas 28, where Griffin scooped it up and ran the remaining 28 yards for a touchdown. In the official box score, posted at NFL.com, it shows as a 28-yard touchdown. But it's actually a 50-yard touchdown. That's definitely how it would be scored on a passing or running play. (That is, if Adrian Peterson ran 9 yards to the 41, fumbled, then picked the bouncing ball up at the 28, it would be scored as Peterson scoring on a 50-yard TD run. If Troy Williamson caught a pass, ran to the 41, fumbled and recovered it a the 28 and scored, it would be graded as Williamson catching a 50-yard touchdown pass). The NFL has an official handbook for scoring such plays. GUIDE FOR STATISTICIANS, they call it. In there, they write, "When a player recovers his own fumble, credit him with net yardage gained or lost on the play in the category initiating the action." This statistical handbook cites the following example: "Player receives kickoff at the 10, advances to the 20, where he is tackled and fumbles. He recovers the ball on the 25 and advances to the 30. Scoring: Player is credited with a return of 20 yards." This is the same deal. I called the guys at the Elias Sports Bureau (the NFL's statistical arm) for confirmation. They've got it as a 50-yard fumble return in their books. I'm not sure if the revision will make it onto NFL.com or not. But definitely a 50-yard fumble return, and definitely 6 more points for the Verona fantasy franchises.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

I don't consider Portis to be a strong running back. He's run for 43-72 yards five weeks in a row. He's not that durable. And he might score only half of Washington's rushing touchdowns the rest of the way. You're never going to start him ahead of Addai or Peterson. I would move Portis and pick up Keith. That will give you insurance should Addai go down. There's also the possibility that Tony Dungy will rest Addai the final couple weeks of the season. Keith is your guy. Dungy, by the way, indicates that he's going to continue using Keith as a change-of-pace runner to help keep Addai healthy and fresh. Maybe Keith gets 10 touches in a lot of games.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

I like the idea of being able to use more flex players. It would make the early rounds of drafts more interesting, when you'd be left weighing the upside of running backs versus the safety of selecting proven wide receivers, who don't tend to miss as many games with injuries. But I don't know all the pros and cons of such a format. I've never been in a league with more than one flex player.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

Palmer will play one more game than Romo. And the Bengals have an easier remaining schedule. Their remaining games are against teams that are currently a combined 26-38, versus 31-25 for Dallas. And Palmer could get a boost from Chris Henry returning in week 10. On my board, I've got them posting similar passing statistics -- slight edge to Palmer -- but Romo also offering production as a runner. As we near the halfway point of the season, Romo is at 81 rushing yards and 2 TD runs. Palmer is down at 11 rushing yards, with no touchdowns. Palmer has run for only 2 TDs in 51 career starts.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

I'll agree that it looks like Alexander is running soft. A couple of times this year, I've seen him hit the deck without anyone even touching him. He just turned 30; maybe he's slowing down. He's playing with a cast on his broken (left) hand. That could be a factor. Or maybe he's just happy with the big contract he got last year. Regardless, it doesn't look like he's ever going to be that every-week scorer that he was in the past. Before you unload him, however, keep in mind that he's still clearly his team's best running option. He might score all of Seattle's rushing touchdowns during the final 10 weeks of the season. And the Seahawks play one of the easiest schedules the rest of the way. Seattle's remaining opponents are currently a combined 22-37, worst in the league. So despite his flaws, I'd be inclined to keep Alexander.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

I don't think Chatman is anything special as a runner. And he's playing on a team that's not going to win more than two games; those kind of teams don't tend to finish with many rushing yards or touchdowns. Nevertheless, I think Chatman has substantial value. The Dolphins right now are throwing more screen passes than any team in the league. And that potentially will really help Chatman, particularly in a PPR format. Miami's tailbacks so far have combined to catch 51 passes in seven games; that's over 7 per game. I take that as evidence that Chatman is going to catch 4-6 passes in a lot of games, and that should make him a valuable fantasy commodity.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

In my league, we stay shut down from the kickoff of the first game on Sunday until Thursday afternoon. At that time, every team submits bids for players. High bidder gets him. And from that point on (Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning), players are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. In running a weekly mini-auction, you can either give each team a $1,000 payroll -- once you spend all your money, you can no longer pick up players -- or you can tie player bids to existing contracts (using a salary cap) if you used an auction rather than a draft.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

If a league brings in the principal of allowing teams to protect 1 or 3 or however many players, then it's also time to move towards the same socialist system as the NFL, with the sine-wave draft getting chucked and the worst teams getting the highest draft slots -- in every round. If the team that selected LaDainian Tomlinson won it last year, they're picking last in every round. If you haven't yet begun this keeper league, you should consider initially going with some kind of auction setup. With an auction, unlike a draft, everyone gets a fair chance to get that player that they really have their heart set on.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

They're both lesser guys, of course, but I'll bet that a lot of teams have to settle for one of those guys this week, with six teams being on byes. Lemon has played fairly well two weeks in a row. He passed for 256 yards and 2 TDs at Cleveland, and he went 24 of 37 for 236 yards against the Patriots. Good scrambler, too. He ran for 73 yards against New England, and he's run for 3 TDs in two games. Edwards is a dink-and-dunk guy, but he'll face a soft secondary. He went 22 of 28 against the Jets a few weeks back. He's not as big of a threat to do anything as a runner, and the Bills may go with a run-based plan against New York's defense. I suggest you go with Edwards for the first half of your game, then sub in Lemon to get the superfluous numbers he'll pile up when the Dolphins are way behind.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

I think Sapp will get more carries -- maybe 20-30 percent of the workload -- but that it will be Selvin Young being their main back. Travis Henry has bruised ribs, so they may be without him on Monday against Green Bay.

• Comments
• Add Comment

A:

At some point, Moss will have one of those games with 130-plus yards and 2-3 TDs. But I wouldn't use him at this point. New England has a pretty tough defense, and Washington hasn't thrown a TD pass to a wide receiver -- any wide receiver -- all year.

• Comments
• Add Comment