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I think there's definitely something to be said for the idea of zigging when everyone else is zagging. If you look at the hit-miss ratios at the various positions, your odds are lower at running back. Year in and year out, you see half (or more) of those running backs that dominate the first two rounds of drafts washing out. There are a lot of injuries at that position, and a lot of other guys just don't pan out -- the team falls apart or whatever. I've got my preseason top 25 running backs in front of me, and of that group, only eight really came even close to meeting expectations -- Tomlinson, Addai, Westbrook, McGahee, Jones-Drew, E.James, Lynch and J.Lewis. That's a 32-percent success rate. The averages tend to be much higher at the other positions, particularly wide receiver, though that really wasn't the case this year. I considered Steve Smith and Marvin Harrison to be two of the elite receivers this year, and those guys didn't come through as expected. In typical years, receivers are more likely to stay healthy and put up the kind of difference-maker numbers you expect out of them. If you're going to skip a running back in the first or second round, however, you better have a contingency plan in place. With everybody else hoarding running backs, who is going to tote the ball for your team? This year, a reasonable plan would have been to go after Jamal Lewis or Marion Barber in the third or fourth round.

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Darren McFadden and Jonathan Stewart will be coveted draft prospects. No doubt about that. But I think Turner is more valuable. He won't cost a first-round draft pick, which is huge, and you also get him right away. He'll be at all of the offseason workouts, learning the offense (while with rookies, there's the issue of signing them and rules that restrict how many workouts they can attend before their school holds commencement exercises). Plus, Turner is a 25-year-old who's had a chance to learn about the league, so there isn't that adjustment issue. And we're talking about a heck of a back. He's averaged at least 4.9 yards per carry in each of his four seasons. I think he'll be very good for somebody. Carolina and Atlanta might be interested; who'll be coaching those teams and what offenses they'll be running, I have no idea. The Bears might make a play for him; Cedric Benson doesn't seem to have it. Whether Turner is interested in coming back to play in his hometown, I have no idea. Houston is a possibility; it needs a back. As talented as Turner is, there are a host of other teams that could be interested as well. Browns, Bengals, Bucs, Seahawks, Raiders. He's not much of a pass catcher, which will hurt him in your format, but I think he'll prove to be well worth the wait.

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Fine by me. But in most leagues I'm in, I don't have the option of changing rules to get around this issue. I've got to play with the system they've already got in place. And in that type of a league, I think there's a little something to the theory that Daniel Ford sent in. If your players tend to have more of the early starts on Sundays, you're able to successfully deal with more of those issues.

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I'd love to start all three of those guys. Sometimes you wish that your league had a "bank" rule, allowing you to stockpile performances for future weeks ("if I'm in the Super Bowl next week, then I'll use Grant's numbers from week 15 as one of my starters"). But that's not the way it's set up. You only get to use two. I think if you did a poll of readers, probably a good chunk would want to use Grant. But I'm going with Graham and Peterson. No way am I sitting down Graham against Atlanta's suspect run defense. And no way am I sitting down Peterson in his first appearance on Monday Night Football.

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Keith left the Baltimore game with a thumb injury and didn't practice on Wednesday. He's not certain to play. In St. Louis, meanwhile, it's now looking more likely that Marc Bulger is going to play. I think Holt is your guy.

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We'll put together a few products for the playoffs. On Monday, Dec. 31, we'll release an overall draft board, representing total value of all players in the playoffs (with the guys projecting to play more games, of course, tending to be slotted higher). And on the following two Wednesdays, Jan. 2 and 9, we'll put together mini-Weeklies, previewing each of the four playoff games on those weekends. Those newsletters will contain predictions and rankings for just those weekends. Right now, it looks like that first weekend will feature the Vikings at Seattle and the Giants at Tampa Bay on the NFC side (though if New York loses at Buffalo, Minnesota could move up to the No. 5 seed and play the Bucs). On the AFC side, Pittsburgh and San Diego will be the home teams. If the Steelers lose this weekend to Jacksonville (which I think is possible), then the Chargers should move up and get that No. 3 seed. The Jaguars will be the 5th seed. I think that final playoff spot will go to the Browns, assuming they can hold off Buffalo on Sunday.

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Draft every skill-position guy on every team. No starting lineups. Whoever totals the most points in the four weeks of the playoffs is the winner. That's one way to do it. If you want to get into weekly lineups, then maybe a separate draft (or auction) each week. If anybody has a system that works very well, I'd like to hear about it.

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