My Week on the Waiver Wire

I never really intended to use this blog to talk about the moves that I make with my personal team on a day-to-day basis, because I think it is only germane to a small fraction of you, but a few of you have asked for it, so here it is. If I ever realize that a league-mate is reading this blog and countering my moves, this feature will come to an abrupt end.

If you've been following this blog, you know I missed out on my true love Jay Cutler in the draft, and had to settle for Matt Schaub (and this weekend's games made me even more lovesick). My backup is Vince Young, who will be hurt, and is starting to show some mental problems that I have sympathy for, but that have no place on my fantasy team.

So Young will get the early exit, but who to pick up? Yesterday, we went over Matt Cassel extensively, and decided he would perform on about the level of Schaub, so he could be a decent complement. I would probably switch out QBs based on opponent if I had both of them.

One of the things that I noticed while watching the Texans-Steelers games on Sunday was that every time Schaub went down, it took him a LONG time to get back up, which makes me worry about his durability again. If I don't get Cassel, I'll just pick up Sage Rosenfels as insurance.

My league uses a free-agent acquisition budget, which has its good things and bad things. We have until Wednesday night to submit our claims, and the free agents go to the highest bidders. We have a budget of $100 to start with. For what its worth, I like this system a lot more than the typical Yahoo league way of first-come first-served that lets the guy who sits watching Sportscenter all day on Sunday grab every player whose stock is on the rise. Maybe I'm just an old coot that longs for the days of not getting injury reports or box scores until the Monday morning paper (for those of you younger readers, web sites like the Nashville Tennesean used to print their web page on paper and people would throw it on your doorstep in the morning...).

So I will put down $21 on a claim for Cassel, and $1 on a claim for Rosenfels (this will only go through if I don't get Cassel).

The amount for Cassel is kinda low, I can see someone blowing half their budget to get a starter on a talented team. I don't think anyone else in my league would be putting in for Rosenfels right now.

Maurice Morris, my 6th RB, is going to be out for a couple of weeks. He might lose carries to Julius Jones if Jones performs well in his absence (which I doubt, more on that later in the week), and Eddie Royal looked awfully good in that dreamy Cutler-led Broncos offense last night, so I will try to put a claim in on him. $5 sounds about right - probably not enough to get him, but at least enough to force someone else in the league to get him at an honest price. If I get Cassel but not Royal, then I will still drop Morris to get my $1 Rosenfels.