The "Big Ben" Effect Fantasy Football Rankings From The Experts

Big No. 7 returned Sunday from a four-game league-imposed hiatus for...well, idiocy. 

Like most things Ben Roethlisberger does, he returned in a big way and with much fanfare.  The two-time Super Bowl champion showed why the normally conservative Steelers franchise has stood by him through one embarrassing episode after another.

He threw for 257 yards and three touchdowns in a performance in which he looked better and better as the game progressed, and his rust quickly faded.

The arrival of Roethlisberger changes the fantasy football landscape in a way that no other event has, or will, in 2010. 

In our Fantasy Football Crystal Ball start/sit predictor, we aggregate 19 different expert rankings to develop informed recommendations.  Roethlisberger immediately shot up the ranks of the starting QBs, with an aggregate ranking good enough for seventh at the position.  

But the feeling was far from unanimous.  Ben failed to crack the top 10 in a full one-third of the experts' rankings for Week 6.

The impact of Roethlisberger's reappearance goes beyond just shaking up the QB rankings.  The entire Steelers offense stands to see a bump in its fantasy production.  It will be most apparent in the duo of Mike Wallace and Hines Ward. 

Owners that were patient with the slow start of Mike Wallace should be rewarded in short order, as he fills the big-play role vacated by Santonio Holmes--the wideout now waking and baking in New York.  Roethlisberger's impact on Wallace was immediate.  Wallace made just three catches, but he accumulated 90 yards and scored his second TD of the season. 

It’s safe to assume that Wallace will continue to show improvement in his fantasy stats, as the Steelers offense will air the ball out more with Roethlisberger.  Wallace is a solid No. 3 fantasy wide receiver, with the potential to post a No. 2 wide receiver performance any given week.

Perhaps no one is more excited for Roethlisberger's return than veteran receiver Hines Ward.  Aside from a strong Week 1 in which he hauled in six passes for 106 yards, Ward was largely ineffective without Roethlisberger.   Enter Big Ben, and Ward’s Week 5 stats (5/54/1) were far from stellar, but almost equal to the totals from the previous three games combined (6/57/1).  Ward should be considered a No. 2 wide receiver, now that he is reunited with his starting QB.

We at FFSpin.com wanted to get a sense what the top fantasy football experts expected from Ben Roethlisberger for the remainder of the 2010 season.  We put that question to our network of experts and here are some of the responses:

Joe Everett of RookieDraft.com ranks Roethlisberger at No. 11 among QBs for the rest of the season, tempering his enthusiasm with a warning about the Steelers' strength of schedule and a patchwork offensive line.

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Ben Roethlisberger is still a starter, but he’s not going to be a great starter with the problems on the O-line and the remaining schedule.  While I would agree that Roethlisberger has a lot to prove, and I could see him approaching this season with a must-win attitude, I don’t see Ben getting to an elite level of production on the stat sheet for fantasy owners. The Steelers offensive line is without their best player in Willie Colon (lost for the year) and his backup, Trai Essex, hasn’t played since Week 2.  Regardless of the offensive line struggles, Pittsburgh’s schedule after the bye week is atrocious.  In the next 10 games, the Steelers will face the Browns, Dolphins, Saints, Bengals, Patriots, Raiders, Bills, Ravens, Bengals and Jets.  That’s a terrible run of teams, and to cap things off, Big Ben's playoff schedule is awful.  Weeks 13, 14 and 15 are against the Ravens, Bengals, and Jets, which are three of the worst defenses to play a fantasy QB against.  I’ve always been a fan of Big Ben, being a very good QB, but in this fantasy season, I’m letting somebody else take the chance. 

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KFFL is the only team to win the Fantasy Football Crystal Ball weekly accuracy challenge twice, and one of their experts, Cory Bonini, says Ben is a sell-high candidate:

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Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger showed little rust against the Cleveland Browns in his first game back from suspension.  He has a few good matchups coming up against the New England Patriots (Week 10), Oakland Raiders (Week 11) and Buffalo Bills (Week 12), but his schedule is rather difficult overall, with six of his next 10 opponents currently ranking in the top 10 against quarterbacks from a fantasy perspective.  Roethlisberger is capable of top-flight fantasy production, but we’ve seen inconsistency from him in the past.  Despite his strong return, Big Ben should still be started based on the matchups.  His fantasy playoff schedule is less than friendly, with contests against the Cincinnati Bengals (Week 14) and New York Jets (Week 15). He may even be a good sell-high candidate if you have a stable quarterback crop on your roster.

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RapidDraft.com’s Senior Football Writer, Matt Schauf, is more optimistic about Roethlisberger's fantasy prospects:

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It’s easy to like Ben Roethlisberger going forward…unless, of course, you have daughters or any sense of decency.  In all seriousness, though, he returns to find a running game that ranks in the league’s top half and the No. 12 scoring offense (albeit inflated by that Tampa game).  Hines Ward, Heath Miller and Mike Wallace give Roethlisberger basically the tools he had last year, with Wallace perhaps an improvement on Santonio Holmes as a big-play threat.  I also don’t think his upcoming schedule is as tough as it might seem.  Cleveland just allowed Carson Palmer a big passing day, Miami failed to pick off a pass in three of their first four games, New Orleans let Alex Smith move the ball and Matt Ryan enjoy a good game, and New England has yielded multiple touchdown passes to every quarterback they have faced in 2010.  This should be an extra-motivated, already-good quarterback who will get the bye to re-acclimate. Oh yeah, and Roethlisberger is coming off his second best season 

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For four more opinions on the fantasy implications of Roethlisberger's return and the FFSpin.com wrap-up, click HERE.