Fantasy Football's Real and Surreal Of Week Six

I’m changing the format this week.

Instead of three or four long rants of the biggest stories of the day, I’m going through the most important games and breaking it down from there. Let’s get right to it, for this week’s real and surreal.

Chicago-Atlanta

Matt Ryan

His 300-yard game was his first 200 yard game in his NFL career, but despite that Ryan has been a top-10 QB in the past four week. He won’t give you yards or touchdowns, but he won’t give you turnovers either. In leagues that give -2 points for an interception, Ryan is worth owning if you are looking for a safe, 12-points-a-week play. He’s slightly for real.

Kyle Orton

I’ve talked about him before, but I feel the need to talk about him again, because people don’t understand that he is very real. Currently sporting a 17.6 points-per-game average in his last four games, Orton has been one of the best QBs in that timeframe. Only three QBs have scored more fantasy points than Orton since week three, and Orton might only get better as he faces Minnesota twice, Detroit, Green Bay and St.Louis in the next six weeks. He is a top-10 quarterback for the rest of the season.

Harry Douglas and Devin Hester

Both has over 85 receiving yards on the day, but Douglas is not for real simply because he had four catches for 39 yards if you take out his 47-yard catch. Hester on the other hand I think is real: with either a touchdown or 80 yards in his past three games, he’s a No. 3 WR in 12-team leagues.

Carolina-Tampa Bay

Earnest Graham and Warrick Dunn

Don’t worry about Graham. The Bucs’ fullback, B.J. Askew, got injured in the middle of the game and Jon Gruden asked Graham to fill in at that spot. (Apparently the Bucs had no other FBs available).

His poor performance was surreal, but be thankful he got a touchdown and 40 yards receiving instead of a one- or two-point game. Warrick Dunn had 22 carries, and it’s obvious Gruden is a fan. I could see a 55-45 split between the two, with the amount each player gets unknown. Dunn is real, and is most likely a top-25 back from here on out.

The Carolina backfield

We all knew DeAngelo Williams’ game last week was an anomaly. But we didn’t expect him to regress back to 27 yards a game. Same with Jonathan Stewart: Both players’ bad weeks are surreal; expect them to go back to 50-60 yards each per game with a touchdown for either of them.

Miami-Houston

Matt Schaub

His 379 yards seem inevitably unrepeatable, but coming off a 300-yard week (week four; he missed week five with the flu) it doesn’t look so out-of-place. The Dolphins are a bad team against the pass (fourth-most points allowed to opposing QBs), but Schaub still gets the Bengals and Vikings in the next two weeks, both of whom are in the bottom half of the league in passing defense. He’s for real, and a nice bye-week fill-in if you have Donovan McNabb or Kurt Warner.

Andre Johnson

With over 130 yards and a touchdown in each of the past two weeks (one of which was without Schaub), Johnson is looking to get back on track to a top-five WR like he was drafted in the preseason to be. Look for the for-real Johnson to stay that way for the rest of the year.

Ronnie Brown

Take away his 62-yard touchdown run against the Patriots, and Brown has a 3.9 YPC and only one game over 72 rushing yards on the year. Brown’s value is entirely dependent on scoring touchdowns, and I don’t like that. Opposing defenses must figure out how to defend the Wildcat, too, no? He’s on the edge of being a top-20 back from here on out, in my opinion, so I think he’s surreal.