NFL Week 9: What Have We Learned?

Week 9 was certainly a strange one in the NFL, and it was no different in the world of fantasy football. Despite some of the outliers that occurred, we did learn quite a few things, especially since, with every team having concluded at least half of their season, we have a lot more evidence to reach some conclusions.

Here are some of the top observations from Week 9:

AFC

The luster is gone from Ronnie Brown.

Brown was the talk of town after Week 5, after he came off his second consecutive 100-yard game and piled up six TDs already. Since then, however, Brown has not topped 60 rushing yards in any week, though he has had 80+ total yards in two of those four weeks.

Still, Brown's average per carry in Weeks 6-9 are: 3.8, 2.1, 3.1, 3.0. That is disturbing for a top back, and one has to wonder if Brown's knee is getting weaker as the season wears on.

Realistically, Brown should not have been as good as he was early in the season, because it takes some time for a knee to recover fully from the type of surgery Brown underwent. Brown has still managed to put up some excellent fantasy numbers, but don't be surprised if he scores double-digit fantasy points one week, then give you less than five fantasy points the next.

The luster off Denver RBs is gone.

Remember the days when Denver could drag anyone off the street to play RB, and he would run for 100+ yards that week? Unfortunately for the Broncos, those days are long gone.

No more Mike Anderson gashing defenses for 150 yards. No more Ron Dayne coming off the bench to rip off a 100-yard game. No more Reuben Droughns coming from out of nowhere to threaten for 200 yards. This year, the team has rushed for only 842 yards. 

Their best RB has been Selvin Young, who was averaging only 53.2 yards per game, followed by Michael Pittman with 40 yards per game. Denver also has only five rushing TD this year. Now, with Pittman and Andre Hall out for the season, they must depend on a gimpy Young and rookie Ryan Torain as their RBs.

Of the two, Torain may be the better pickup. Even though Young has had some decent games, the Broncos like Torain, and we have seen how Mike Shanahan becomes intrigued with the young, potential star who could come out of nowhere.

Thursday's game could be vital to the Broncos' RB future- if Torain has a strong game, look for Shanahan to try every trick in his book to make Torain a star this year.

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