Arian Foster & Peyton Manning – How sick are we?

We all know about Arian Foster’s recent tweet, saying that we fantasy owners are sick. But just are sick are we really? I mean, if you have a top three pick in you fantasy draft this year, can you still feel comfortable about picking Arian Foster? Most likely not. I am continually high on Foster this year as I have said in previous blogs. But I’m high on the healthy version of Arian Foster, not the one with hamstring issues like we saw this past sunday. He claims that is alright, and he will be ready to go for the season opener, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t just as concerned about this situation as you most likely already are.

I still believe that he will be a prominent factor in fantasy football this year. But right now, it seems difficult to justify picking him over Ray Rice, Maurice Jones-Drew, or even the Jamaal Charles. I shouldn’t even have to mention Adrian Peterson, but let me just go ahead and add him to that list for anyone who possibly hasn’t watched football the past four seasons.

However, I would still pick Foster over Chris Johnson as of right now. If tomorrow or sometime later in the week the Titans pull their heads out of their butts and get a deal done with Johnson, then of course that opinion would change instantly. Word is that the two sides are now finally at least having more meaningful dialogue, whatever that means? It is somewhat encouraging news, and at least we know he’s healthy. But I still have my doubts on just how quickly the Titans can satisfy their star running back with a ‘meaningful’ enough contract.

Peyton Manning had neck surgery this off-season and the Colts just paid Kerry ‘friggin’ Collins $4 million dollars. Does any part of that sound good to you? Well here is one thing that should sound good to you; the Colts re-activated Manning on the roster a day quicker than they did a couple of years back when he was questionable to start the season. And guess what happened then? He started the season like he always does. If I was to place a wager on this situation, my money would be on him continuing his 208 consecutive starts streak.

With all that being said, there is still a very real chance that the Colts proceed with caution when it comes to their franchise quarterback for at least the first two or three weeks of the regular season. Meaning, if the games are not still closer than two possessions in third quarter, then I think Mr. Manning will probably see a little more bench time than usual. Not exactly the type of news that you would want to hear as a fantasy owner. So while he should still likely have a productive season as he always does, instead of picking the 35 year-old Manning this year I would rather wait two more rounds to grab a quarterback like Tony Romo or Matt Schaub.

Conclusion – As a fantasy owner, we always have to watch out for things like this, but let’s not be overly hasty. If Arian Foster falls in to your lap in the second round, you would be an absolute fool not to take him. Pretty much the same goes for Manning about two rounds later. So don’t panic and forget to use good sense when drafting because good sense will tell you (or I will in this case) that these guys are still studs regardless of the minor tweaks they have suffered recently. So don’t go knocking these guys too far on your lists.

I hope you found this monologue to be meaningful for you in your quest to dominate you fantasy leagues. As always, thank you for reading and stay active my friends.