NFL Week 2: Fantasy Football Highlights and Lowlights

Let’s recap some fantasy highlights and lowlights from Week 2.

Stud Life: These guys really tied the room together. We’re talking about unchecked aggression, dude.

Matthew Stafford

294 passing yards, 4 passing TDs (owned in 95 percent of Y! leagues)

I’ve been a Matthew Stafford fan ever since he beat the Browns with that separated shoulder in 2009, and the Georgia product is really coming into his own as an NFL passer.

Having Megatron helps, but Stafford also used tight end Tony Scheffler and Jahvid Best out of the backfield in blowing out the Chiefs in the Lions’ home opener. 

Cam Newton also had another huge day (432 yds., 1 TD), as did Tom Brady (423 yds., 3 TDs).

Adrian Peterson

120 yards rushing, 2 rushing TDs (100 percent of Y! leagues)

Purple Jesus returned to form after a disappointing Week 1.

Unfortunately, his team did not, and the Vikings fell to 0-2. Peterson passed the 6,000-career-rushing-yards mark in Minnesota’s loss to Tampa Bay, which is great news if you hate Robert Smith.

Miles Austin

143 receiving yards, 3 receiving TDs (100 percent of Y! leagues)

Austin re-aggravated a hamstring he injured in preseason, and that’s bad news for a team that’s already missing Dez Bryant, who didn’t play against San Francisco Sunday.

If these injuries persist in the Cowboys receiving corps, throwing to opposing players might be Tony Romo’s only option.

Overacheivers: Young bucks working their way up the proverbial ladder.

Jason Campbell

323 passing yards, 2 passing TDs, 1 rushing TD (11 percent of Y! leagues)

Only owned in 11 percent of leagues? I’m seriously considering waiving my “No Raider” rule for Campbell, who has found himself in some shootouts of late.

But that trend might screech to a halt as Oakland hosts the Jets next week.

Andy Dalton (332 yards, two passing touchdowns, six percent) also played a tremendous game in Denver. He’s worth looking into if your roster is a quarterback short.  

Scott Chandler

16 yards, 1 receiving TD (30 percent of Y! leagues)

Chandler has scored in back-to-back weeks, and he’s flourishing with Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Nihilists: Guys that believe in nothing—and produce accordingly.

Chris Johnson

53 rushing yards (100 percent of Y! leagues)

CJ2K was being eased back into his typical share of carries last week, but he had 24 in a shocking upset of the Ravens, who have proven their ability to stop the run.

Upcoming games against Denver and Cleveland should get Johnson back on track.

Shonn Greene

49 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD (97 percent of Y! leagues)

It’s time we admitted it—LaDanian Tomlinson was the greatest dumpster-dive product of 2010.

DeSean Jackson

21 receiving yards (100 percent of Y! leagues)

That’s very unlike DeSean to not produce in a prime-time game like that.  

Antonio Gates deserves mentioning here also—we saw just one target and no catches for the elite fantasy tight end.

Fantasy Football Tweet Of The Week

This week’s tweet comes to us from Ed, who can be found on Twitter @ejp1980. Ed has a particular gripe with ESPN.com’s fantasy football platform, as a lot of other people have, but this particular complaint is new to us:

"ESPN unilaterally created a trophy in our fantasy league without telling us, and we can't delete it. yfrog.com/j23wpfj"

"Any suggestions [for switching platforms]? I'm running a shadow version of our league at NFL.com, see if we like it better. Love ESPN's live scoring."

Ed, my man, you need to step away from the monolith. Every fantasy football site worth its salt offers live scoring now, and they do it because they have to.

A lot of people have never heard of FleaFlicker, but their platform (previously owned by AOL before the original owner bought it back) has offered free live scoring since 2006.

Yahoo!, CBS and the like had been charging for live scoring up to that point. It wasn’t until 2009 that those two sites jumped on the trolley and offered free live scoring as well.

With my other opinions regarding the worldwide leader set aside, I think ESPN.com’s fantasy sports platform is awful. They had to reset an entire fantasy baseball season in 2007 and hacks for their fantasy football game have been circulating the Internet as recently as last year.

And their interface is awful. I’m actually in two ESPN leagues this season, and if I had any hair left, I’d be pulling it out every time I go to that site.

They do office pools and tournament brackets very well. But fantasy? Not so much.

So which sites don’t suck? NFL.com offers some terrific tools for running fantasy teams and leagues (their draft customization feature is essential for keeper leagues).

On the flip side, their scoreboard screen has the occasional autoplay video. For your standard re-draft leagues, you can’t go wrong with Yahoo!’s fantasy games. Their interface helps make midseason wheeling and dealing an absolute breeze.

Send me your emails regarding fantasy football (and everything else) and I’ll answer your questions in a future post. Even the bad ones.