A few thoughts from my first football draft of the season, for which I was woefully unprepared (see my last post about dirty diapers and you'll understand):

• No rush for running backs. The days of drafting RBs in the first two rounds are over, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, if you're picking later than No. 8, you might not even want to pick one in the first two rounds. There are so few slam-dunk No. 1 RBs right now that the top tier at that position is awfully thin, but the crop of potential sleepers is plentiful.

I'm not convinced a second-round RB like Shonn Greene will be that much better than seventh-rounder Justin Forsett or eighth-rounder Arian Foster. But I'm willing to bet second-round QBs Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will vastly outperform seventh-rounders Brett Favre and Jay Cutler and eighth-rounder Matt Ryan. And I'm confident second-round WRs Randy Moss and Larry Fitzgerald will be far more productive than seventh-rounders Hakeem Nicks and Jeremy Maclin (and I'm a Mizzou guy to the core).

My point? The bell curve on running backs has moved drastically toward mediocrity, and there's no need to draft mediocre players in the early rounds. Don't pass up guys like Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson or Maurice Jones-Drew, by any means, but if you aren't picking in the first half of the first round, you'll be better served to use those first few picks on elite QBs and WRs.

• Isn't he hurt? Maybe it's just the way athletes are more pampered and protected than ever before, but it seems there are more top players nursing injuries during peak fantasy draft season than I can remember. Especially with the secretive nature of some franchises when it comes to injury reports, it can be a scary proposition to spend an early draft pick on a guy who is dinged up before the season even begins. (See Moreno, Knowshon -- sure, the Broncos say he'll be ready to go for Week 1, but I'm not wild about having a starting fantasy RB with a bum hammy).

There are plenty of other cautionary tales out there, including Panthers WR Steve Smith, Vikings WRs Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin, and Cowboys WR Dez Bryant. I'm not opposed to drafting a guy nursing an injury, especially if you already have enough depth at the position to wait for him to heal, but I'm not comfortable using a premium pick on a guy who is banged up, especially if you can get a comparable but healthy player with the same pick.

• Look at all those tight ends! No, not that kind of tight ends. Get your mind out of the gutter (though perhaps double entendre is just the ticket to boost our traffic). We're talking about the kind of tight ends that are like oversized receivers and have typically been scarce when it comes to finding one that can help your fantasy team.

Not any more, my friends. By my count, there are no fewer than 17 tight ends I would feel comfortable starting every week. Sure, the top five or six are studs, while the next 12 or 13 are merely solid, but there's no need to panic if you end up on the wrong end of the early TE run.

• It's the year of the rebound guy. I sometimes have a tendency to dismiss a player who burned me the previous year, but I'm trying real hard to break myself of that habit this year and try to take advantage of some players' plummeting stock.

Sometimes these are guys who are just a year late breaking out of their sleeper shell, and other times they are guys who simply had a bad year and can be snagged late in hopes they rebound to their previous star status.

A few guys that fit the mold for me this year are Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck, Bears QB Jay Cutler, Jets TE Dustin Keller, Bears RB Matt Forte, Cowboys RB Marion Barber, Chiefs WR Dwayne Bowe, Seahawks WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh and 49ers WR Josh Morgan.

I'm not saying these guys will have huge years, but they're going awfully late based on last year's disappointing performance, so they could turn into good value picks.


I have several more drafts on tap next weekend, so I'll get my nose in a couple magazines and websites and pass along some more thoughts this week. And I haven't forgotten those of you locked in baseball pennant races -- I'm in a couple myself -- so I'll try to help y'all out, as well.