Fantasy

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Each week I'll attempt to bring some clarity to your questions about the pigskin and the men who throw, catch, run and kick it. To reach me with questions, drop me a note anytime. For more fantasy analysis, check out Fanball.com.

Nobody wins a fantasy football league without working the waiver wire. Players get hurt. Starters get benched. Wideouts don't get many targets. A fantasy squad at the end of a season could look radically different than it did in Week 1. The draft is when you do all your trash talking, but the waiver wire is where you win your league.

By now, you've undoubtedly read a few accounts from fantasy experts imploring you to drop Anquan Boldin from starting lineups this week, as a direct consequence of Darrelle Revis returning to the Jets (isn't it funny how $46 million can inspire someone to work again?). And while this sounds like good advice for the masses, in reality, it conflicts with one of the most unimpeachable rules of fantasy football: Never fear someone who skips training camp.

The waiting is over, so now it's time to put your freshly minted roster to work. Here are some of the players to make sure you have in your lineup or have tethered to your bench.

When filling out your fantasy football roster, a healthy mix of rookies and veterans is a good idea. Leaning heavily to one side of the age spectrum can be detrimental to success. Sure, those fresh faces look exciting. But remember, it takes awhile for college kids to adjust to the faster pro speeds and they traditionally tire by season's end (Jets RB Shonn Greene admitted to losing steam at the end of his '09 rookie campaign ).

With just 48 hours before kickoff and a long offseason of fantasy speculation almost behind us, I'll be watching a six-pack of plots play out in this weekend's games.

Here are some notable free-agent pickups -- both old and young -- for the stretch drive of the fantasy baseball season:

When it comes to the draft, as I explained last week, I like to be aggressive -- go the first five rounds on need and then grab the best players available. I know that those aren't going to be superstars, but I'm not looking for superstars at that point, just solid players.

I must be crazy to be part of 13 real fantasy leagues this fall. That's 13 leagues of last-minute lineup changes in September, 13 leagues of stressful wheeling-and-dealing before the November trade deadlines and 13 leagues of agonizing over RB/WR-flex options during the playoff weeks of December.

There is no avoiding the fact that Fantasy sports are subject to luck. No one can predict, with any certainty, the health of athletes. Did anyone guess Jacoby Ellsbury would fracture his ribs in a collision with his own teammate, and miss the majority of the year? Of course not. Do I need to remind anyone about Tom Brady and the first game of 2008? Not a chance.

Searching for deep fantasy sleepers is much like the sport of noodling. To the untrained eye it appears that a noodler simply reaches into murky waters and miraculously a big fish appears, devouring his arm, sometimes up to the shoulder. These unique fishermen know exactly where and how to uncover their prey, lurking giant catfish, given their knowledge of the bottom's landscape and conditions on the surface. A fantasy owner in search of a deep sleeper has a similar goal, trying to uncover a big fish from an environment that appears cloudy to most but those who are aware of their surroundings and the signs to look for.

It's late summer. Baseball has been going for nearly six months. Fantasy football is in full swing, sucking your attention, and the college football season is right around the corner.

Can you smell it? That's the odor of pigskin wafting ever closer as the NFL regular season approaches. A huge percentage of fantasy drafts will go down in the next week. If this weekend is your only draft, I hope you've been mock drafting. You can analyze the player pool all you want, but until you've went through the process, you just can't know the ins and outs that each different year brings. To help those of you who haven't taken the time to do some serious mocking, I'll share my five commandments for fantasy football drafts for the 2010 season. Yeah, I know, there are supposed to be 10 commandments, but we're talking about a league with Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger here. We can't aim too high.

The glory of Fantasy Football is in the skill positions. The winning can be in what I call the "fantasy grab bag," all the other players, even the ones you don't pick. Don't pick? You look confused, my friend. Yes, fantasy games can be won or lost due to the play of offensive linemen, defensive players (even in IDP leagues), and even the lowly kickers. Aside from the freakish Devin Hester Bears teams, I don't know of any real advantage to any special teams, so we'll ignore them for the most part. The fact is that the guys up front can make or break the production of the skill players. A lineman goes down isn't important? Ask Matt Hasselbeck about that after he lost Walter Johnson. A defender breaking down isn't important? Brian Urlacher's absence didn't just hurt the Bears on defense, it put them behind more and put pressure on Jay Cutler. In a fantasy world where information is everywhere and your grandmother understands you don't take Drew Brees in the first round, little advantages like keeping your eye on the guys you don't pick can be the difference between winning and losing.

Can you smell it? That's the odor of pigskin wafting ever closer as the NFL regular season approaches. A huge percentage of fantasy drafts will go down in the next week. If this weekend is your only draft, I hope you've been mock drafting. You can analyze the player pool all you want, but until you've went through the process, you just can't know the ins and outs that each different year brings. To help those of you who haven't taken the time to do some serious mocking, I'll share my five commandments for fantasy football drafts for the 2010 season. Yeah, I know, there are supposed to be 10 commandments, but we're talking about a league with Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger here. We can't aim too high.

No player has had a bigger week fantasy stock-wise than Arian Foster. The Texans' second-year running back seems like the last one standing in Houston after former starter Steve Slaton's special teams demotion and rookie Ben Tate's ankle injury that shelved him for the season. Some draft list updates even have him slotted in the top 10 in running backs and in a one-player keeper league draft I was in last weekend, I saw him go in the draft's first round (!) I can't endorse him that high, but some of the hype is deserved, thanks to a 100-yard performance against the Cowboys last week adding to the draft stock hysteria.

With the relevant portion of the NFL preseason behind us, it's time for some stream-of-consciousness takes on what fantasy owners may have learned this month.

Welcome to my SI.com Fantasy Football column. It'll appear every Friday for the next 16 weeks, but since the season hasn't started yet, I thought I'd use this first installment to tell you what you can expect from week to week and then throw in a few draft thoughts.

I spent a good chunk of Thursday mock- and real-drafting for fantasy football, utilizing three distinctive methods: 1) Standard-scoring leagues, 2) Points Per Reception leagues and 3) Auction leagues. And as luck would have it, I'll devote a sizable piece of Friday's Clicks to the draft results. But first ...