The injury bug seem to be affecting more players than usual this early in the season, and has caused quite a few headaches for fantasy owners. Let us hope it is a little less ugly out there in Week Four.

Carolina Panthers at Chicago Bears

The Bears are throwing the ball a ton, yet it’s not worth starting any of their WRs. It’s Matt Forte or bust in Chicago, and even Jay Cutler knows nothing is going to change. The way he’s getting hit, I’m officially worried about him becoming shell-shocked to the point that he turns into Marc Bulger in his final years in St. Louis. Bulger didn’t want to play football by the time he was done in St. Louis and why would Cutler want to keep going when it’s probably not going to get any better. Thanks for ruining a great talent, Mike Martz. The Carolina backfield continues to be a total conundrum and probably won’t be any easier to figure out after playing this tough Bear run defense. Let’s throw out Cam Newton’s performance in the monsoon last week. Can he get it done against this defense? I have my doubts, but it will be an interesting [...]

Week Three is upon us in the National Football League, and unfortunately, so are a ton of injuries. I will not pretend to know why these have all popped up quickly, even if it is easy to blame the lockout and lack of formal workouts. What I do know is we have sixteen games to look at, so let’s get to it.

New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills

Just as you would have expected coming into the season, these undefeated teams will battle for the top spot in the AFC East! Ok, maybe this is a little surprising. Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Buffalo offense have been very entertaining to watch, and things may only get better with RB C.J. Spiller expected to see time at receiver. My guy, Fred Jackson has proven once again to be one of the most reliable players in the league and it’s better suited to carry the load than Spiller is, but Spiller dynamic ability needs to be used and the Bills need all the firepower they can get going up against the Patriots. Tom Brady continues to dominate, but will be without what could be his most dangerous weapon in TE Aaron Hernandez. That could open [...]

With the lockout in our rearview mirror, we are just one day away from a full slate of real NFL action. Just like last season, I will share my general thoughts on each game on either Friday or Saturday. Here we go…

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens

This might be a fun rivalry to watch, but it’s typically ugly for fantasy purposes. I wouldn’t be too excited about playing Ray Rice or Rashard Mendenhall in this one after they combined for 176/2 on 61 carries in the two meetings between the teams last year. It’ll be tough to sit either guy, but if you do play them, make sure to lower expectations. Joe Flacco might have a rough go of it playing behind a rebuilt OL that sees Bryant McKinnie taking over at LT and C Matt Birk coming back from a knee injury. As I’ve been warning everyone this week, expectations need to be managed if you have anyone playing in this game since these tend to turn into slugfests.

Atlanta Falcons at Chicago Bears

Roy Williams should not be a starting WR over Johnny Knox. Everyone seems to know that except the Bears, but Mike Martz is apparently an offensive genius and [...]

Each week we will bring you the weekly game picks from our staff. However, our group of senior writers decided to take things a step further making predictions for the season. Here is what they came up with:

Matt Camp

AFC

East: Patriots (13-3)

West: Chargers (13-3)

North: Steelers (11-5)

South: Texans (12-4)

Wildcards: Jets (12-4), Ravens (11-5)

Championship Game: Chargers over Patriots

NFC

East: Eagles (10-6)

West: Rams (11-5)

North: Packers (13-3)

South: Saints (11-5)

Wildcards: Lions (10-6), Falcons (10-6)

Championship Game: Packers over Eagles

Super Bowl: Packers over Chargers

MVP: Philip Rivers

Matt Brown

AFC

East: Patriots (13-3)

West: Chargers (12-4)

North: Steelers (11-5)

South: Texans (12-4)

Wildcards: Ravens (10-6), Jets (9-7)

Championship Game: Texans over Patriots

NFC

East: Eagles (12-4)

West: Rams (9-7)

North: Packers (13-3)

South: Saints (12-4)

Wildcards: Falcons (11-5), Lions (9-7)

Championship Game: Eagles over Packers

Super Bowl: Eagles over Texans

MVP: Aaron Rodgers

Joe Dolan

AFC

East: Patriots (13-3)

West: Chargers (13-3)

North: Steelers (12-4)

South: Texans (10-6)

Wildcards: Ravens (12-4), Jets (10-6)

Championship Game: Chargers over Patriots

NFC

East: Eagles (13-3)

West: Rams (10-6)

North Packers (12-4)

South: Saints (12-4)

Wildcards: Falcons (11-5), Lions (10-6)

Championship Game: Eagles over Saints

Super Bowl: Eagles over Chargers

MVP: Aaron Rodgers

Note: Matt Camp’s Weekly MATTchups will be posted on Saturday, but every Friday after that.

As we continue our series of analyzing poll results, we asked our subscribers perhaps the most pertinent question left for the fantasy football season: who is the #1 pick? We have exactly one week until the season kicks off, and there is still no clear-cut answer:

Among the five options, we had a convincing winner, but not a majority winner (think the United States Presidential Election of 1992!). It appears that Guru subscribers just feel best about Adrian Peterson at this point, and it’s hard to argue with them. Peterson had a thigh injury that limited him to 15 games last year, but he was still incredibly productive. Peterson had over 1600 yards from scrimmage and 13 total TDs, even behind an atrocious Minnesota offensive line with an ineffective and injured Brett Favre playing QB (later Tarvaris Jackson and Joe Webb). At the very least, the addition of QB Donovan McNabb will provide a stabilizing element to the Viking backfield. Peterson has asked Viking coaches for even more touches – it’s the last year of his contract, and perhaps he wants to prove his importance to the franchise, if they don’t know already. But he won this poll because he might [...]