Fantasy Preview Review – USA Today

Our look at the fantasy football magazines now dominating the sports section of your favorite newstand continues with one of the best-known titles in America.

USA Today 2010 Fantasy Football

Vital stats: $7.99, 144 pages, 354 offensive and 75 defensive players ranked.

Top 10 picks: If you’re in a 10-team league, USA Today’s experts (including recruits from at least a half-dozen other Web sites) say the first round of your draft should look like this: Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Andre Johnson, Drew Brees, Steven Jackson, Larry Fitzgerald, Peyton Manning, Michael Turner, Maurice Jones-Drew and Ray Rice.

Intriguing nugget: Sigmund Bloom and Jason Wood of Footballguys.com are targeting Donald Brown as a steal, because he’s a second-year running back who didn’t live up to expectations last season. “Most people move on to the new flavors of the month at the position, but Ray Rice, Jamaal Charles, and Rashard Mendenhall were members of a lot of championship teams” last year.

Head scratcher: The section on quarterbacks starts with a list of the top 50 players available at that position. However, thanks to some fuzzy math, the section that follows that list has two quarterbacks ranked 42nd: Ryan Fitzpatrick (who appears on the list) and JaMarcus Russell (who does not).

I’m not sure which is a bigger head scratcher — the fact that there’s two quarterbacks ranked 42nd or the fact that someone thinks there are nine quarterbacks worse than Russell. That includes Colt McCoy, who also appears in the section with a rank of “NR.”

Kicker rule obeyed? Again, the USA Today experts did not conduct a mock draft. David Dorey of TheHuddle.com advises players not to draft a kicker until the very last round. “Anything earlier is as optimistic as e-mailing Jennifer Aniston and asking her out on a date.”

However, two pages after saying that, Dorey offers a system for those who want to carry two kickers on the roster: “You can make weekly decisions that can net you an extra three points. Just pick whichever kicker is more likely to be on a winning team that weekend.”

(If anyone here plays in a league where you can get an extra pick in the final round of your draft, feel free to leave a comment explaining how.)

Prediction likely to go wrong: That Vincent Jackson will be a top 10 fantasy wide receiver this season. Here’s USA Today’s assessment: “Jackson has even pushed ahead of TE Antonio Gates as a scoring threat. Jackson continues to upset the team with his immaturity, which could lead to a short suspension, but that’s the only thing going against him. Make him your No. 1 receiver.”

For the moment, let’s set aside the three-game suspension Jackson is facing for his second DUI guilty plea (probably not anyone’s definition of a “short suspension,” anyway). Unless he and the Chargers kiss and make up quickly, he could end up missing the majority of the season through a holdout. If that sounds like a No. 1 fantasy option to you, maybe you need to lay off the wine.

We’ll be back with the weekly NASCAR predictions.