Week 7 Football and Some Basketball Questions

Okay, maybe we were wrong about Antonio Gates. After five straight big games, Gates had a bit of a stinker in week 6 and Gonzalez and Cooley had big weeks. Even Winslow and Shockey beat out our boy Antonio this past week. We'll quiet down a little bit about picking Gates #1 overall in your leagues, but we maintain that it's a reasonable strategy given the right matchup.

In happier news, Larry Johnson returned in week 6. Look for LJ to have some big games in the coming weeks. If you can get your hands on him in week 7, do it. Our sleeper pick from week 6, Kurt Warner, got hurt, so we'll consider that a neutral result (although you could argue he was more likely to get hurt given his age).

Some more thoughts about week 7:

- You probably don't need us to tell you this, but Tom Brady would be a good #1 pick this week againt Miami. The top QBs (Brady, Palmer, Peyton, Romo) probably won't change all year unless someone gets hurt.
- It's LT's bye, so there isn't a clear #1 RB this week. We like LJ as we mentioned above. If Westbrook is healthy, he should have a big game. Ronnie Brown has a tough matchup but he's such a huge part of his team's offense especially given the trade of Chambers this week that we still think he's a reasonable top 5 RB against the Pats. Reggie Bush is another option after the Saints looked like a totally different team in week 6. You might want to give Joe Addai a week to get back in the swing of things after missing some time. We say to pass on him this week.
- With Edwards and Steve Smith on bye this week, the WRs to target are Moss, Owens, C Johnson, Housh, and Plax (if healthy).
- This is the one week we won't talk about Gates as a TE option (he's on bye). Focus on Witten and Gonzalez this week, though we don't think Tony G can keep up the pace he's been on.

Shifting to basketball for a second, we'd love your input on a question we have about formatting our leagues. This is copied from our newsletter:

For our weekly basketball leagues, which of the following do you prefer and why?

a) Your team scores the sum total of all the points scored by your players in that week (this means that if Kobe Bryant plays 2 games in a week, and a lesser player plays 4 games in that week, the lesser player will be more valuable).

b) Your team scores the points scored by your players in their best two games that week (no matter how many games a player plays, you get credit for his two highest scoring games that week).

c) Your team scores the average points scored by each player that week (take the total points a player scores in a week, divide by the number of games he played, and you get the average score).

Post thoughts in the comments or email us. Thanks. Good luck in NFL week 7.