FANTASY FOOTBALL WEEKLY FEATURES

CHI (2-5) vs NYG (5-2)

Game Prediction: CHI 6, NYG 24

After a sloppy loss to the Lions, the Giants are back to looking like contenders while the Bears squeak out a win over the visiting 49ers even after losing their only good offensive player. Craig Krenzel, meet Michael Strahan.... Put him down now, Mike... oooh - not that hard!

Pre-Game Notes - CHI

The Bears come off their second win of the season and the offense still clicked in the running game with Anthony Thomas replacing Thomas Jones. Not to worry about changing your perspective though - not much else worked well.

Running Backs: Thomas Jones sprained his foot on the first play from scrimmage last week and will likely miss this game. The Bears have not yet given a decent diagnosis on his condition but early word is that the ankle is pretty badly sprained and he won't practice. Updates as warranted.

Anthony Thomas came off the bench and looked very powerful rushing for 98 yards on 25 carries and adding 46 yards on four catches. It was a soft defense he faced and he did have 29 touches in the game, but he looked good enough that he won't be a liability and should slow down how quickly the Bears fall behind just like Thomas had.

Wide Receivers: The rookie Bernard Berrian led all receivers with his one 49 yard touchdown catch. David Terrell should audition for the lead in "Casper 2" since he only had one catch in the game and none the previous week. He's just invisible unless it's related to a penalty call. Justin Gage was blanked last week and Bobby Wade had three receptions for 33 yards. Stay away from this crew.

Tight Ends: ... "uncle"

Match Against the Defense: This game has a decent chance to get out of hand early and that would force the Bears to pass more which could lead to overall negative yardage. Figure that Thomas will get plenty of carries early and do little with them and to have more productive runs in the second half though far fewer of them.

If you are using any component of the Bears' passing game on your fantasy team, you should immediately petition the league to make the 2005 draft order be in reverse order of the standings before it becomes too obvious what you are doing.

Pre-Game Notes - NYG

Okay, so the Giants were a bit sleepy from their bye week naps when they lost to the Lions in week seven. Last week they were wide awake and back to crushing opponents when they man-handled the Vikings in Minnesota. The only question here is if the Giants will look past the Bears and be already planning to play... the Cardinals in week 10.

Okay. So maybe not.

Running Backs: Tiki Barber may have fallen back a bit against the Lions when he only had 70 rushing yards (though he still had 102 receiving yards and one touchdown). He's back on the horse again, coming off a 101 yard effort with two scores last week against the Vikings. He now has seven touchdowns on the season.

Mike Cloud came in and scored twice last week during the rout, a sure sign that Ron Dayne has played his final card and no longer sits at the table.

Wide Receivers: Amani Toomer was questionable to play last week with a hamstring strain but he only turned in three catches for 31 yards in his lowest game of the season. When the running game works, and it usually does, there is little need or desire to throw down the field. Ike Hilliard and Jamaar Taylor figure in but neither have any fantasy relevance.

Tight Ends: Jeremy Shockey had 60 yards on three catches last week and came about a foot away from one touchdown. Though the passing is lower this year, Shockey still is consistently one of the featured receivers for how ever many yards there are to distribute. He has two scores already this year and the Giants schedule gets much tougher starting in a few weeks. He'll figure in more then.

Match Against the Defense: While this should definitely be a Giants win, it's not likely to be a blowout. The Bears' pass defense has been pretty sound overall and should keep Warner to right at 200 yards and possibly much lower if Barber gets into 5th gear this week. Warner should throw for a score, but two would be uncharacteristic of both the Giants offense and the Bears defense.

Chicago has only allowed one rushing scoreto a tailback all season but they have given up four 100 yard games already and basically that was to the four decent runners they have faced. Pencil this game in as a standard affair with Barber running well and rushing scores could go to either Cloud or Barber.

I like a defensive score in this game as well. Krenzel's going to learn all new things about NFL blitzes.