From The Feature That Takes Us A Month To Get Up And Running Department - News From Ball Street: Week 5

News From Ball Street is like news from Wall Street. It rhymes, see what we did there? Here we watch the stocks (ehh, ehh?) of players who are rising and falling, and decide whether you should target these shooting and sinking stars. Clever, I know. Whadya know, the Dow is down again. Crude oil's rising. And my town is currently going through the ceremonial and educational Suicide Prevention Week. Coincidence? It's a response, I say. Kind of like this feature. Players' values rise and fall, and we respond with analysis. Will you use this week's info to kill in your league? Stock Up Larry Johnson - LJ has put up around 34 points over the past two weeks but I still don't feel like people believe in him as a legitimate, non-crappy, option again. Rightfully so. In week three and four Johnson faced up against Denver and Atlanta, two bottom 10 rushing defenses. He had 96 total rushing yards in the first two weeks against the Chiefs' first two opponents, New England and Oakland, both of whom are better than horrible D's. Course of action: Sell High Jason Campbell - The Redskins have swagger right now. Campbell has performed at a consistently high level thus far this year. Right now his value is rising, but it will only get higher. He's good for 20 points every week. Get him right now when his owner still probably considers the bench player that he drafted him as. Course of action: Buy High Chris Perry - DeDe Dorsey is on IR, Kenny Watson is hurt, and Cedric Benson is... Cedric Benson. So Perry will get tons of touches and be a fantasy force, correct? Neeeope. Perry rushed for 28 yards last Sunday. Against Cleveland. While getting the majority of the touches at running back. Course of action: Sell High Stock Low Ryan Grant - I guarantee that Grant owners have benched him by now. Get him now. Right now. The Bucs are one of only two teams in the league who haven't given up a rushing touchdown yet in 2008. They have a good, good rushing defense. Grant's 20 yards in week 4 weren't because he sucks. They were because of the matchup. Relax. He's also still recovering from his leg issues. He'll bounce back. Course of action: Buy Low Kevin Smith - After a nice week one, Smith was looking like a good addition to what's turning out to be an awesome rookie running back class. About that. Weeks two, three, and four have been terrible. And Rudi Johnson just won the starting job. The same Rudi Johnson who couldn't keep a job on the 0-4 Bengals. Nothing's getting better for Smith. Course of action: Sell Low Ben Roethlisberger - A guy who was so solid last year can't keep playing this mediocre. Especially when his team is on their third-string running back and will have to rely on the passing game. Right? I gotta believe his value will rise back up near the top. Course of action: Buy Low