News From Ball Street

Ball Street-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. In the same way that you scan the free agent pool at this point in the season for guys who will give you reliable involvement down the stretch, it's time to make some deadline deals to stock up on high opportunity, high impact players. You need to search for guys you know will get a chance to succeed and pick a few who you think will follow through on that promise. Think Cliff Bars. You know they'll get the opportunity to produce and you are fairly confident that they will. Savor, or trash, the oat-nutty goodness of the following Ball Street stocks. Stock Up Willis McGahee/RB Baltimore—Twenty-five carries, 112 yards, and two touchdowns shoot McGahee back to fantasy prominence right? Well, the performance didn't seem to excite the Baltimore coach all too much. The Monday after Willis's big game, Jim Harbaugh reinforced that the Ravens plan to continue to vary their running back usage from week to week, all depending on the gameplan. McGahee hasn't shaken the time share yet. Course of Action: Sell Tennesee Titans Passing Offense—So this past weekend the Chicago Bears became the first NFL team to face the Titans with some remnant of resistance towards the two-headed Tennessee backfield touch tandem (alliteration jubilation!). The Bears made Jeff Fisher's crew beat them with the pass—and they did. However, not many teams can stop Chris Johnson and LenDale White, so don't expect the Titans offense to be spearheaded by the pass very often. For Pete's sake, Kerry Collins hasn't had a two-touchdown or a 200-yard game once the rest of this season. Course of Action: Sell Kevin Smith/RB Detroit—Did you really believe Rudi Johnson would be relevant in Detroit for very long? Over the past four weeks, Smith's touches have steadily increased in number and he's been making the most out of it. The only game over that stretch in which Kevin didn't score was against the Redskins, and he climaxed this past weekend with his first career 100-yard game, which he paired with another rushing touchdown, on 23 carries. Plus, there's this from Marinelli: "We wanted to get him a full boatload of runs and I think he showed some real spring and some real life." You can now add Smith to the overflowing group of stud rookie runners. Course of Action: Buy Stock Down Jake Delhomme/QB Carolina—Try your absolute hardest to ignore the 12.3 passer rating against the 2-7 Oakland Raiders and focus on the previous five weeks in which Delhomme had two scores on four different occasions. No, no, I said brush back the 72 yards and four interceptions on Sunday. Hey seuss, bury the 26% completion percentage! Can't do it? I doubt his owner can either. Which is why it's the perfect time to grab his, aside from Week Ten, solid production as a legitimate fantasy starter down the stretch for those in need of one. Course of Action: Buy Julius Jones/RB Seattle—Remember when Maurice Morris was a name worth knowing? Ya, I don't either. And his one carry this past week didn't stir up any old memories. Julius Conehead's 16 carries for 88 yards, a 5.5 average, are helping him emerge as the feature back in Seattle, and with Matt Hasselbeck returning, that's a decent situation to be in. Expect some solid production from here on out. Course of Action: Buy Bobby Engram/WR Seattle—Much like JuJo, Engram will enormously benefit from having Matt Hasselbeck back in the lineup. Koren Robinson can hardly be confused as a solid NFL starter let alone a fantasy starter, so don't let his decent output week 10 fool you. Engram is the guy you want. The epitomy of an underneath outlet, he will rack up the receptions, producing yet unearthed in 2008 fantasy gold during the playoffs. Course of Action: Buy