Kurt Warner was very good in 2008, delivering a season so prolific you would have sworn he was wearing a Rams jersey.

In 2008, Warner put up 4,582 yards and 30 touchdowns, numbers most fantasy football owners dream of. He finished 5th among quarterbacks, despite having a terrible last couple of weeks of the season due to the “weather problems” in the Arizona Cardinals schedule.

So how does a QB that finished 5th among fantasy quarterbacks compare to a guy who missed 5 games in the same season?

Quite favorably.

I know Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub is a liability due to his ability to get hurt, but his ability to pass the ball far outweighs that. Even with 5 games chalked up to injury, Schaub still finished among the top 20 quarterbacks in fantasy football, and he threw for 3,043 yards and 15 touchdowns. On a per game basis, Schaub was better than the likes of Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Matt Cassell and Brett Favre. Most importantly, using his average fantasy points per game, Schaub was right there with the one and only Kurt Warner, who averaged just 0.6 points/game more than Schaub (according to ESPN Standard Scoring).

And while Schaub’s recent injury in a preseason game against Minnesota doesn’t help this point, I’d say Schaub is just about due for an injury-free season. But even if he isn’t, who cares?

If you can get Kurt Warner production for 11 games, for a guy you can get more than 3 rounds later in your fantasy football draft, why not take the chance? Besides, there are plenty of late-round picks you can get to stand in for Schaub for 5 games, including Carson Palmer (ADP: 87th), Matt Hasselbeck (ADP: 113th), and David Garrard (ADP: 125th). Of course, if Schaub doesn’t get injured, you get the full 16 games, and that’s upside that’s hard to ignore.

So in choosing between Schaub and Warner, go with the quarterback that comes at a much cheaper price! Besides, this Houston Texans offense, which finished 3rd in the NFL last year, is prime for an even bigger year in 2009. Thus, the Texans have plenty of reason to keep their quarterback standing tall in the pocket, and so long as he’s protected, he’s one of the best quarterbacks in all of fantasy football.

Week 1 Fantasy Football Projections – Top Picks
1. Quarterback Projections
2. Running Back Projections
3. Wide Receiver Projections
4. Tight End Projections
5. Defensive Projections

Week 1 Fantasy Football Projections – Extra Picks
1. Quarterback Fantasy Football Projections
2. Running Back Fantasy Football Projections
3. Wide Receiver Fantasy Football Projections
4. Tight End Fantasy Football Projections

Week 1 Fantasy Football Projections – Sleeper Picks
1. Quarterback Sleeper Picks
2. Running Back Sleeper Picks
3. Wide Receiver Sleeper Picks
4. Tight Ends Sleeper Picks
5. Defensive Sleeper Picks

Week 1 Fantasy Football Projections – Duds
1. Quarterback Duds
2. Running back Duds
3. Wide Receiver Duds

Fantasy Football Week 1 – Buy or Sell
1. Quarterbacks: Buy Garrard, Sell Favre

A player’s late-season schedule should be incorporated into your decision on whether to draft that particular player on to your fantasy football team. It would just be foolish not to be aware of the kind of schedule your player is going to face during the playoff weeks of fantasy football.

However, there are different rules for different types of selections, so let’s go over how to approach each situation in your fantasy football draft.

First Round
Never incorporate late-season schedules into your first round fantasy picks. Plain and simply, you want to get the player that is going to score you the most points, and to shortchange yourself on an elite player for another player who might have an easier schedule would just be stupid. Period!

Quarterbacks
When it comes to incorporating the final few games of a quarterback’s schedule into your fantasy football draft, I’m a little iffy on it. On the one hand, you probably don’t want Donovan McNabb if he has to go up against NFC East teams 3 out of the final 4 weeks of the fantasy football season. But then again, do you really want to pass up on Kurt Warner if he has to play the Jets, Ravens and Titans to finish the year? To be safe, I recommend using the schedule in your decision on quarterbacks only when the quarterback is outside of the top 5 or 6 in the league. After you get that low on the list, you’re not talking about a lot of variance, so you would be better off passing up on the 7th rated QB for the 10th rated QB if the 10th rated QB has a cupcake last couple of weeks.

Running Backs
The only time you should ever incorporate late season schedules into selecting a running back is if there is a tie. Fact of the matter is, you never really know what a running back is going to do against a particular defense, no matter how good they are? Remember the Ravens great defense last year? They got ran over by Brandon Jacobs and the New York Giants. Remember the Giants great defense last year? Brian Westbrook gave them the business. Fact is, picking a running back based on schedule could get you burned, especially if it’s dual-threat running back. So only incorporate running backs’ schedules when you have no other way to decipher between the two.

Defenses
This is where you should put the most credence into the late season schedule. You don’t want to have the Steelers defense if they’re playing the Patriots, Colts and Saints in Weeks 13-16. No matter how good the defense is, you don’t them to cost you a victory during the fantasy football playoffs, and sometimes even the best defenses can be victims of the schedule.

Looking to draft a few steals in your fantasy football draft? Well, I have a few for you.

Of course, the idea of stealing someone in a fantasy football draft, or any draft, is debatable. Afterall, who is to say the player you drafted wasn’t rightfully drafted in his place. The people who didn’t draft him before you surely thought the players they were drafting were better than him, so is it really possible that they are all wrong?

The truth is, a steal in a fantasy football draft isn’t a steal until the season plays out. Just like a bust can’t be a bust before he ever steps on the football field.

That said, I have a few “potential steals” for you in this draft. These players might possibly fall in the draft because other players are wrongfully being drafted ahead of them. I’ve got some controversial ones, but needless to say, I’ll back up everyone with a reason as to why I think they might fall, and why they will succeed despite their reasons for falling. [You can also check out Part I for more players]

Matt Hasselbeck, Quarterback, Seattle Seahawks – Don’t ask me how a player I rank in the top 10 at his position is falling in drafts, but that he is. I’ve done like 20 mock-drafts and I end up drafting Hasselbeck every time as my #1 quarterback because he is always there as a safety net. He seems to get picked in the late 7th or early 8th rounds, so targeting him in the 7th round should serve you well. I don’t know who people are drafting before Hasselbeck, but there can’t be that many players more valuable than a guy who is sure to have another dominate year passing the ball. I guess people are putting a lot of stock in the fact that Mike Holmgren is in his last year and that perhaps the Seahawks will be on the decline this season. But I don’t see that. This team just re-energized itself with the addition of two new running backs and they still have one of the better defenses in the NFL. So I like the Seahawks to do well this season, and I think that Hasselbeck will continue his stellar play at the quarterback position.

Roy Williams, Wide Receiver, Detroit Lions – People! Stop buying the hype! I love Calvin Johnson, and when it is all said and done, I think Johnson could go down as one of the greatest wide receivers ever. But that hasn’t happened yet, and I’m not going to sit here and predict that he’ll be dominate in 2008 when I know these two things: One, the Lions are moving away from the pass this season, and two, Roy Williams is the number one receiver on this Lions team! I have no idea how Calvin keeps going ahead of Williams in mock drafts, but maybe people are just high or something. Roy Williams is a dominate receiver, and a top 10 producer in this league, he deserves more respect from fantasy football players. But that’s okay, their disrespect of him means you can reap the rewards. While Roy is tending to go in the 6th round, I think he is worth the 5th round pick, and he may even be a steal there if you’ve got your running back situation already taken care of. My main point here is that he deserves to go before Calvin and he is not. So don’t draft him before Calvin, and once Calvin is gone, Roy is pretty much a steal from then on.

Joey Galloway, Wide Receiver, Tampa Bay – I know Galloway is old, but he isn’t that old yet. He’s only 36, and while that age would mean the end of the road for most speed-demon wideouts, Galloway has found the fountain of youth. Galloway managed to be a top 15 receiver last year, and I see no reason for him to fall off in 2008. People have said that he has looked great in training camp and practice, and that he doesn’t appear to have aged one bit from last year. I’ll take their word for it, because Galloway is noted for training extensively during the off-season to maintain his speed and agility. But most people don’t know that, which is why Galloway is falling into the 10th round of drafts, when he is probably worthy of going in the 8th round. So pick up Galloway in the 9th or the 10th round, and you’ll have yourself yet another fantasy football draft steal, provided by TheSportsWatchers.com.

[You can also check out Part I for more players]

If you play fantasy football, then you know that everyone and their momma is trying to tell you who to draft, when to draft him, and how you could have mad that last draft pick better.

If you play fantasy football, you also know not to damn thing anyone tells you when it comes to setting up your fantasy football team—except for me that is (and your momma to, but only if she’s not in your league).

Here, I’m not going to tell you who to draft. No I’ve done that already, and I’ll have plenty of opportunities leading up to the first week of the season to give you my pre-season fantasy football draft analysis again, and of course you’ll be reading and hearing my fantasy football advice all season long here at TheSportsWatchers.com.

So what am I going to tell you if I don’t tell you whether to pick Tom Brady or LaDainian Tomlinson with the first pick, the ranking of the running backs, the projections for the quarterbacks and the consistency of the wide receivers?

I’m going to tell you the exact opposite. I’m going to tell you who not to draft.

This has been my ultimate key to fantasy football success. You have to know who to stay away from. Sometimes the decisions you make are hard, because often the players that you need to eliminate from your selection pool are the same players that are coming off of more than stellar seasons in the year prior. But if you took a guy like running back Larry Johnson in 2007, who dominated the NFL in 2006, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

If LaDainian Tomlinson was the king of fantasy football in 2006, than Larry Johnson was heir to the throne. He had a career year and ran behind what was probably the worst offensive line he had ever played for. And while LJ racked up his 1,789 yards in 2006, he also accumulated 416 carries, which essentially wore him out to the point where he was destined to fail in 2007. Knowing that, I removed Larry Johnson from all of my fantasy draft boards last year, and I effectively avoided his 8-game and 559-yard disappointment of a season.

You too can benefit from removing certain players from your draft board, because there are a few players out there that are projected to have unfavorable fantasy football seasons, and I’ve got a list of them. Before I give that to you, let me warn you, there will appear to be some contradictions between my rankings and involving these players on this “Don’t Draft List.” However, the rankings assume that the players will live up to their talents, while this list assumes that the worst of the players. So use this list as a guide to avoid drafting certain players when there are other equal or comparable fantasy football players to draft from.

With that said, here is the “Don’t Draft List!”

Carson Palmer, Quarterback, Cincinnati Bengals – I don’t like what I’m seeing from the Bengals offense so far. Their offense was the one good thing they had going for them last year and now it looks almost putrid. Here they are, looking to get receivers, trade grade-A running backs, and risking the seasons with wideout who has a bum shoulder. And of course, Carson is the one who will suffer from all of this. Not to mention, I don’t think the Bengals adequately addressed their offensive line issues during the off-season. Carson may be a highly-talented quarterback, but this year, there is a very likely chance that he won’t be his usual self.

Marshawn Lynch, Running Back, Buffalo Bills – I don’t care how many top 10 lists he is on this pre-season, because most importantly, he didn’t make mine! Besides, we all have seen this movie before. Rookie running back enters the league and explodes for big season, then said rookie running back follows it up with a dud for sophomore campaign and fantasy football players all over the country are devastated by his poor production. Now clearly, that doesn’t happen all the time, and I don’t expect it to happen to Adrian Peterson. But the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of rookie running backs who rush for 1,000 yards don’t rush for a 1,000 the following year. I can’t find the percentage, but trust me on this, Lynch is likely to behold himself to that trend.

Calvin Johnson, Wide Receiver, Detroit Lions – Don’t buy the hype quite yet. I know, I know, you’ll be kicking yourself if you pass up on Calvin Johnson and he has a terrific season. But he is going to go entirely too high in the draft, and the likelihood of you having a shot at him the rounds where he should be drafted are unlikely. Heck, even fools on ESPN are ranking him in the top 10 despite him showing no evidence of that last year. Look, I love what Calvin Johnson can do, but he hasn’t done it yet. Not to mention, I’m almost 100% sure that at the end of the day, a healthy Roy Williams (his teammate) will have a better year than a healthy Calvin Johnson, and there’s no reason for you to go out and draft a #2 receiver as early as Johnson is projected to go. That said, I do expect Johnson to have a big Week 1, but I think Roy will have a big week too, so…

Antonio Gates, Tight End, San Diego Chargers – The fools who have Antonio Gates ranked as the #1 tight end in all of fantasy football have to be the worst prognosticators ever. There is absolutely no way that Gates will finish the year as the top tight end, if he will finish the season at all. The man has missed training camp, barely practices now, and I’m not even sure I saw him play in the preseason, and I know for a fact he didn’t play in the team’s 3rd pre-season game. But if you want to bet the farm on Gates go ahead. We all know he’ll be taken in your fantasy football draft before just about every other tight end, which means you’ll be picking him way too high if you target him. If you do draft Gates as high as he has been going in drafts, that alone could ruin your entire draft. But hey, that’s just my fantasy football prediction.

More Fantasy Football Articles:

“Don’t Draft List” Part I
My 3 Bold Fantasy Predictions
Should You Trade Your First Pick
Fantasy Football Predictions Week 1 – Quarterbacks
Fantasy Football Predictions Week 1 – Running Backs
Fantasy Football Predictions Week 1 – Wide Receivers
Fantasy Football Predictions Week 1 – Tight Ends
Fantasy Football Predictions Week 1 – Defense