Terrell Owens will be 37 this year

Say what you will about Terrell Owens the person, but as a football player, he's really good. Owens signed with the Cincinnati Bengals after a lackluster season with the Buffalo Bills where he tried to clean up his image as a human being. I think he's done a good job of it, but the question is, how much does he have left as professional athlete?

The tandem of Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens lining up at scrimmage is something that many football fans could only dream of. If it had happened 3 years ago when both players were in their prime, that would just absolutely crazy. But at this stage of his career, at 37 years of age, how effective will Terrell Owens (and Ochocinco) be?

The problem with T.O. is that at the age of 37, he's entering a territory that few other receivers in the NFL have been to. Not a lot of NFL wide receivers have played that effectively past the age of 35, let alone 37. Even looking at Randy Moss at age 33, he's already slowed considerably, although he's still a force to be reckoned with.

Looking at other NFL players who have played up to the age Owens is attempting, you can see a steady decline. I don't think I'm making a bold statement by saying that as you get older, you slow down, but take a look at these numbers and tell me what you think.

Here's Jerry Rice at ages 35-37:
At 35: 7 recs, 78 yards, 1 td (injured)
At 36: 82 recs, 1157 yards, 9 td
At 37: 67 recs, 830 yards, 5 td

Tim Brown at 35-37:
35: 91 recs, 1165 yards, 9 td
36: 81 recs, 930 yards, 2 td
37: 52 recs, 567 yards, 2 td

Cris Carter:
35: 96 recs, 1274 yards, 9 td
36: 73 recs, 871 yards, 6 td
37: 8 recs, 66 yards, 1 td (injured)

Keenan McCardell:
35: 70 recs, 917, yards, 9 td
36: 36 recs 437 yards, 0 td
37: 22 recs, 256 yards, 1 td

Joey Galloway:
35: 62 recs, 1057 yards, 7 td
36: 57 recs 1014 yards, 6 td
37: 13 recs, 138 yards, 0 td

Terrell Owens
At 35: 69 recs, 1052 yards, 10 td
At 36: 55 recs, 829 yards, 5 td
At 37: ?

(To be fair to Jerry Rice -the greatest receiver in the history of the NFL-, the guy put up two more 1000+ yard seasons at 39 and 40, so the possibility is certainly there for Terrell Owens.)

These were names off the top of my head that I plugged into p-f-r.com. I'm sure there are more but you get the idea. At 37, every one of these guys put up some pretty not-so-great seasons. So where does that put Terrell Owens?

There's some talk that Owens could supplant Ochocinco as the #1 WR for the Bengals. I can't see that happening. For one thing, Chad's been there for 7 years and over the past 5-6 years, he's developed a strong qb-wr relationship with Carson Palmer. That kind of chemistry is not just going to disappear overnight. If this had been a 31 year old Owens, then maybe, but at this point there's just no way.

I see Owens putting up solid #2 WR numbers. From a fantasy perspective, it puts him at your WR3, so if you start 3 WR, feel confident putting him in that 3rd receiver spot. I'm projecting around 60 receptions, 750 yards and 7 td. That would put him right there with Jerry Rice at 37. As for Chad Ochocinco, I figure he'll get around 75 receptions, 1150 yards and 8 td. That's good enough for a strong WR2 in your fantasy league.

Can I go 5 rounds without drafting RB?

I'm just gonna put this here on record so I can look back someday.

In my keeper league, my top 3 keepers are going to be:
RB Brian Westbrook
RB Frank Gore
RB Steven Jackson

3 studs. Don't ask me how I got them.. suffice to say there is no one else of any kind of value left on my team. But 3 studs may mean nothing if I go into the draft next year and go crazy and draft more RBs that I don't need.

I predict I need to draft at least 3 receivers and a quarterback in the next 5 rounds, possibly 2 QBs if I waited until the 7th round to draft the first.
Can I go 5 rounds without draft a runningback?

Time will tell..

RB with a new QB

Someone asked me whether or not I thought Green Bay Packers running back Ryan Grant could repeat his amazing rookie breakout performances this season without Brett Favre. That's big question because without Favre they're going with Aaron Rodgers, who has never started in his career. Being thrusted in this type of role will be a huge responsibility. I don't know about Rodgers but personally I'm not too worried about Grant. I have him in one of my keeper leagues as my #3 RB behind Steven Jackson and Maurice Jones-Drew although I'd argue Grant could be my 2nd best guy.

I'm sure many other fantasy owners are wondering whether opponents will just stack the line and stop Grant, forcing Rodgers to win games with his arm and hope he makes tons of rookie mistakes. I won't disagree that Rodgers has to be half-decent for Grant to have a great year, but I don't think it's reason to downgrade Grant.

Grant became the main ball carrier for Green Bay starting week 8, and amassed 1048 yards (929 rushing) and 8 touchdowns in that span. He did that in 10 games. This means he averaged 104.8 yards (93 rushing) and 0.8 touchdowns per game as a starter.

Over a 16 game span, Grant would have had 1677 total yards and 13 touchdowns. That's pretty good for a rookie.

In the past there have been several RBs who not only performed well despite a rookie quarterback taking over, they did exceptionally well -- some of them turned in career bests. Marshall Faulk was huge in Peyton Manning's first year. (I'm not comparing Aaron Rodgers to Peyton Manning, so take a chill pill.). Hold your breath, there's more -- Antowain Smith had his best season playing for the Pats in Tom Brady's first season. In Phillip Rivers' first season as starting quarterback, LaDainian Tomlinson had his best career as a professional football player. Frank Gore had his best season in Alex Smith's first full season as a starter -- in fact if you count Smith's starts in 2005, Gore career pretty much took off the same time as Smith's did. I don't know if you remember this far back but Duce Staley had a pretty nice year til he got hurt, and Jerome Bettis was so good in relief he made it to the Pro Bowl, his first time in 3 years. That was in Ben Roethlisberger's first season. In Tony Romo's first season 2006, that was the year Marion Barber broke out for 14 TDs. Heck, even when Kyle Boller took over as starter in Baltimore in 2003, Jamal Lewis had his best year ever as pro.

I've included average QBs such as Kyle Boller, Alex Smith, Tom Brady (just kidding!) to prove that Aaron Rodgers doesn't need to be a superstar quarterback for Grant to succeed.

The only guys I can think of where a young quarterback took over for a team and the RB sucked was Jay Cutler (no notable breakout for any RB in Denver), Matt Schaub (TJ Duckett and Warrick Dunn, neither had a huge breakout season).

As long as Aaron Rodgers doesn't turn out as bad as Cutler or Schaub (two guys who aren't necessarily bad QBs as they just didn't have good runningbacks), I think Grant is going to be just fine. And you can only assume that Rodgers will get better or they'll get a better QB. Packers fans simply won't stand for years of mediocrity at QB (see Baltimore, Miami for details,).