i'm so in love with pancakes

is it possible that jay cutler might end up as a qb bargain again next year? he's been brutalized in the press for not winning, which has absolutely no bearing on his fantasy value, but could affect his draft position. the whole issue with his coach possibly looking to replace him with cassel might even be overplayed. if you had a chance to trade for a guy you just won 11 games with, wouldn't you look into it? i think that has nearly no bearing on how much you like your existing qb. face it, cutler is not peyton manning. if josh mcdaniels was taking over the giants and there was a chance of sending eli somewhere and coming back with cassel, he would have taken it. well, maybe that's just because eli's not worth it. the guy won a super bowl. trent dilfer also won a super bowl.

what round would you need to take cutler in for him to be considered a bargain? the sixth? i suppose he's not a tremendous bargain there, unless you expect him to take another big step in his development next year. i think you have to consider brees, manning, brady, romo, warner and possibly rivers as the guys who should be drafted before him. i'd have to look more closely at the numbers, but i'm not even incredibly happy about taken warner and especially rivers before cutler. i suppose i would prefer whichever of those three fell to a lower slot. if it was warner, i would want a very good backup.

depending on who's waiting for a qb in your league and how you're doing overall, i'll take cutler over roethlisberger, because again this is fantasy not reality. perhaps the pittsburgh line will protect him better next year, but he still hasn't been a guy who throws for a lot of yards. that's never good; the one nice thing about a jay cutler is that you'll get good yardage points even when the td numbers aren't astronomical. i tend to think of rivers as a td-only guy also, but he threw for a lot of yards last year. problem is, people were drafting him relatively high in '07, got disappointed, and then watched him have a career year in '08. i'm not sure i want to be the guy paying with the expectation of a repeat performance. still, i was irrationally afraid of him last year; he was going in the 10th round in leagues i was in and i had no interest in him as a backup. as for other qbs out there, i don't want mcnabb, i don't know where to take cassel, and if you're wondering about the other manning, rub your giants super bowl pennant for good luck before you draft him in the third round.

let's take a minute to discuss draft strategy. while it's become controversial to stick with running backs as your top draft choices, i think they are the safest high draft picks. if your guy goes down and you're stuck with his backup, it's generally the running back position where the greatest value is preserved. there are times when someone steps up and does great at qb or wr. however, you can't keep a matt cassel on hand in case every tom brady goes down. look at how long it took cassel to become a valuable fantasy commodity. as someone who drafted derek anderson in one league, i can tell you that he was not a viable starter in the early going. perhaps if you believe cassel can happen again, you find a boring/reliable backup and, when your big qb pick goes down for the season, stash his backup for a solid six to eight weeks, no matter what. that's great if your team is stable enough that you can afford the bench spot. you don't have to pull stunts like that with rbs. in recent years, backs have routinely stepped in to fantasy relevance in their first couple of games in a featured role. anecdotally, it seems wide receivers can do well when they have a great qb and especially when they're stepping in as the second option. wide receiver seems tough to predict; didn't it seem obvious hixon or someone would step up for the giants?

of course, you don't want a pointless rb in a high slot instead of a standout wr or qb. you could even argue that in leagues with safer playoff formats (i was in one where 8/10 teams made it), you might not even want to draft an rb before round 5 or so. start the year with a quality platoon guy or overlooked starter, add a couple rookies, fill your bench with rbs on teams that have good systems, and get a top qb and 3 wrs with your first 4 picks. that's a workable strategy in a lot of situations. the picks would still need to fall your way, and i can't really say who i'd want to take in rd 1. btw, i'm tempted to take hasselbeck late (11th rd?) if he's available and my starter is rock solid, but there could be better options i haven't thought of yet.

finally, is anyone else waiting for the chevy volt to generate mass anger? what happens when the battery life claim - 40 miles - turns out to be like all these macbook batteries that are quoted at 5 hours? i've owned 2 powerbooks and a macbook in the past 6 years, and you can safely get a couple hours plus on a charge. what happens when the volt turns out the same way? 20 miles all electric doesn't sound that great to me. even if it's 40 at the outset, how long before the aging battery is down to 50% of its original performance? maybe this whole battery thing is a genius move by car companies. they've made cars more and more reliable, so that you can get 100,000 miles out of even lower quality vehicles (hi neon). now, with hybrids and all-electric vehicles seen as the future, the inevitable battery life issues that will come up could either help sell new cars quicker or just lead to some fat maintenance bills.