Earnest Graham burst onto the scene last year with an 11th place fantasy finish. Graham ended up leading the Bucs with 222 carries for 898 yards (4.0 YPR) while scoring 10 rushing TDs. As impressively, Graham caught 49 receptions for 324 yards.

On the heels of his breakthrough season, Graham lobbied for a new contract and was rewarded with a 3-year, $10.5mm extension.

Why wouldn’t a multi-year extension be good news for Graham’s prospective fantasy owners? Because it really isn’t the kind of contract that guarantees him much beyond 2008. Given the prodigious rise in the NFL salary cap, and the projected increases in 2009 and 2010 to come, Graham’s contract compares more to that of a highly valued backup than it does a franchise cornerstone.

That’s not to say Graham isn’t going to be the bellcow this season, but I would be wary of betting on him this year. Jon Gruden loves throwing the kitchen sink on the field, and will use any and all offensive weapons at his disposal. While some may scoff at the signing of elder statesman Warrick Dunn, it’s hard to imagine the Bucs signed him for ceremonial purposes. Let’s not forget that Graham is no spring chicken either, he’s 28 years old and just took that long to get significant playing time.

Adrian Peterson’s monster rookie season (1,609 yards from scrimmage, 13 TDs in 14 games) has fantasy owners gushing over this year’s top rookie RB — Oakland Raider Darren McFadden. While the 6′1″, 211-pound explosive runner may ultimately be one of the top players in the draft, far too many fantasy owners are assuming McFadden will be the top fantasy rookie RB.

Let’s take a look at the top rookie RBs from each of the last 10 years:

As you can see, only three times in the last 10 years has the 1st RB drafted ended up as the top fantasy producer. So before you race to draft Darren McFadden on draft day, consider for a second whether another rookie may have the more advantageous situation; I know I will.

Lots of chatter this offseason about Jeremy Shockey and what many thought to be an inevitable parting of ways with the New York Giants. After sitting out the Giants improbable Super Bowl run, Shockey pouted and failed to appear at the post-SB events including a visit to the White House. There were reports that the Giants were pursuing deals for him prior to and during the April NFL draft, but still nothing came. Then a much ballyhooed altercation between Shockey and GM Jerry Reese appeared to put the final nail in the coffin.

But today Giants beat reporter, Vinny DiTrani, took a moment from his vacation to say that Giants have officially stopped pursuing a trade of the enigmatic TE:

This flies in the face of everything that has happened in recent weeks, including that Shockey-Reese shouting match that was witnessed by several players.

But a source that has been accurate much of the time says the Giants have given up efforts to try to trade the tight end, and that Shockey will stay put.

Like I said that’s hard to believe. But perhaps Reese could not get back in return what he wanted for Shockey. The rumor had been a very complicated multi-team deal was in the works, one which relied on a lot of things falling into place. One of the things that wasn’t, however, was Shockey’s ankle, and his inability to pass a team physical.

At any rate, maybe No. 80 will be in Albany after all.

I know lots of Giants fans don’t want to hear this, but they better rejoice over this news. A Giants team without Jeremy Shockey for a full 16-game season was going to be a Giants team that struggled offensively. In spite of his personality quirks, Shockey has been a MAJOR portion of Eli Manning’s success.

Over the last three seasons, Shockey has accounted for:

• 20.2% of the team’s receptions (188)
• 20.6% of the team’s receiving yards (2,133)
• 23.9% of the team’s receiving TDs (17)

No disrespect to Kevin Boss, but he was not going to replicate that kind of productivity. Now the story isn’t over. Shockey could threaten to hold out and/or come up lame with a lesser injury. But NFL players have a tendency to let their competitive spirit overwhelm them once the games count (see: Chad Johnson) and I’m betting Shockey suits up, and plays well. At his current ADP (TE9, 94th overall pick), Shockey represents great value.

The biggest difference between fantasy football and real football is that your team can consist of a bunch of losers and yet still blow the doors off your opponent. Sounds controversial? Not when you realize that I mean it literally. At the end of the day, we fantasy owners don’t really care whether the team’s our players suit up for get the WIN on Sunday, as long as our individual players rack up the stats. Sure, there is often a correlation between winning the game and putting up big offensive numbers, but it’s not always the case.

So just to get us back in the mindset of talking fantasy football, let’s take a moment to honor the best “losers” in fantasy football over the last 10 years.

Table 1: Best individual fantasy performances by a RB in a losing effort (1998-2007)

The first thing that should jump out at you from this list is that talent trumps winning or losing. Some of the best RBs in the last decade appear multiple times on this list. The next thing I couldn’t help but notice is that Kansas City represents 30% (6 out of 20) of the list; which tells us two things we already knew…1) The Chiefs haven’t been a very good team over the last decade and 2) They’ve had excellent runners in spite of that.

Does this have any deep meaning for your fantasy draft preparation? No, it’s just a fun and quick use of our newest stat engine: The Game Log Dominator.

Next we’ll take a look at the best “Loser” WR performances.

I know that drinking and driving isn ‘t a problem confined to the NFL, but I do think that NFL players have even less excuse for this crime than practically anybody else when they go out drinking and then drive, followed by getting into trouble for doing so. First off, NFL players have plenty of money - if they want to go out on the town and have a good time, nobody has a problem with that - but why not hire a limo or take taxis? It’s not like the average NFL player can’t afford to hire someone to drive for him on Friday or Saturday night.

Commissioner Goodell hasn’t been shy about issuing suspensions since beginning his tenure - and teams are responding by being a lot less tolerant of illegal behavior as a result. How are the players like Cedric Benson (two arrests for operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol in the past five weeks) and Jerramy Stevens (still to serve a two game suspension for a DUI incident in Arizona) not getting the message? The league and the individual teams are fed up with the PR black-eyes that DUI’s bring to the organizations in question. In fact, as of June 1st the league is monitoring all 32 teams for player misbehavior, and may begin fining teams with more than 1 player in legal difficulty.

As Jerry Angelo stated in relation to Cedric Benson’s latest escapade: “Hard to believe. We are certainly going to take this very seriously. I’m not going to sit here and tell you we are not extremely disappointed and frustrated with this. Anybody would be in this situation. Disappointment is too much an often-used word when we’re talking about Cedric, and the No. 1 lesson for every player is protect your job. So we’re all held accountable for our actions.”

We’ll see where this latest incident leaves Benson, but it certainly isn’t going to help out his NFL career. How long before the rest of the players catch on? Will they ever get the message, collectively?

I hope so - but I’m not holding my breath.