Yesterday was one of the most active days in the NFL. With rosters having to get down to 53 players, teams had to make tough choices. There were some moves yesterday that will have impact if you're preparing for your draft.

Seahawks cut Houshmanzadeh: The former Bengal, who signed a 5-year deal with the Seahawks last year, was cut and is now seeking employment. Housh will likely find work this weekend with several teams still needing help at receiver. Wherever Housh ends up, he needs to be dropped on your draft board. He cannot be counted on as the 80+ reception guy any more. However, he might still be a nice bargain if you have yet to draft, if he catches on in the right situation.

Cardinals kick Leinart: Perhaps the biggest name, but least shocking, cut was Matt Leinart. The former top-10 first round draft pick can certainly be considered a bust. The Cardinals chose to go with Max Hall rather than Leinart. Coach Ken Whisenhut seems high on Hall, who could be considered a decent sleeper in keeper leagues. Leinart, on the other hand, should not be drafted at all. Even if he latches on with a team, he'll be a backup and there are many in the NFL who feel Leinart is not an NFL-caliber QB. So more time for Leinart to spend partying with co-eds in a hot tub!

Redskins backfield less crowded: The Redskins had assembled a stable of running backs, none of which were overly impressive. Willie Parker was one of those and is now seeking employment. Parker, a former fantasy golden boy, now will be thrown to the waiver wire scrap heap. He will probably sign with someone, but will be deep on their depth chart, so keep an eye on Parker later in the season, but for now, consider him fantasy irrelevant. Ryan Torain was also cut by the Redskins. This one was more surprising as there had been chatter that coach Mike Shanahan loved Torain. In fact, he was considered a sleeper by several fantasy experts. For now, take a wait and see approach with Torain but don't draft him.

Derrick Ward experiment over in Tampa: Last year's chic fantasy breakout pick, Derrick Ward, was cut by Tampa. The fallout from this means that Cadillac Williams should move up draft boards to be considered a solid RB2 with a lot of upside. It also means that his new backup, Kareem Huggins, makes for a nice handcuff to Cadillac and also makes for a nice sleeper in keeper leagues. Ward has signed with Houston to be a backup to Arian Foster. Right now Ward doesn't warrant drafting, but likely will be a waiver wire investment at some point.

Vincent Jackson still a Charger: The disgruntled and maligned Charger receiver was rumored to be on the trading block. However, he did not get traded and his status remains quite uncertain. Here's the deal on Jackson. When he plays, he's a WR1. But, right now he's holding out and is suspended to boot. With that being said, Jackson should still be drafted. In keeper leagues, he has a higher value. If you're playing for this year, you should pass on Jackson.

Follow me on Twitter @dafantasygeek

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After drafting two teams, having an auction and studying the latest Average Draft Position (ADP) numbers from around the web, I have found five guys going in the first six rounds that you don’t want on your team.

Understand, they could add value if they slip, but you’re better off letting some other owner investing such a high pick in them.

DeAngelo Williams (17th overall – ADP):  Williams has put up some big games over the past two seasons and undoubtedly warranted some heavy fantasy consideration.  My biggest concerns are his durability and the presence of Jonathan Stewart, who could easily prove to be the better fantasy option. Williams is a solid choice, but I find more consistency in Round 2 with my pick.

Ryan Grant (25th overall –ADP):  I can’t put my thumb on it, but Grant just doesn’t excite me. While he plays in a high-powered offense, the Packers’ running back lacks explosiveness. He won’t kill you as a RB2, but if you go with other positions in the first two rounds and count on him as your RB1 you will be disappointed.

Percy Harvin (61st overall – ADP):  Harvin’s stock is on the rise following the injury to Sidney Rice, but his struggles with migraines could become a weekly concern.  I favor a few other of the receivers surrounding him on the GSI Cheat Sheet, including Michael Crabtree, Mike-Sims Walker, and Dwayne Bowe. They are all safer picks.

Brandon Jacobs (78th overall –ADP):  After rating as the fourth highest scoring running back in 2008, Jacobs failed to hit 100 yards and finished with just five TD’s a year ago.  He is seemingly is always banged up, has apparently lost a step and is likely to play second fiddle to Ahmad Bradshaw. He is worth a look outside the top 100 overall, but not this early.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh (94th overall – ADP):  Houshmandzadeh only topped 77 yards twice a year ago and had his lowest TD total since 2003. At 33, he’s not getting any better and with so many questions surrounding the Seahawks’ offense you can find a better option at this point in the draft.

Fantasy Football fantasy advice, deangelo williams, ryan grant, percy harvin, brandon jacobs, tj houshmandzadeh

Okay, Round Three is where things start to get interesting...

RECAPS: Round One | Round Two

ROUND THREE
25. HUMBERT - WR R. White (ATL)
26. FISCHER - WR M. Colston (NO)
27. CLASGENS - WR S. Smith (CAR)
28. ANSELMO - RB P. Thomas (NO)
29. MURDICO - WR D. Bowe (KC)
30. SIMS - RB R. Grant (GB)
31. SCHMITT - QB K. Warner (ARI)
32. WETZEL - WR T. Owens  (BUF)
33. BRYANT - WR T. Houshmandzadeh (SEA)
34. DINSMORE - RB J. Addai (IND)
35. SIMON - RB M. Lynch (BUF)
36. BROERING - WR C. Ochocinco (CIN)

POSITION BREAKDOWN: WR (7), RB (4), QB (1)

MY PICK: After taking a RB and QB, I had no choice but to wideout. I was hoping to grab one of my top 5 wideouts, but I couldn't pass on the Tier 1 quarterback (Peyton Manning) in Round Two. Still, Steve Smith is nice value here. People forget  when they look at his numbers that he missed two games due to a suspension last season. Smith has only played in all 16 games twice in his career, but the durability wrap is misleading. His numbers were down a bit last year as the Panthers ran early and often. They scored 21 rushing touchdowns over the last eight games. Still, Smith averaged over 5 catches per game and broke the 100-yard mark eight times in 14 tries. Carolina is a run first team, but I expect Smith to find the end zone a few more times in '09. Smith is a low-end WR1 with significant upside.

BEST VALUE PICK: If you read this blog regularly you know I already feel strongly about Pierre Thomas' upside. With that in mind, I peg Joseph Addai as my best value pick of the round. After scoring 15 TD's in '07, last season was a bit rough for the Colts' running back. He started strong by scoring four times in the first four games, but missed four games and parts of two others with injuries after that. The guy was a top 5 pick a year ago and plays in one of the league's best offenses. Getting him 34th overall is great value. The team drafted Donald Brown and he will push for time, but perhaps that will have a good impact on Addai and push him to do better (i.e. Jonathan Stewart's affect on DeAngelo Williams).

MOST LIKELY TO DISAPPOINT: Marshawn Lynch at this point is the worst pick of the draft so far. Not only is he losing the first three games (most fantasy leagues only play 13 weeks) due to a suspension, but he was outperformed most of last season by Fred Jackson. Expect Lynch to still be the featured back upon his return, but Jackson and the newly acquired Dominic Rhodes are going to get their crack at carries. I have at least eight RB's still available rated higher than him on my latest Cheat Sheet. Lynch could prove worthy, but he could have drafted a round or two from now most likely.

FINAL TAKE: Round Three is where fantasy championships start to get formed. It's hard to mess up the top two picks, but the decisions made between Rounds 3-7 are the ones that seperate pretenders from contenders. One thing is clear so far though, running back depth is much better than that at wide receiver this season.

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It has been looking less and less likely that the Bengals would be dealing Chad Ocho Cinco for the past couple of weeks. Whatever slim hopes there may have been that the team would trade its disgruntled receiver were smahed in by head coach Marvin Lewis during his Tuesday press conference.

"I dont know why people continue with this speculation of moving Chad," Lewis said. "I think it's been told many times and we've reiterated now for I don't know (long). But Chad is not getting moved. So we won’t speculate on any of our players. Receivers position, I don’t know that any team doesn't go through a draft without drafting a wideout. I'm sure there will be at least 32 receivers taken by 32 teams so chances are we'll take a wideout at some point."

I don't want to see the Bengals just give the guy away, he still is there best playmaker on offense. However, I am not convinced that we will ever see the guy that used to be Chad Johnson, a Pro Bowl caliber happily content receiver, in a Bengals' uniform ever again.

On a side note, I am getting sick of hearing TJ Houshmandzadeh rip the organization. He's gone and in a new place. He needs to get over it and shut his mouth. Getting rid of Who's Your Mama removed one of the tumors plaguing this team, but if the Bengals want to get rid of the entire cancer it's time to at least listen to offers on Chad Whatever he's going by now.

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Free agent wide receiver TJ Houshmanzadeh's career as a Bengal is officially over as he signed a 5-year, worth more than $40 million, with more than $15 million guaranteed according to ESPN.com.

Though he had hoped to make his decision Sunday, Houshmandzadeh, pressured by Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer to stay in Cincinnati and by the Vikings to stay around the Minneapolis area during a visit, escaped from a Minneapolis hotel Sunday night, flew to Los Angeles and spent Monday morning trying to make up his mind. He weighed offers from three teams, along with their quarterbacks and the teams' chances of winning.

The final decision was Seattle.

The 31-year-old Houshmandzadeh was considered the wide receiver prize of free agency. He caught a combined 204 passes for 2,043 yards and 16 touchdowns over the past two seasons in Cincinnati.

The Bengals are believed to be welcoming free agent wideout Laveranues Coles for a visit, but they have lost out on Derrick Ward, who signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday to a four-year, $17 million contract with $6 million guaranteed.

*****

The Bengals once again failed to keep a good player, without much of a backup plan. It leaves the team with a thin crop of experience and reliable receivers.

There are so many holes in Cincinnati's game - tackle, center, running back, fullback and much more. Yet the team has done little to address any of it via free agency.

For a team that needed to make a splash to avoid a mass exodus of season ticket holders, the Brown family continues to prove that they are cheap and don't have a clue.  For Bengals' fans waiting for a big move to come don't hold your breath.

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The first day of the off-season was not the best of days for the Bengals as starting right tackle Stacey Andrews has reportedly signed a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. ProFootballTallk.com broke the story Friday afternoon that it's a multi-year deal averaging $7 million per season. The deal hinges on Andrews passing a physical.

Andrews, who was the Bengals' franchise player last off-season, suffered a torn ACL late in the 2008 season. That could prompt the Eagles to defer any large payments until March 2010, after Andrews proves that he is 100 percent. He's a high risk signee for sure, but has as high of an upside of any player on the market at the position.

The Bengals were able to re-sign a couple of players on Friday.

Linebacker Chris Crocker a four-year deal worth $10 million with $3.5 million guaranteed, according to the team's website.

C. Trent Rosecrans of 1530Homer.com reported on his blog that the club also reached a deal with fourth-year running back DeDe Dorsey.

Other news/rumors of impact...

--The team would like to resign running back Cedric Benson, but free agent Derrick Ward, who contributed greatly to the Giants' running attack in '08, is visiting Cincinnati this weekend, according to the Newark-Star Ledger.

--FoxSports.com reported that Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh is headed for a visit to Seattle. 

--If T.J. does leave the Bengals may turn to veteran receiver Bryant Johnson, according to Geoff Hobson.

--The Bengals were interested in signing center Jeff Saturday, but the Colts re-signed him on Thursday.

--A reunion with ex-Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis would make some sense on a couple fronts, at least some at CNNSI.com think so. It would give Ray Lewis the chance for revenge against Baltimore in the AFC North twice a year, and both Marvin Lewis and Bengals owner Mike Brown are said to be desperate to add some leadership to their rudderless team.

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The Bengals sent a shockwave through their fan base on Monday when they placed their franchise tag on place kicker Shayne Graham. You can count me amongst those who supports the decision to let T.J. Houshmandzadeh walk, but what about tagging running back Cedric Benson?

Let's face it the team has plenty of holes. Their offensive line had more holes than good Swiss cheese in 2008. Their defense continues to get lit up like the skies over the Ohio River during RiverFest and the lockerroom is full of bad apples that are killing the rest of the tree.

Still, the team needs to have a running back. The Chris Perry Experiment is over. He proved that last season when he managed just 269 yards on 104 carries (2.6 ypc) and fumbled the ball at an alarming rate. Even healthy, Perry couldn't help the cause. Kenny Watson is a third-down back at best. Kenny Irons' knee is shredded.

Enter in Cedric Benson. The guy came into the league with plenty of hype and a big contract when the Bears made him their first round pick in the 2005 draft. However, after much trouble off-the-field and inconsistency on it, Chicago parted ways with their disgruntled running back.

The Bengals gave him a second chance and Benson made the most of it. He finished the season with 747 yards in just 12 game, including back-to-back 100+-yard efforts in the season's last two games.

"Without a doubt he was a savior for us," offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said of Benson earlier this off-season. "He ran extremely hard and worked very hard to learn our system in a short amount of time."

Retaining Benson for another season via the franchise tag would have cost $6.621 million, which equates to only 5.4 percent of the team’s 2009 salary limit.

Now, he enters free agency and can be had easily by another running back starved team. If he walks, who is going to carry the rock next year for the Bengals?

I didn't want to see the team invest huge money in multi-year deal to keep Benson, but now they are going to have to. It seems like locking him in for one more year would give them a better chance to see if he can build upon that and provide them some insurance heading into the off-season free agency and college draft.

NFL bengals, cedric benson, shayne graham, tj houshmandzadeh, bob bratkowski, chris perry, kenny watson

Despite popular belief that the Bengals would place their franchise tag on wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh or even running back Cedric Benson, the team opted on Monday to place the designation on place kicker Shayne Graham.

The franchise tag gives Graham the option to sign with the Bengals for 2009 for a salary equal to the average of the five highest-paid kickers in the NFL for the previous season (2008 in this case). Graham is a ninth-year NFL player in 2009.  He ranks fourth all-time in the NFL in career field goal accuracy (85.6 percent), and his career accuracy with the Bengals is 87.5 percent.

In franchising Graham, the Bengals had to tender him a one-year deal worth nearly $2.5 million and drop the idea for franchising Houshmandzadeh at $9.88 million.

It almost certainly means that Houshmandzadeh's career as a Bengal is over. The team could still make a run at him in free agency, but the former Pro Bowl wideout doesn't see himself back in Cincinnati. He told the team's website after hearing the news of Graham getting tagged that the chances of playing somewhere else would be "99.2 percent."

I am not opposed to the plan suggested over the weekend by the Cincinnati Enquirer's Paul Daughtery that the Bengals ought to let T.J. and fellow disgruntled receiver, Chad Ocho Cinco, walk via free agency. However, he shrugged off the big problem in his plan - who is Carson Palmer going to throw the ball to? After missing much of 2008, Palmer could struggle in Chris Henry, Antonio Chatman, and Andre Caldwell are his top options. Oh, that's right we can't forget about last year's second round flop Jerome Simpson.

Still, I am not sure that Graham is worth the money. It's hard to argue with his accuacy, but he's shanked several of the few "clutch kicks" that he has, struggles to kick the ball in the end zone on kickoffs, and rarely is even thought of as an option from 48+ yards out. I would like to see him back, but it isn't the end of the world. 

The Bengals have a ton of off-season questions ahead and if this first move is any indicator, it could be a long year again in 2009. For a franchise that is at risk of losing mass season-ticket holders due to the economy and mediocrity, this move will prove costly.

NFL bengals, franchise tag, shayne graham, cedric benson, tj houshmandzadeh, chad ocho cinco, jerome simpson, carson palmer, andre caldwell, antonio chatman, chris henry

Let's check out some of the latest headlines from around the league...

HOUSMANDZADEH INTERESTED IN PHILLY (from Philadelphia Inquirer)
Pending free agent wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh had some interesting things to say about the Eagles yesterday during an interview with Mike Missanelli on ESPN 950. Houshmandzadeh, considered the top free-agent receiver on the market, said he could potentially be interested in playing in Philadelphia. "If the Eagles are interested in me, let's put it like this. If they'll be interested in me, I'll be interested in them," he said when asked if the Eagles would be his top choice...MORE

PATS READY TO TAG CASSEL (from Boston Globe)
The question no longer seems to be if the Patriots will designate quarterback Matt Cassel their franchise player, but when. It could come as early as today. NFL teams can use the franchise tag - which helps retain top players and limits a player's ability to fully experience free agency - on one player today through Feb. 19...MORE

JAMES ALREADY OUT IN ARIZONA (from ProFootballTalk.com)
In an interview on Dan Patrick’s radio show, Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic and XTRA Sports 910 said in no uncertain terms that Cardinals running back Edgerrin James is already gone. Bickley said that James didn’t return to Arizona with the team, and that he fully expects James not to be back in 2009. James is entering the final year of his contract, at a base salary of $5 million...MORE

CABLE OFFICIALLY RAIDERS' COACH, FINALLY (from Sacramento Bee)
The method wasn't conventional. Interview for head coach of the Raiders. Recruit assistant coaches. Then watch those assistant coaches get hired before you. But that's how Tom Cable became the 17th head coach of the Raiders. Cable was introduced at the team's training facility Wednesday after "interim" was removed from his title Tuesday...MORE

GONZO WILLING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN KC (from FoxSports.com)
In an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com, Gonzalez said that a Yahoo.com story published Wednesday morning misrepresented his stance toward the organization. Gonzalez said he is amenable to returning for a 13th NFL season in Kansas City and won't know whether he will ask for a trade until seeing what personnel and coaching moves the franchise makes this offseason...MORE

NO REUNION FOR REEVES, COWBOYS (from San Antonio Express-News)
There will be no reunion for Dan Reeves and the Dallas Cowboys. Reeves, 65, who played and coached for the Cowboys, had been at the team's facility this week in anticipation of joining the organization in some capacity. But the team said Wednesday night that wasn't happening...MORE

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Let's take a look at some injuries to keep your eyes on heading into Sunday's action:

QUARTERBACKS
David Garrard (back) - looks good to go for Monday night
Matt Schaub (knee) - making progress; could play Monday
Marc Bulger (concussion) - expected to start vs. Mia

RUNNING BACKS
Brandon Jacobs (knee) - listed as questionable, but expected to start
Steven Jackson (quad) - barring setback he should be active vs. Mia
Reggie Bush (knee) - expected to get 18-20 touches vs. TB
Willie Parker (knee) - back-to-back full practices; questionable
Clinton Portis (knee) - 50/50 shot of playing; look for him to go
Steve Slaton (chest) - practiced fully on Friday; safe to play
Jonathan Stewart (heel) - no limitations in Friday's practice
Selvin Young (groin) - going to be a game-time decision; not 100%
LeRon McClain (ankle) - limited on Friday, but is probable

WIDE RECEIVERS
Greg Jennings (ribs) - returned to full practice FRI; probable
Roddy White (back) - listed as questionable; should start
TJ Houshmandzadeh (back) - practiced FRI and will start vs. Bal
Plaxico Burress (hamstring) - will not play vs. WAS
Laveranues Coles (thigh) - appears to be a go vs. DEN
Eddie Royal (toe) - listed as questionable; expected to play
Derrick Mason (shoulder) - listed as probable; should start
Mark Bradley (calf) - officially a game-time decision
Josh Morgan (groin) - practiced FRI, but still questionable

TIGHT ENDS
Kellen Winslow (shoulder) - questionable vs. Ind
Zach Miller (groin) - limited all week, but likely to go

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