Oucho Duo

Would someone please explain this to me.

Now, I don't know who comes up with these things and I understand that 99% of the time they're wrong, but how can Yahoo! project Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh to put up 13 and 12 fantasy points this week, respectively. CBS continues the insanity by rating them at 12 and 9 points. All against a vaunted Baltimore Ravens defense? Please.

I may be showing my purple and black skivvies on this one, but I just don't see how both these guys are going to fair that well this week.

Sure, Chad is good. A top fantasy receiver no doubt. His gold teeth and confusing antics aside, he'll have a good season, assuming he stays healthy. That's a given. I also don't doubt his wing man, the rat-tailed wonder, T.J. Idon'twanttotypehislastnameagain will have a productive year. I do think he's slightly over-valued right now. How does one team have two No. 1 fantasy wide receivers? But I guess someone's got to catch Carson's balls. I just have a hard time believing they'll both live up to expectations.

The real problem, for me, occurs when they predict these numbers against a Raven's defense that ranked first in overall defense and sixth in passing yards per game last year. They only gave up 16 passing touchdowns all year in 2006. Sure, they lost Adalius Thomas over the offseason but that's it. This is the same secondary as last year, people, so why the doubt? Maybe both CBS and Yahoo! accidentally looked at Week 2 of the NFL schedule, possibly confusing Browns with Baltimore. And granted, I'm more than a little bias here, but most experts would agree with me in saying that the Ravens have a top tier defense. It's not a shadow of what the 2000 boys put together, but in comparison to the rest of the league, they're still pretty good.

I can see one of the two getting the kind of fantasy payoff the sites are predicting. Someone's going to be covered by Samari Rolle after all. But to think both these guys are going to hit close to 100 yards and a touch is a bit off the rocker. If the Raven's D was that bad, I doubt they'd be rated the number 2 overall fantasy defense this year - in leagues that don't give return yards and touches to the DEF, you could argue they might be numero uno.

It just further illustrates something I'm assuming everyone already knows, don't trust the projected points - especially not in the first week of the season.