Am I Screwed? Part Deux

I have the answer to tonight's "Am I Screwed?" right away. It has to do with Marion Barber,, a centerpiece to my running game. Barber is a starter for both of my dynasty teams. I had to "reach" for the fourth-rounder Barber in two rookie drafts because I owned Julius Jones.

Barber has 42 touchdowns in 852 career touches. That's a touchdown per 20 touches. For comparison, the all-time single-season touchdown leader LaDainian Tomlinson has 141 touchdowns in 3167 touches. That's about a touchdown for every 22 touches. Barber equals efficiency.

I have a friend who used to play flag football the say Marion Barber plays NFL football. The difference is that my friend would have spontaneously combusted like a Spinal Tap drummer if he were to run into an NFL defensive lineman. Barber keeps bashing with the best of them. It's true that he missed time after playing human shield for former Cowboy backup QB Brad Johnson. He's not a machine, after all.

Fantasy experts say that Barber will lose touches to Felix Jones and Tashard Choice. That may be true. Barber ended up with 59% of the Cowboys' rushes last year on a team that finished 25th in the NFL in attempts. I think the attempts go up this year. If Barber gets 15 rushes a game, that's 240 for the year, which I believe means that he will score 12 touchdowns.

Oh yeah, he was the third leading receiver on a team that just said good-bye to their top wideout. That's another potential 60 catches, 40 to be safe. 40 = 2 more touchdowns. Can you use 14 touchdowns on your fantasy team? I got 'em.

If you think that number is too high, consider that in 2006, Barber scored 16 touchdowns on a meager 158 touches. Barry Bonds in all of his alleged PED glory was never that productive.

The only downside here is that I will depend highly on two Cowboys for my fantasy team to be triumphant. It could be worse. They could be Ravens. I'll discuss my Ray Rice/Cedric Peerman combo in a later post.