Scott is Turf Building on Cedric Benson’s Territory
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

Football is one of those sports where pre-determinations turn into pseudo-facts. Bernard Scott is a perfect example of this. Despite having elite all-around talent, his size (5’10” and under 200 pounds) has led to him being labeled as a change of pace back. He was never given a fair chance to win the starting RB job and the team has instead sent out Cedric Benson’s corpse because, after all, Benson can carry the ball 20-25 times a game (never mind the fact that all those carries have led to a 3.82 YPC since the start of the 2009 season). Now with Benson potentially sitting on a multiple game suspension, Scott may be the next RB to become a fantasy superstar.

Scott shitted on the notion that he isn’t a between the tackles runner when he ran for a two-yard score. Some of you may be saying, “S-S-Starbonell! That goal line TD came against a soft Jacksonville defense and he was barely even touched.” First off, the Jaguars have actually been pretty solid in their run defense, allowing just three TDs and an average of 85.8 rushing yards per game to opposing RBs. Second, the fact that Scott ventured into the end zone unscathed is more of a testament to his vision and athletic wizardry rather than a knock on his lack of physicality. In fact, Scott was a pretty physical dude in college and if not for his size and the fact that the Bengals have shielded him from working on early downs, he wouldn’t have this reputation of not being able to handle feature back carries.

The point is, the guy has remarkable skills. The Bengals don’t have Benson signed beyond this year and they really have no reason to be loyal to a guy who has had more run-ins with the law than Sideshow Bob. The reports regarding Benson’s suspension are mixed and he could very well escape punishment, but the one thing he can’t escape is the hot moisture of Scott’s breath bearing down his neck (pause).

If you have the roster space (which may be tough considering we are in the midst of bye weeks), it would be wise to stash Scott on the low. Sure you could wait until something actually happens to Benson (be it a suspension, injury, or imprisonment), but by then it will already be too late. Fantasy football is about having the foresight to make moves before a dude breaks out, and no player in football (aside from Jonathan Stewart) is in a better position to do so with the right opportunity than Scott.

Real Talk continues after the jump: no comments

America is getting zooted on Te-blow.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Beall

For lack of a better word, Week Five was absolutely dreadful. In all seven of my leagues, I failed to record a win and it wasn’t even close. It pains me to even write that. I still hold winning records in most of my leagues ( I’m  2-3 in a few), so here’s to hoping that Week Five will be my worst week of the season. With that said, let’s delve into some of the more interesting storylines of the week. We get to it after the jump: 

Rivers will be playing with junk this week as he faces the Broncos
Photo Credit: Conman33

As a football handicapper, it’s important to remember these three cardinal rules:

1. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is
What i’m geting at here is that if you see a spread that clearly doesn’t correlate with the current situation in the NFL (like a 3-1 team at home off three wins in a row only giving up three points to a 1-3 team), you should be skeptical. After all, the bookies aren’t dummies, they know probably more than you do about the games, and their primary goal is to steal your money. So play it smart, if a spread is clearly begging you to pick a specific team, pick the other one. Now, there are certain situations where it is wise to pick the “obvious bet”, but from my experience, i find it beneficial to roll the dice on the opposite team, it has done me well in the past (Starbonell's editor note: Occhionero's mom has done me well in the past).

2. I don’t care if you could have sworn Team A was going to have a good year, live in the now!
Did you hear that a team was supposed to have a turnaround season, but isn't living up to their expectations. I’m sure you’ve said to yourselves, “they have to turn it around, this team is 'supposed' to be good." Please, get these thoughts out of your head. As a handicapper, you must live in the now. Don’t let the propaganda out there fool you..

This brings me to the final and most important point...

3. Make your own decisions
You hear a lot of information out there, whether it be about a team's defense, coaching changes, rumours, etc. The problem is that often these “reports” aren’t as accurate as they claim to be. The point in all this is to read the information, but analyze the situation yourself, and ultimately make your own decisions. This is the only way you’ll achieve success.

With that, here are my five Golden Picks for the week. I’m 2-2 on the season thus far. I’ll be keeping tally all year. I also add in a survivor pick for good measure.

More after the jump:

This 'Beck no es un perdedor.
Photo Credit: Titanfan

Before we get into our sleepers for Week Five, let’s take a look at how our picks did from last week:

Quarterbacks from Week Four
Matt Hasselbeck (TEN)- 10-20 passing, 220 passing yards, 3 passing touchdowns, 1 interception, 18 fantasy points
Jason Campbell (OAK)- 25-39 passing, 344 passing yards, 1 passing touchdown, 2 interceptions, 29 rushing yards, 15 fantasy points
Rex Grossman (WAS)- 15-29 passing, 143 passing yards, 1 passing touchdown, 2 interceptions 5 fantasy points

Running Backs from Week Four
Dexter McCluster (KC)- 7 rushing attempts, 26 yards, 3 receptions, 12 yards, 3 fantasy points
Montario Hardesty (CLE)- 7 rushing attempts, 22 yards, 5 receptions, 49 yards, 6 fantasy points
Kendall Hunter (SF) - 9 rushing attempts, 38 yards, 2 catches, 62 yards, 9 fantasy points

Wide Receivers from Week Four
Torrey Smith (BAL) - 1 reception, 1 receiving yard, 0 touchdowns, 0 fantasy points
David Nelson (BUF) – 2 receptions, 18 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 fantasy point
Victor Cruz (NYG) – 6 receptions, 98 yards, 0 touchdowns, 9 fantasy points
Brandon Gibson (STL) – 1 reception, 14 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 fantasy point

Tight Ends from Week Four
Jermaine Gresham (CIN)- 4 receptions, 70 yards, 1 touchdown reception, 13 fantasy points
Ed Dickson (BAL) – 4 receptions, 45 yards, 0 touchdowns, 4 fantasy points

Now let’s get to the good stuff. If you are reading this, it most likely means that your team is struggling and you are looking for a boost. Well, lucky for you, I am here with some deep sleepers to help you get a win in Week Five. With bye weeks starting this week, a lot of you are probably looking for a short term fill-in. These are my favorite deep sleepers for Week Five:

“Remember when I used to not suck?”
Photo Credit: Meegs

At “Stream Pies,” we are serving up gooey loads of knowledge. Here, we’ll provide invaluable streaming advice on kickers and DEF teams who are owned in less than 30-percent of Yahoo! leagues. We list the options in order of best option to “least-best” option (with the strongest recommendations starting at the top). Below our recommendations are last week’s and full season results. Points are based on default Yahoo! settings.

With bye weeks underway, you need “Stream Pies” now more than ever. Aside from the Ravens, there are no kickers or defenses that you have to hold onto. In fact, many of you are probably debating if you should drop a potentially useful position player in order to hang onto the Jets D or Dan Bailey. Don’t be an idiot. Drop the DEF or K and move on to the next one. Who is the next one you ask? Well, you just have to peep game after the jump to find out: