The Fantasy Day After

Everybody always complains about Mondays. Fantasy players should thank the presence of Mondays, since their existence allows owners to take a step back ? breathe ? and assess the craziness that was the first NFL Sunday. Now that we've been inundated with Tom Brady news (ummm, pick up Matt Cassel), let's see what else is out there. Who needs Terrell Owens? Donovan McNabb throws for 361 yards and three touchdowns and his owners jump for joy ? then look around and try and act cool. The Eagles had three receivers catch 100-yards worth of passes for the first time since 1960. Granted, Hank Baskett and Greg Lewis sound like they work for the Best Buy Geek Squad, rather than the NFL. But is McNabb's outing a sign of a huge year ? or just an aberration? Let's take a closer look through non-beer-goggled eyes: --- McNabb always starts strong. He didn't have a great start to last season, but in '06, he threw for 314 yards and three scores again. Heck, he threw five touchdown passes in the second game of '05. He also threw for four touchdowns in '04's opener. --- He's 31 years old ? and he gets injured a lot. So his numbers in November and December are obviously going to be worse than his other months. But in 30 career September games, he has thrown 51 TDs with a 3.63 TD/INT ratio. That's compared to his career 1.90 TD/INT ratio in the next three months. --- Lesson learned: Give McNabb a couple more weeks ? then it's time to start dangling him for help in other spots. Does that mean give up on the Eagles receivers early too? No. Once Reggie Brown's healthy, he and DeSean Jackson will face the easiest strength of schedule for receivers going off of last year's defensive statistics.