With Steven Jackson in camp, the St. Louis Rams offensive potential took a major upswing. No secret there. But with fantasy drafts getting ready to slow down servers everywhere over the next week, Jackson's return has implications in that realm as well. Here's a quick, two cents worth of analysis on the fantasy prospects of individual Rams players...and one unit.

Using tiny floating Linehan heads as stars in a tier-like ranking system that seems to be sweeping fantasy analysis...

Steven Jackson, RB - Jackson's back, and he's going to produce in Al Saunders' offense. Two cautionary notes that wouldn't have be here w/out Jackson holdout: 1) he won't see as much work as normal in the first and probably the second game of the season. Plan accordingly. 2) Any long holdout automatically gets an injury risk asterisk next to it. There's not really a direct correlation between holdouts and injury, but not having seen contact ups the possibility. Still Jackson's only 25 and has a reduced workload playing just 12 games last year. 

Torry Holt, WR - Holt's usually a 5 star (or head) fantasy contributor, but his age and the offensive learning curve for the new playbook drop his stock somewhat. He could also lose some catches to an increased role for McMichael.

Randy McMichael, TE - The Rams top three receivers this year will be Holt, Jackson and McMichael. That's order I'm safely predicting, but you could have a long debate that the team leaderboard will shape up differently. Either way, McMichael's looked great in preseason and will see a lot of balls thrown his way.

Marc Bulger, QB - Bulger's had a baaaad preseason, at least in the two games thus far, struggling with his timing and getting over some gunshyness after being sacked 764 times, or something like that, recently. Still, it's preseason, and Bulger's a solid veteran. If the o-line holds, he'll be a decent option, thanks in no small part to Steven Jackson's magial receiving abilities.

Rams DST - Yeah, this is a surprise, but I'm fairly optimistic about this group. Return man Dante Hall looks born again, and extra emphasis on the special teams units looks like, through preseason, it could pay off, finally. The defense looks good, except for some questions about depth. Leonard Little leads a front seven that will make some noise this year. The schedule makes this a tough call for three stars (heads), but if you're one of those people who draft defense last, you could do a lot worse.

Drew Bennett, WR - Here's a guy who needs a really big year, or could find himself on the chopping block after the season. He has his doubters.

Keenan Burton, WR - Burton has the size and skeelz to be a good possession receiver. How quickly he adjusts to the pro game and a giant playbook will determine his impact this year. If he seizes the opportunity and Bennett falters, Burton could be a nice waiver wire pick up.

Antonio Pittman, RB - Forget Brian Leonard, if Jackson misses time and the o-line is clicking, Pittman will get the numbers for the Rams...just not enough to make him a feature back on your team since he'll be sharing work with Leonard and Travis Minor. He's still the second best runner on the team.

Keep your eye on: Donnie Avery, WR; Dane Looker, WR; Trent Green, QB.

It's the question sure to dominate conversations among even the least nerdy of fantasy football aficionados. With Steven Jackson's holdout now approaching the third week, it's starting to coincide with plenty of fantasy football drafts. Add to that the poor showing from the Rams first team offense, albeit without Jackson, against the Titans this weekend, and there's reason enough to pause and wonder about drafting Jackson when your turn to pick rolls around, especially if you've got an early first rounder.  

After holding steady under 5, Jackson's average draft position (ADP) at Mock Draft Central has fallen to 5.03, in drafts conducted between August 4 - 11. The latest he was picked in any of those drafts was 8th. That's pretty good, and you can bet that while there will be some teeth gnashing when it comes to this question, Jackson's still worthy of a top five pick in you fantasy league.

The holdout will end soon. The Rams have lots of pressure on them to turn things around this season. Nobody's under the illusion that this is a Super Bowl team, but less than 5 wins won't be tolerated, not even with their tough schedule. The Rams brought in Al Saunders to fix an offense that's been broken at best the last two seasons with Linehan calling the plays. From the moment they announced his hiring, Saunders has been talking about making Steven Jackson the centerpiece of the offense, consistent with Saunders' work in KC with Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson. That hasn't changed, and after Saturday's showing against the Titans, the Rams know they can't begin the season without Jackson and expect anything more than what they had last season. I'd be really surprised if Jackson weren't signed in the next two weeks.

Don't worry about rust either. Jackson's taken good care of himself through the offseason; he even had a colonic. For Jackson, the playbook won't be much different than it has in the past; think 2006 when he had 346 carries and 90 receptions. If anything, holding out ought to save his legs just a bit. He will, however, need to get into camp and get some work in the preseason. Last year, when he played just a few series in the preseason games, he had a terrible first week, fumbling twice against Carolina. The Rams remember this, and that will figure into the contract talks, once they start. Fantasy wise though, even with a hiccup in week one, Jackson should still be fantasy gold for the rest of the season. It'll just suck for Rams fans.

Conclusion: forget about how he burned you last year, draft Steven Jackson with pride...and feel free to send me a percentage of your winnings if you've been so inspired by this post.

Tomorrow's the deadline for the TST fantasy league sign up. If you want to play - and we want you to play - you've got to sign up for the drawing to join the league. Don't worry though, if you register and you want to play, you'll play.

Don't forget to get signed up for the Turf Show Times fantasy football league over at FleaFlicker.com. Here's the direct link to the league where you can sign up.

Things to know about this year's Turf Show Times fantasy football league:

• It's free, free, FREE!
• The password to sign up is: Linehan
• 12 teams, head-to-head format.
• Competitive league with plenty of opportunity for trash talking, name calling and all kinds of other less-than-desirable behavior acceptable only in fantasy football.
• Draft date to be determined once the league fills up.
• There will be prizes for the top three finishers, probably nothing to plan your retirement around, but sure to hold lots and lots of kitsch value.
  

So there it is. What more reason do you need? What's stopping you? Go sign up.

Earlier this month I mentioned an official Turf Show Times fantasy league, one created in partnership with the site FleaFlicker.com.

If you're interested in signing up, here's the link. It's a private league, so you'll need a password to join. The password is: Linehan

Get signed up for now, and we'll get a draft date ironed out shortly. As part of the arrangement, some players/teams will be assigned through a random drawing - to promote the fantasy site I suppose. If you prefer to throw in for the random drawing, the link is here.

We know Randy McMichael's in for a career resurgence under new offensive coordinator Al Saunders. We also know that Steven Jackson figures to be the Rams offensive weapon of choice, the second coming of Preist Holmes and LT all rolled into a top four fantasy draft pick.

But what about Torry Holt? We know he's healthy coming into this season, but we almost take it for granted that he'll put up 1000+ yards and 7 or so TDs. But with Al Saunders running the offense now, questions about Holt's value, real and fantasy, have emerged. Check out this line from Fox Sports in their WR rankings that appeared today:

Still, Saunders failed to produce prodigious fantasy receivers with ensuing stints in Kansas City and Washington. So the jury's still out on whether he will boost Holt's stats.

It's true. In Saunders' last two stints prior to coming to St. Louis - 2001-05 in KC and '06 & '07 in Washington - the tight ends' stats ranked right up there with the teams' wide receivers' numbers. Last season in Washington, Chris Cooley led the team in catches and receiving TDs and had just 22 fewer yards than team leader Santana Moss. Don't forget, Washington's QB situation was a mess during Saunders' time there. With the Chiefs, Gonzalez led the team in receiving in all but two seasons during Saunders' stint there, when Eddie Kennison edged him out

Now, compare Torry Holt with Moss and Kennison. The later two are solid, but have never been on the same tier as Holt, who had his breakthrough season in 2000 with, who else, Al Saunders coaching Rams wide receivers.

But what about this year? Obviously, the predictions for Jackson and McMichael are spot on, each gives the Rams a unique weapon. But don't relegate Torry Holt to the status of a mere possession receiver. For a parallel, or as close of one as you can get, look to the 2006 season. Jackson had numbers consistent with what we might expect from his this season, big totals in rushing and receiving (90 catches, 800+ yards, 3 TDs) categories. The biggest difference was the lack of a TE that season. Holt had 93 catches for 1188 yards and 10 TDs. Bruce had 74 rec, 1098 yards and 3 TDs. This season, I would expect Jackson and McMichael to pick up some of the catches once reserved for Isaac Bruce, with Bennett, Avery and Burton getting a share too.

Thoughts on Holt's role in the Al Saunders' led offense?

An announcement to begin the day.

Fantasy football afficiandos take note, a TST fantasy football league is again forming. This time, the fine folks at FleaFlicker.com are generously providing us with the interface, which I'm told is on par with any of the others.

They're not quite ready to have us start signing up individual teams, but that should be coming before the end of the month as the draft will take place sometime between Aug 1 and 15.

We can have up to 12 teams in the TST league and no fewer than 8. Right now, just make a note in the comments if you're interested OR shoot me an email at rv_vanbib AT yahoo DOT com.

We've talked punting. We've talked special teams. We talked backup linemen and their semiotic connection to a Bee Gees impersonation. We poked and probed around the dimly lit corners of interest where it pertains to the Rams this week to get our football craving satisfied while we wait for a season that seems like it'll never start.

Topically, why should today be any different, just because it's Friday Fantasy? We Rams fans know Steven Jackson is a top 3 pick, McMichael's a sneaky TE pick, etc. Let's continue probing dark places (wait a minute, that analogy might have gone too far) and take a look at the hated but necessary fantasy roster position of Defense/Special Teams.

Browsing around the various preseason lists of DST rankings, it comes as no surprise the Rams DST isn't sitting toward the top. On the DST list at CBS Sportsline, the Rams rank 29th.

Again, that's not really a surprise. If you recall our discussion of special teams earlier this week, the Rams, according to DVOA, ranked 27th last season, jumping up from 31st the season prior. Special teams, as those of you who had the Bears DST in recent seasons will recall, get their value from touch downs. The Rams scored no TDs on kick returns and just one on punt returns last season. Fantasy rankings, particularly as it relates to DSTs, are heavily derived from precedent, how they performed the season before. It's no great secret, and using pundit rankings alone have sunk more than one rookie fantasy player's season. And given the Rams recent run of ST performance, that ranking comes as no surprise. I wouldn't expect much from the Rams ST this season, fantasy wise, and as fans we just want them to do their job helping out the offense and defense with field position.

Where you might see some value from the Rams DST is the D. With Little and Long and the Spoon, all healthy and ready to swoop in at the mere taste of blood in the water, the Rams should pick up a few more sacks than the 31 they had last year. Where the Rams D could really surprise us all, fan and fantasy player alike, is in the INT category. Last year, O.J. Atogwe led the NFC with 8 INTs, turning one into a TD. Fakhir Brown, playing in just 12 games, had 4 INTs and a TD. With healthy players and improved work up front from the QB killers, the Rams backfield could match or beat their INT total from last season. Progress among players like Jonathan Wade and Tye Hill could spread the ball around some too.

Of course, their real week-in, week-out value will come from their ability to limit opponents scoring. That's not going to be an easy task early in the season, but if they can play mistake free football and if Haslett can squeeze every precious ounce of effort out of his unit, they could surprise even the most reolute fantasy player, giving someone in some league a decent backup or a solid option to play the matchups right.

I promised the Friday Fantasy Tipsheet yesterday, because, you know, it was Friday. I didn't plan on the Biblical deluge that swept through the city, closing streets and making my yard into a rice paddy. It was a mess. My heart goes out to the folks in Iowa and the rest of the upper Midwest suffering through an even worse monsoon. 

On to drier things. 

So much for Steven Jackson being a sleeper in fantasy leagues this season. After coming across this Yahoo! ranking earlier in the week, that puts him at #3, with some cognitive dissonance making #4 on a few lists, I decided to take a quick, unscientific survey of where others are ranking Jackson. 

CBS Sportsline ranks him #3. This one seems to be the outlier, putting SJ in the 5th spot. Obviously Adrian Peterson is the new "it" guy, with good reason, the Vikings have a top notch o-line and the kid's faster than a...uh...insert an analogy here. So Jackson's not a steal, but while the top two picks grapple over Peterson and LT, know that Jackson could be at least as productive as either of those two, a #1 pick in the #3 spot. 

Let's continue on with the ranks. Marc Bulger sits at #9 on the CBS list and 10th overall at Yahoo!. 

What I like about the Jackson and Bulger rankings, as a Rams fan (Bulger could be the real steal in your ff league), is the confidence pundits seem to have in the Rams offensive line. It's been all good news out of mini  camp and OTAs thus far, and that's as good a place as you can hope to be a month and half before intensity picks up a bit. 

What, you're not thinking about fantasy football yet? It's almost June, no tme like the present, huh?

This week's inaugural edition of what I intend to make a regular feature in during the season is all about Randy McMichael.

Quick, what to Chris Cooley and Tony Gonzalez have in common? They're both tight ends who became fantasy studs under offensive coordinator Al Saunders. In case you've been holed up in your very own undisclosed location, you know that Al Saunders is now the Rams offensive coordinator.

As your draft snakes around and the rush on tight ends gets underway, hold off. Use that pick to take a extra running back or whoever the best player available at that point is, and draft McMichael a round or two later. Saunders' playbook uses a tight end to catch a lot of balls just beyond the action at the line of scrimmage as opposing defenses stack the box anticipating a Steven Jackson run.

Don't be surprised to see numbers similar to a #2 wide receiver, which is essentiall what Saunders uses his TE as, for Randy McMichael. After a disappointing first season in St. Louis, McMichael knew what was in store as soon as he heard the news about Saunders coming on board. He's ready and the Rams will need him to be as questions about Drew Bennett linger and rookies Donnie Avery and Keenan Burton get used to the NFL game.