If you found yourself leafing through your A-T on Thursday while eating your over easy eggs at Dell's Restaurant looking for my ugly mug shot so you could read my marginal fantasy advice and didn't find it, I apologize. I got a little distracted.
I found myself sitting at my kitchen trying not to get too distracted by the Tigers as they precariously held on to a 3-1 lead against the A's on Wednesday night.
In the process, I was saying goodnight to my daughter Hope, saying goodnight to my wife Bobbi, eating low salt Better Made potato chips, playing with my new iPhone and trying to write a preview on Calvert's Jeremy Hanna, who became the first boy to individually qualify for the state golf tournament in Calvert history.
What was ironic about all this was that Hanna and his coach, Bob Williams, credited his trip to the state tourney on his focus this season.
Needless to say I didn't have much focus.
So when my new antivirus software said it was blocking my e-mail to the office with my preview story contained within, I didn't notice it.
What the readers didn't notice is that the Hanna story was the second story I wrote on him. My first story is somewhere floating in cyberspace with the lost Seinfeld episodes.
So my focus became glued on rewriting my Hanna story instead of writing my fantasy column.
For that, I apologize.
For those of you who picked up Ryan Williams based on my advice, I apologize to you as well.
The back, who came back from missing the entire 2011 campaign with a torn patellar tendon, injured his shoulder last weekend and had season-ending surgery on Tuesday. The Cardinals are already without Beanie Wells, no stranger to injury, until November.
That leaves William Powell, LaRod Stephens-Howling and Alphonso Smith to pick up the slack. Powell is expected to get the bulk of the carries and get the first crack at the job. While he led the NFL in preseason rushing, in real games, the Cardinals have averaged just 63.4 yards rushing and an abysmal 2.7 yards per carry. Just ask Kevin Kolb how good that Arizona line is as he's seemingly spent as much time on his back as he has upright. Stephens-Howling has the kickoff return ability, so he does add an extra element to the equation and might be worth a stash if you have room, but my preference is Powell.
Cedric Benson's season may have come to an end as well this weekend. He was put on the same IR list as Wells, meaning he can come back in eight weeks. But few players come back in the same season from Lisfranc injuries. That leaves the duties to Alex Green, James Starks and John Kuhn. None are real exciting right now, but if you have to pick one, Green might be it. The Packers offense comes through Aaron Rodgers and Benson's injury isn't going to change that.
James Jones has been a beneficiary of someone else's calamity on that offense, as he's scored four touchdowns in the last two weeks in Greg Jennings' absence. As long as Jennings is out, he's worth starting and still rosterable beyond that, but he'll be more of a third option when Jennings returns.
One other pickup of note is Indianapolis' Vick Ballard. He'll be the Colts starting running back the next couple of weeks as Donald Brown had knee surgery, but the Colts stressed he won't be out more than three games. I doubt he'll take the job from Brown, who has quietly been effective this year with 239 yards on 60 carries and a touchdown. It's not setting the world on fire, but it's been effective. If you need a pickup to cover a bye week or to replace Brown for a couple weeks, Ballard is worth a look.
You know what else is worth a look? Paying attention to what you're doing.
Aaron Korte is the A-T's fantasy sports writer.
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