Starting to think about fantasy football again? Here’s a list of the big trades and depth chart movements in the 2009 NFL off-season.
Let’s start with the quarterback trades. Matt Cassel was traded from New England to Kansas City. Jay Cutler was traded from Denver to Chicago for Kyle Orton plus a lot of other stuff. Jeff Garcia was traded from Tampa Bay to Oakland to back up JaMarcus Russell. There are now three quarterbacks fighting for the Buccaneers job: Byron Leftwich, Luke McCown and recent rookie Josh Freeman. Sage Rosenfels went from Houston to Minnesota, but although Brett Favre retired for the gazillionth time last year he is now sniffing around the Vikings for Rosenfels’ job.
Of the vacant quarterback positions, Mark Sanchez is in the frame for Favre’s old job at the New York Jets in front of Kellen Clemens, while number one overall pick in the 2009 draft Matthew Stafford has now been installed at the top of the depth chart for Detroit in front of Daunte Culpepper and Drew Stanton.
There have been no major player trades in the running backs, which is noteworthy in itself. Of those traded, the only one with serious starter potential is Derrick Ward from the New York Giants to Tampa Bay to run in tandem with Earnest Graham. Fred Taylor moved from Jacksonville to New England. Dominic Rhodes was traded from Indianapolis to Buffalo, with the Colts drafting Donald Brown to support Joseph Addai. Denver have the usual cast of thousands competing for their starting RB merry-go-round, with Knowshon Moreno nominally at the top of the chart, including Corell Bucklhater from Philadelphia and LaMont Jordan from New England. Tim Hightower will now start for Arizona while Reggie Bush has fallen to second on New Orleans’ chart behind Pierre Thomas.
The two biggest names in the wide receiver trades were Terrell Owens from Dallas to Buffalo and T.J. Houshmandzadeh moving from Cincinnati to Seattle. Roy Williams will be the go-to guy for Tony Romo at Dallas while Chad Ochocinco will now have competition at Cincy from Laveranues Coles who was traded from the Jets. Elsewhere, Nate Washington went from the Super Bowl champs Pittsburgh to Tennessee, Torry Holt went from St Louis to Jacksonville, Bobby Engram from Seattle to Kansas City, Joey Galloway from Tampa Bay to New England, Bryant Johnson from San Francisco to Detroit, Dennis Northcutt from Jacksonville to Detroit and Derrick Mason retired from Baltimore.
The vacant #1 WR position at San Francisco now belongs to Michael Crabtree, drafted tenth overall from Texas Tech. Mark Clayton has a big job to fill Mason’s shoes at Baltimore. Donnie Avery heads a list of no-raters at St Louis in the post-Holt era. Ted Ginn Jr is head of an equally unimpressive group of journeymen at Miami. At Oakland, draftee Johnny Lee Higgins currently tops the depth chart with second-year whodat Chaz Schilens beating Javon Walker into third receiver.
In the tight end market, the two big trades were Tony Gonzalez from Kansas City to Atlanta and Kellen Winslow from Cleveland to Tampa Bay.
As for kickers, there were no significant trades, but who cares about kickers anyway?
