Are we going to have an NFL season? Things are looking up, so hopefully we’ll be able to gear up and get ready for some football.

As part of Bullz-Eye.com’s Get real Guide, TSR’s John Paulsen has a help guide to how to draft a fantasy football team. Check it out and start get a head start!

In the world of fantasy football, we’re neck deep in no man’s land. The playoffs are over, the draft is still something fuzzy off in the distance, and there’s a rain cloud over our heads in the form of the ongoing NFL labor negotiations. But this is a great time to examine some of the traditional and non-traditional fantasy football strategies and tweak them for use in the future.

One such strategy is Quarterback By Committee (QBBC). For the neophyte, this strategy encourages the fantasy owner to wait to draft a QB on draft day until such time that he can grab two or three solid players in the mid to late rounds. In standard 12-team leagues, this usually means somewhere in the 8th to 14th rounds. If you can find two or three players whose schedules compliment each other, you can sometimes get QB5-type production at a deep discount.

Every preseason, I write a QBBC article that recommends a few combinations to fantasy owners. For the 2010 season, my top recommendation was Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger. Eli finished #7 in total fantasy points, while Roethlisberger finished #7 in average fantasy points even though he was suspended for the first four games. During the preseason, Eli was going in the 8th round, while Big Ben was going in the 11th, so owners who went with this duo got great production at QB on the cheap. This approach allows for owners to load up on talent at RB, WR and even TE knowing that they’ll be at least “okay” at QB.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the historical fantasy data for the QB position for the last 10 years and see if we can learn anything from it. Below you’ll find a graph that shows the total fantasy points by the Top 32 QBs as well as data for the Top 10 fantasy QBs and Next 10 (QBs #11-#20).

(Click on the graph to see a bigger version.)

What does this mean?

After a low point in 2005, the QB position has shown strong growth for the last five years. This is indicated by the blue bars — total fantasy points for the Top 32 QBs. Pundits always say that the NFL is a passing league, and these numbers support that.

Over the past four years, the total production of the Top 10 QBs have stayed about the same, with a low of 3170 points in 2008 and a high of 3399 in 2009. Over the same span, the Next 10 QBs have shown fairly consistent growth from 2246 in 2007 to 2646 in 2010. It’s clear that the Next 10 group is responsible for most of the overall growth at the position over the last half decade.

Keep in mind that when I say “Top 10,” I’m referring to the Top 10 QBs in total fantasy points at the end of the season, not the Top 10 QBs in terms of draft position. Every year, there were players that were drafted outside of the Top 10 that finish in the Top 10. Michael Vick, Eli Manning, Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan were all Top 10 QBs in 2010, yet were generally available in the 8th round or later. This only serves to support the QBBC strategy because you may very well end up with a Top 10 QB even though you take him at QB15 later. (Freeman wasn’t even in the Top 24 in ADP heading into 2010, but finished QB9.)

I have some anecdotal evidence that supports QBBC as well. In my auction league, I started Tony Romo until he went down in Week 7. At that point, I scrambled to put together a committee of QBs that I could use for the stretch run. I ended up using a combination of David Garrard, Brett Favre, Sam Bradford and Josh Freeman down the stretch. That group averaged 24.3 points per game. Only Mike Vick (29.2) had a higher per-game average for the season, and Aaron Rodgers was second with 23.8 points per game. I went on to win the league with Freeman starting the final three games.

Part of this was good decision making on my part because I had to pick my starter every week based on his matchup, but the fact that I had a bullpen of three or four QBs to call upon ensured that I had at least one semi-favorable matchup to use. This is one of the biggest benefits of QBBC: Don’t like a certain matchup? Well, someone on your bench is bound to have a better one. And since you’re not beholden to the theory that you should be starting your stud, you can play your matchups without worrying that you’re not showing enough faith in your early draft picks.

Another benefit is injury insurance. When Tony Romo went down, I thought my season might be over. But I was able to pick up a few QBs off the waiver wire to create my in-season committee. I was lucky because Garrard, Freeman and Bradford were all available on the waiver wire at one point or another. Had I gone with QBBC from the start, I would have been able to simply plug another QB into my committee if one of my guys went down.

The depth at the position is tremendous right now as there are 20 or so QBs that I would feel comfortable starting heading into next season…given a good matchup, of course.

So heading into the 2011 season (assuming there is a 2011 season), remember to use those early picks to load up on RBs, WRs and TEs, and save two or three of those middle and late round picks for a couple of QBs. Check back in July and I’ll tell you which ones to target.

Per Danny O’Neil of the Seattle Times:

Justin Forsett will start at running back for the Seahawks.

Forsett was quite productive last season in limited duty. He got 10+ touches in eight games and here’s how he fared:

W2, @SF: 11 touches, 92 yards
W10, @ARI: 22 touches, 149 yards, TD
W11, @MIN: 16 touches, 89 yards, TD
W12, @STL: 22 carries, 130 yards, 2 TD
W14, @HOU: 13 touches, 73 yards
W15, TB: 11 touches, 69 yards
W16, @GB: 15 touches, 74 yards
W17, TEN: 12 touches, 88 yards

That’s 764 yards on 122 touches or 6.3 yards per touch. Forsett isn’t a traditional every-down back, but working in tandem with Leon Washington, he should be able to handle 230-240 touches, which at his 2009 rate would equate to 1,400+ yards. If he gets that kind of workload, he’ll be a solid RB2 in PPR leagues.

The real question is — are the Seahawks committed to getting him 14+ touches a game?

If they’re not, they should be.

Adam Schefter tweeted the details:

Ravens reached agreement with former Seahawks wide receiver TJ Houshmandzadeh on a one-year, $855,000 deal. More at espn.com.

Personnel-wise, this is a strange fit, seeing as the Ravens already have a couple of talented possession-type receivers in Anquan Boldin and Derrick Mason. But Housh is a cheap upgrade at WR2/WR3 and he gives Joe Flacco another sure-handed route-runner.

From a fantasy standpoint, this probably hurts Derrick Mason more than Boldin, who will get his looks as the Ravens’ WR1. It gives Flacco a little boost because his receiver corps has more depth and could weather an injury to one of the aforementioned WRs.

As for Housh, he’s probably only worth a late round flyer at this point because he’s joining a new team and his role is unclear. It’s going to take him some time to get settled.

Adam Schefter is reporting that Hardesty is done for the season:

Further tests revealed what initial tests showed: Browns rookie RB Montario Hardesty has a torn ACL. Out for year.

Bad news for Hardesty is great news for Jerome Harrison owners, who will likely have a solid RB2 for the price of a 7th-9th round pick. Peyton Hillis has played well and was productive in Denver, so he will probably get some touches to keep Harrison fresh. He could also vulture some goal line work.

Still, Harrison is looking like a great value in the middle rounds and is another reason why it’s a solid strategy to grab a couple of premier WRs in the first three rounds and worry about shoring up the RB position later.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Chargers have suddenly become willing to trade Vincent Jackson by Saturday, which is a key date for all parties concerned…

Both the Chargers and, presumably, Jackson’s agents would like to have a deal done by 3 p.m. Saturday. After that, Jackson will essentially be suspended for six games. Jackson is suspended the first three games of the season due to his two DUI arrests and cannot report to a team during that suspension. He is also on the Roster Exempt List, which means he has to sit out three games after reporting.

In other words, if the Chargers trade him by Saturday, Jackson will only serve a three-game suspension since he can serve both suspensions concurrently. If they trade him after Sep. 4, he’ll have to serve a six-game suspension.

One wonders why the Chargers waited so long to get the ball rolling on a trade. They have reportedly only let the Seahawks speak to Jackson’s camp about a deal. His trade value will drop after Saturday, so why not trade him before then and get maximum value?

For fantasy owners, this is a fluid situation. Jackson has been going in the 8th, but he’s still around in the later rounds in some drafts. If the Chargers truly have changed their stance, a deal might get done quickly, because it sounds like Jackson’s camp has also lowered its asking price in terms of financial compensation.

He’s a better player than Santonio Holmes, who will miss the first four games due to suspension, but Holmes has had all of training camp to get used to the Jets’ offense and to develop a rapport with Mark Sanchez. At this point, if Jackson joins a new team, he’ll essentially be starting from square one. If he lands with a team like the Vikings, I like his chances of producing once his suspension is up due to the presence of Brett Favre, who will throw the ball up and let Jackson make a play.

Jackson is worth a flier, assuming your team is relatively strong in all areas. If you’re hurting in one area or another, don’t expect Jackson to save you.

It’s funny — when I originally hopped on the Mike Williams bandwagon a couple of weeks ago, his ADP was in the 13th round and he was still sort of flying under the radar.

A few days later, I took Williams in the 10th round of my Industry Insiders Draft:

10.03: Mike Williams, WR
This was one of those there’s-no-one-else-I-like-so-I’m-going-to-take-this-guy picks. Williams has really played well in the preseason and as a rookie, he is already the Bucs clear-cut WR1. Josh Freeman isn’t bad, and the Bucs are probably going to have to throw more than they’d like as they try to stay in games this season, so this could all add up to a top 25 year for Williams.

When I made that pick, one of the other ‘insiders’ commented, “I think that’s the earliest that I’ve seen Williams go.”

I wasn’t sure whether or not to take that as an insult, but it struck me as funny when, several days later, Williams went in the 7th round in two of my slow email drafts.

What’s the point? Well, it seems like in the world of WRs, the talent drops off a cliff at a certain point in the 7th or 8th round. Once guys like Jeremy Maclin, Mike Wallace, Malcom Floyd, Pierre Garcon, Johnny Knox and Percy Harvin go, things are starting to get tight at WR. Maybe Donald Driver and T.J. Houshmandzadeh are still worthy of 7th or 8th rounders in PPR leagues, but who’s left after that? Lee Evans? Bernard Berrian? Braylon Edwards? Most fantasy owners are going to pass up these retreads in favor of the upside of Williams, which means he could very well go as early as the 7th round in 12-team leagues.

That’s not to say that there aren’t still some interesting wideouts out there. Guys like Laurent Robinson, Jacoby Jones, Santonio Holmes and Louis Murphy are worthwhile picks, but not in the 7th round. Just don’t expect to land Mike Williams in the 10th round or later anymore — that ship has sailed.