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2009 Heisman Barometer: Week 12

Draft Zoo.com writes that Stanford’s Toby Gerhart and Alabama’s Mark Ingram has seen their draft stock rise over the past couple weeks and now ranks them No. 1 and No. 2 on their Heisman Barometer.

1. Toby Gerhart, RB, Stanford
Once again, a guy who might not have a real shot at winning the award. Mark Ingram looks poised to become Alabama’s first Heisman recipient ever, and I’m not trying to take anything away from him, but I don’t think the Tide would struggle without him. Stanford, on the other hand, doesn’t beat USC without their junior tailback. He’s a deceptively quick bulldozer who has the Cardinal on the right track to getting back to the Rose Bowl. One loss from Oregon, and a Pac 10 title could be just enough help to give Gerhart the hardware. At the very least, he’s my number one.

Last Week’s Stats: 178 Rushing Yards, 3 TDs

2. Mark Ingram, RB, Alabama
He’s probably the realistic frontrunner right now, and it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. 1297 rushing yards, 13 total TDs, and a 6.7 ypc average. Not bad at all, especially through only 10 games. But the biggest reason that Ingram’s looking like a lock to become the second sophomore to win the Heisman is the fact that his team is undefeated. One big test left against Florida in the SEC championship. Win that one and head to Pasadena for the big game and Mark can vote for himself next year.

As Draft Zoo points out, Gerhart is unlikely to win the award but the way he has come on as of late, it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t at least deserve some mention.

If you haven’t see Gerhart play, you’re really missing out. He’s a load to bring down and looked damn near unstoppable against Oregon and USC the past two weeks. He’s one of those guys that can put his entire team on his back and carry them and it’s no wonder that more pundits are starting to talk about him as a legit NFL prospect.

People keep talking about how Tim Tebow is the front-runner to win this year’s Heisman, but I just don’t see it. Can anyone objectively say that Tebow has done enough to merit the award? Considering how much talent he has around him (and I’m not just talking about offense), I’m not sure you can.

Unless he comes out and puts on a show against Alabama and whomever Florida plays in the national championship if the Gators can beat the Tide in the SEC title game, then I don’t see Tebow taking home the hardware this season.


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Giants’ Lincecum wins second straight NL Cy Young

For the second straight year, San Francisco Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum was named the National League Cy Young award winner, earning 11 of 32 first-place votes. He just edged out Cardinals’ ace Chris Carpenter, who earned nine first-place votes and Carpenter’s teammate Adam Wainwright, who earned 12 first-place votes but only had 90 points (compared Lincecum’s 100 and Carpenter’s 94).

Lincecum led the NL with 261 strikeouts and also finished with four complete games and two shutouts. His 15-7 record wasn’t dazzling compred to Carpenter’s (17-4) or Wainwright’s (19-8), but he finished with a 2.48 ERA and the Giants didn’t have near the offense the Cardinals did.

Some St. Louis fans may complain about Lincecum winning this award and they certainly would have a case considering how good Carpenter and Wainwright were. (If either Carpenter or Wainwright won the award, it would be hard to debate they didn’t deserve it as well and it’s no wonder the voting was so close this year.) But if you watched Lincecum throughout the season, there wasn’t a more dominating pitcher in the National League.

On most nights, Giants’ pitchers were lucky if the offense scrapped together three runs. Every inning the pressure was on Lincecum and company to keep the runs to an absolute minimum and that’s exactly what he did. He was phenomenal.

No pitcher has ever won the Cy Young with only 15 victories. That means voters looked past the number of wins Lincecum had and saw what this kid did beyond the stat sheet. And while his recent bust for marijuana was unfortunate, it doesn’t taint what “The Freak” accomplished this season.


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Fantasy Football Quick-Hitters: Benson, Westy, Orton, DeAngelo, Ronnie and Norwood

Cedric Benson did not practice on Thursday. Rotoworld reports that Bengals players who don’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday usually do not play on Sunday, but that an exception might be made for Benson, who is the league’s 6th-leading rusher. Cincy’s game against Oakland is at 4:15 PM, so fantasy owners with Bernard Scott can simply wait it out and see if Benson is active on Sunday. Those without Scott have a tough decision to make.

Brian Westbrook should make a full recovery. This is great news for Westy, but his 2009 is still in doubt. The doctors are recommending he be re-evaluated in 2-3 weeks, which makes his return in Week 13 at the earliest. The Eagles were told to take a conservative approach, so even if he’s healthy enough to play, I’d expect the team to shut him down if they fall out of the playoff hunt. Fantasy owners should hold onto him in the event that he comes back for the fantasy playoffs, but if there is a good option on the waiver wire, it might be time to cut bait.

Jerious Norwood returns to limited practice. It looks like Michael Turner will be out this week, but he’s optimistic that he’ll be back soon. It’s not inconceivable that Norwood would get some work with Jason Snelling in a RBBC against the Giants, though he’s been out a while with a hip injury.

Kyle Orton has torn ligaments in his left ankle. Brandon Marshall owners should keep an eye on this. If Orton isn’t able to play through this injury, it’s a big blow to Marshall. Orton isn’t great, but he’s a lot better than Chris Simms right now.

Ronnie Brown reportedly has Lisfranc injury. This generally requires surgery and recovery takes a while. If this is indeed the type of injury he has, he will enter the 2010 season as a question mark.

DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart are both expected to play tonight. Williams sat out practice on Wednesday just to rest, nothing more. He’s a good RB1 play and Stewart is a solid RB2/flex play in most formats.


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Line of the Night (11/18): Antawn Jamison

In his first game back from injury, Jamison posted 31 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and a steal in the Wizards’ 108-91 drubbing of the Cleveland Cavaliers last night. The line and the win are already impressive, but for Jamison to play this well in his first game back makes it doubly so. It’s tough for a player to return from injury and play at a high level since his conditioning and timing usually aren’t there, but Jamison didn’t have a problem last night.

With the win, the (finally) healthy Wizards advance to 3-7 while the Cavs drop to 8-4. Cleveland was without Shaquille O’Neal and Anderson Varejao due to injury.

Terry Bradshaw rips Cowboys’ Roy Williams

Hall of Fame quarterback and current FOX sports loudmouth Terry Bradshaw recently ripped into underachieving Cowboys’ receiver Roy Williams.

From the Dallas Morning News:

“Dallas lost that game when Roy Williams dropped that pass and then fumbled, too,” said Bradshaw, a cohose of FOX’s NFL Sunday show. “He may have finished with 100 yards receiving, but he’s certainly not worth two first-round picks and all that money Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is paying him. He’s not proving anything.”

As usual, Bradshaw is a little confused. The Cowboys didn’t trade two first round picks for Williams – they traded a first, third and a sixth round pick for him.

That said, I don’t disagree with what Bradshaw says – nor does any Dallas fan for that matter because Bradshaw is pointing out the obvious. Looking back at things, Williams was probably overrated coming into the league. He’s never had top-end speed and has always been injury-prone.

Looking back at his numbers throughout the years, he’s only posted one 1,000-yard season in his career and that was in 2006 when he caught 82 passes for 1,310 yards. That was also the only season in which Williams played all 16 games.

People talk about Braylon Edwards being a one-year fluke – what about Williams?


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