Rashard Mendenhall carved a path of destruction through the Jaguars.

Coming into the year, Maurice Jones-Drew had his doubters. Six games into the season, they seem to have been proven decisively wrong. There has been no more consistent back in the NFL. After totaling 96 yards this week he has now finished with between 84 and 97 yards in 5 out of 6 games. (His breakout week against Carolina is the exception.) Additionally, the collection of defenses he has faced has been far from a waltz. More impressive, he has done this without another impact player on the offense.  The sun comes up and MJD continues to run: the Jags continue to keep it close against good teams and bad. They lost by three to the Steelers while Blaine Gabbart was completing less than half of his passes, ending up with 109 yards through the air. Jason Hill scored another lone touchdown but he had only two receptions. None of the members of the Jacksonville passing game should be on a roster.

While Jacksonville was business as usual, Pittsburgh experienced the full range of surprises on Sunday. Rashard Mendenhall exploded for 146 yards and a touchdown. He found small holes in the middle and exploited them. He went wide and ran through defenders on the outside, devastating the Jaguars. He said before the game that he was finally 100%. He certainly looked it during the game. He has certainly regained his must-start role in fantasy football.

On the other side of the surprise chart, Ben Roethlisberger was awful. For the first time this season, he had time to throw, and that must have screwed with his mind because he struggled to complete passes. He ended up with 200 yards through the air but he completed about half of his passes. Most of his misses were just that: misses. His performance was enough for the win, but it can’t give much comfort to either Steelers fans or Roethlisberger owners going forward.

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Tags: 2011 fantasy football, Ben Roethlisberger, blaine gabbart, Maurice Jones-Drew, rashard mendenhall

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 8:24 am and is filed under Fantasy Football, Fantasy Rankings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.