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Fantasy Football Friday: Bears vs. Giants Preview

After telling you to sit Mario Manningham last week, hopefully I can bounce back with some better advice this time around.

Start

Giants Receivers: That's right, I'm suggesting starting all 3 of them. The Bears are 28th in the league in passing defense, and the Giants have shown that they're willing to abandon the run early so far this season. All three of the Giants receivers (Nicks, Smith, and Manningham) have been putting up pretty good fantasy numbers so far this year, and against a weak Bears secondary, this week should be no exception. Now watch Manningham reward me with this suggestion by not getting a single pass thrown his way...

Jay Cutler, QB, Bears: Cutler has thrown for 220+ yards and at least a TD in each game this year, and has 6 TD's overall to go along with only 2 picks. The Giants pass defense has respectable numbers so far this year (4th in the league against the pass), but part of that is because the only true passing threat they've played didn't have to pass against them because their run defense played so poorly. Cutler makes bad decisions, but he's got a big arm and if the Giants don't get a lot of pressure on him, he should have a big day.

Matt Forte, RB, Bears: Despite doing a respectable job against Chris Johnson, the Giants still ended up surrendering nearly 150 yards and 2 TD's on the ground last weekend. Forte is one of the better receiving threats out of the backfield, 14 catches for 202 yards and 3 TD's so far this season receiving. He's only averaging 2.9 yards per carry and hasn't been good running the ball, but do you really trust the Giants defense to shut him down? He's a good option if you're weak at running back or for a flex spot.

Eli Manning, QB, Giants: Expect his name to appear here pretty much every week. He's a legit fantasy QB, completing more than 65% of his passes and throwing for decent yardage. All but one of his 6 interceptions this year have bounced off a receivers hands first, so one of these weeks he's gonna hopefully cut them out completely and start piling up the TD's.

Sit

Ahmad Bradshaw, RB, Giants: The Bears run defense has been the best in the league so far, giving up only 39.7 YPG. Bradshaw has looked good so far this season, but he hasn't gone over 100 yards yet in any game, and has topped out with 20 carries in week one. He did catch 5 passes last week, but only 2 combined in the first two games, so he's not yet a reliable dual threat running back. Against a run defense this good, I'd probably bench him (unless, like me, you have no other options b/c your other running back has a bye this weekend and there's no good free agents...d'oh!).

Giants Defense: Cutler's interception prone, but then so is Vince Young, and the Giants didn't force a single turnover last week. Despite looking better against the run, they still gave up decent yardage and 29 points. Until TC gets this unit turned around on a consistent basis, they're just not a fantasy defense.

Bears WR's: The Bears don't have a true #1 receiver. In Mike Martz's offense, that works. For fantasy, it doesn't. Stay away.